Alright, then. I have finished the book, and by the way, I would like a medal.
This may be the worst book I have ever read, and I am including the Danielle Steele novel I downed once while on vacation because there was literally nothing else available (and I mean nothing else; before I turned to it, I had read the back of every cereal box in the cabinet and the instructions on a bottle of Listerine, all of which were better than Princess Daisy. But I digress.)
Let's start with the poor quality of the Kindle edition itself. I don't mind an occasional glitch, but FOXED is littered with sentencesthatlook@##$likethisthatyouhavetodecipheralthoughwhenyoudoyoudiscoverthattheyaremeaninglesssowhybother. As I said, the occasional error is fine, but if you are charging people $13.50 a pop to read it, clean the damn thing up.
The writing. Oh my dear God, the writing. If I started to quote from the awkward sentences, we would be here until the turn of the next century. The writing is so bad that it could be used to illustrate a dictionary definition of bad writing. And that's not the worst part of the book!!! Although it will be the part that prevents most people from finishing FOXED. Did I mention the medal?
The characters. The characters in this book make those on MORK AND MINDY look like studies in gritty social realism. Not one behaves in a remotely coherent manner. Not one. They basically exist to get the crackpot theories with which the book abounds across, so there isn't much point in wasting time describing them. My personal favorites were the devoted but hunky priest who tosses his vocation aside after a smoldering pasta lunch with Tonya, whose exact role I never did figure out. Or was it Julianna, the free-spirited sculptress fixated on the Arctic exploreer's widow? Or Alice, the mysterious Orthodox woman who can talk to the dead? See what I mean?
The plot. Hoily Mother of God, the plot. Nicholas and Alexandra and the kids were rescued; no, they weren't; yes, they were; alright, let's just take it for granted that they were so we can get back to overwrought descriptions of mysterious Baronesses with creamy skin and bewitching eyes, and Admiral Kolchak, and Fox, and how the word iron is a code for something whenever it appears and --- I can't go on, I'd turn to salt.
Look. I have no problem with 12 year-olds writing fanfiction, but this doesn't even rise to that level, and the damn thing costs over ten bucks. Run. And don't look back.
I forget. Did I mention the medal?
Thanks for taking one for the team, Simon.
