Grand Canary   by A J Cronin

Oct. 2006     Unknown origin: no one will admit to giving me this book.

I thought that my mother sent me this book, along in a box with many others. Because of her good taste in books, I was then surprised when the style was... overly simple. The plot juvenile, obvious, simplistic. And the feelings of the characters boldly written, but deathly bland, and not in the least convincing. I kept going through it, because I was so curious to get to the point when it would get good. (It had to get good somewhere, otherwise why would my mom have sent it to me?)

Before I got to such a place in it though, my mom got here, and asked me why I was reading such an apparent piece of trash. She hadn't sent it to me. It was then realized that what I was half way through was a Harliquin Romance. It was a sappy, sloppy, poorly written love story full of sadness, and burning hidden feelings. On the spot, I decided I had to finish it, so that I could have a measuring stick of just how bad a book could get.

So, I finished it last night. And it brought me nothing. (Except, near the end, a certain smug enjoyment, as the writer made some continuity errors; for example, how does one find the path directly to the river, in the middle of a raging thunderstorm, raging drunk, in the middle of the night, in an unknown town?)

The writing was even worse than Harry Potter books, (which I've bravely read three of, simply for the ability to authoritatively say that "I find these books worthless.") If it was at all representative of standard Romance novels, then I have no wish to read another again. It was not horrible writing, it was just worthless. It didn't produce any negative reactions from me, it was just... a total waste of time.