Posts published in “Thoughts”

I was wasting valuable time today on Amazon.com reading reviews of a book I already own when I stumbled upon this gem of a review.

this wasn’t the book version i bought, but i bought a very complete version of grimm’s fairy tales because i wanted to read fairy tales like i had earlier in my life. now i realize i was probably reading a hans christian anderson book before – translation, SOMEONE WHO COULD WRITE A STORY. the grimm’s fairy tales were so bad, i was shocked.. i know these people lived in an earlier century, but the writing was on a third grade level, the morals were non-existent and the stories were just BAD. i know they come from an earlier century, maybe when people were less educated, but that’s no excuse for ridiculously bad stories that are written horribly. i don’t know what kind of drugs everyone is using to think that grimm’s fairy tales are worth reading, but i’m here to tell the truth, they’re beyond bad. i would type an example of the worst story i read, but i can’t because i threw the book away! i can’t wait to get a hans christian anderson book and read some real, interesting fairy tales that were written well.

I was struck by the irony of someone complaining about how poorly written a book is with a poorly written comment. It seems to me that if you are going to complain about something being poorly written then your complaint had better, at the very least, be written in clear, lucid English. I’m not asking for moving depth of thought or valuable insight (though those would be nice). I’m just asking, you know, that the sentences are sentences, that the rules of spelling and punctuation are observed, and that you maybe give it one proof-read. It seems like this is probably a lot to ask of people ranting on Amazon.com, but I don’t think I’m being wholly unreasonable. I am forgiving of typos; they happen. But if you are going to bash a book for being poorly written, do me and the rest of the universe a favor and don’t immediately negate your own argument by spewing trash like this.

Personally, I quite like the book being reviewed and I don’t think it’s poorly written. You’ve got to appreciate a Cinderella story where the wicked step-mother forces the sisters to mutilate their feet to fit into the slipper and which ends with them having their eyes pecked out by birds.