Spare Ammo

[reblogged from 38 Caliber Reviews]

Hello to you all, Dear Readers, I have a very special treat for you. We'll file this under If I Have To Suffer So Do You.

I've been reading a lot of totally forgettable ebooks lately and by forgettable I mean in 24 hrs I can't remember a single thing about the book forgettable. The great thing about self publishing means that a lot of good, solid books that traditional publishers would pass by can get published and the bad thing is a lot of books that should languish in locked desk drawers also get published. This book is one for the locked desk drawer.

Here it is. This one falls into that "I'm going to write the kind of book that I want to read" category. I can understand that except once written do they have to foist them on the rest of us? And worse than the foisting is the number of readers who think someone's personal fantasy is the bestest book evah.

Even more depressing is that this is not her first book and it won't be her last. At least she seems able to spell.

Meet our heroine, Laura Prince, she's spending the summer deep in the woods of my home state of Michigan (the reason I bought this). She's working on her degree and studying an illness in whitetail deer.

She's out late one evening chasing down a microchipped deer when she meets a big, black wolf. He walks towards her, she walks towards him.

"I moved toward him. I don't know why I did it. Some rational part of my brain told me to scream, to run, to find the biggest stick I could and throw it at him. But, the wolf kept coming toward me. Something seemed familiar about him, absurd as I knew that was. He bared his teeth and let out a low, vibrating sound that seemed to penetrate my skin and warm my blood.

I put a hand out. ..."

Ooooo-kay. You are in the woods. A big wolf appears. He walks towards you. He bares his teeth and makes a "low, vibrating sound". Of course the most natural thing in the world is to walk towards him and stick out your hand. Not. But this is White's personal masturbatory fantasy book she wants a heroine that's TSTL and insta-lurve.

Don't get me wrong, insta-lurve does not always have my eyes rolling but it has to be done with a certain amount of, well, something that's missing from White's writing. But I guess since the wolf seems familiar and that low, vibrating sound makes her blood warm instead of freezing it in her veins it makes it totally fine to- wait for it- pet the wolf.

This tender first meeting of Our Hero and Our Heroine is rudely interrupted by gunfire.

Awwww. Enter a villain, the professor running the study Laura is participating in. You know he's a villain because White seems to lack much subtlety or nuance in her writing. I will give her credit for not equipping him with a cape and a mustache that he constantly twirls but that is the end of it. Professor Flood is a smirking, condescending, arrogant asshole who tries to tell Laura the wolf was really a coyote. Don't worry, Dear Readers, he gets worse.

And we are at 6% read. More to follow.