by Lee Cross

Apparently negative blogs do better than positive ones (see also; whimsical, confusing and rambling in my case) and as I’ve nothing particularly interesting to say about books this week, here’s a list of some I hate:

(1) Scarecrow (Mathew Riley)

For a long time I thought this was going to be the worst book I’d ever read in my life (the folly of youth alas)…

The hero is this US Special Forces dude who has to wear sunglasses… that’s right, HAS TO WEAR SUNGLASSES…

The plot? – Well, you’ve guessed it, “The Scarecrow”, (that’s his call sign) HAS TO save the world from these super evil types, with the aid of some trusted friends and a conflicted anti-hero called, “The Black Knight” (I mean – for the love of God).

It’s hilariously bad, laugh out loud from chapter one; and the plot twist is great too… the Brits are the apparent bad guys all the way through, UNTIL, you finally discover that the French ARE EVEN WORSE!!! Those Goddam Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkey’s!!

(2) The Catcher in the Rye [J. D. Salinger]

The only thing I truly hate about Catcher is people telling me I didn’t understand it. Oh, I understood it, Holden Caulfield is a wanker…

Actually, maybe that was the problem; he wasn’t. Perhaps if he had spent more of his teenage years breaking both wrists over lesbian babes bonding with banana’s (many other titles available) he wouldn’t have been such a in sufferable bore.

(3) The Wheel of Time [Robert Jordan]

Just because something is long, doesn’t mean it’s good (I spent 20 mins queuing to buy groceries earlier, trust me, that was shit), and The Wheel of Time is sooo long. I love FantSci, but page count for the sake of page count isn’t doing anyone favours.

I gave up on TWOT, I was half way through book six and just had a pure, “fuck it, why am I doing this?”, moment.

All I took away from the million words I read (some of which was excellent FYI) was the question, “has Robert Jordan ever met a woman in his life?”.

Every female is his book is a moaning whinge bag, poorly scripted, horribly conceived, based on some 1950s gagsters one-liners… it just got to the stage where I couldn’t read another ‘girl chapter’ (you’ll know what I mean if you’ve read TWOT).

(4) The Bone Season [Samantha Shannon]

Repeat after me, “this is not a teen/romance/vampire novel…this is not a teen/romance/vampire novel…THIS IS NOT A TEEN / VAMPIRE / ROMANCE NOVEL”, everybody got that? – Guess what this book is about…

(5) Assassins Creed – Renaissance [Anton Gill (apparently)]

This book. This fucking piece of shit book… no I can’t, it’s too bad, toilet paper bad.

As a veteran of more music festivals than I can honestly remember (seriously I was that drunk at least twice), I have seen some of the foulest porter-loos it’s possible to create; vestibules quite literally over flowing with the rancid liquid shit of a hundred thousand five-day party people. My visits to those toilets are among my most horrible memories, but If I had to live those moments over again – EVEN THEN – I couldn’t swear I’d be happy to see Assassins Creed’s pages a second time.

And that’s my super negative blog about books I hate. I’m far from omnipotent, so you don’t have to agree with me… except about Assassins Creed of course… I’ll have pistols at dawn with anyone who tries to tell me that book has a single redeeming feature.