Spare Ammo

(You all know Spence called me and demanded I remove or change my review and to tell my 19 other friends to stop talking about her or she would make sure my phone number was available to any friend, family member, or stranger on the street that wanted to call me and tell me I was crazy, right?)

Who knew my Kindle Unlimited subscription would come in handy so soon? Maggie Spence has been bitching that I reviewed Vardin Village without buying the book so I was delighted to download it.

Not surprisingly, it was awful. It was something below middle-grade masquerading as young adult and I buy books for my elementary school nieces, so I do know middle-grade. Spence seems to think that sprinkling references to texting, Facebook and Twitter is enough to make her book YA.

A typical passage and I haven't changed any punctuation or sentence structure:

Chief Quinn smiled. "Listen to your dad, Derrick, because you're in a lot of trouble. A witness to your fight with George Vardin came forward today. We'll be making arrangements for you to join us in the Vee Vee jail tonight. Oh, look. Here's my underpaid officers now." Two uniforms came in the front door, one had his cuffs ready to go. "This one here, Murphy." Quinn pointed to Derrick. "Read him his rights." 

 

The ending was particularly bad. There are cliché endings that can work and there are cliché endings that are hideous no matter who writes them. Vardin Village is an example of a cliché ending written by a terrible author.

In an eye-rolling scene, George, Morris and their Open Casting Call group of friends find George's grandfather's will in a super sekret hiding place and guess what? George's evil uncle, who had claimed the Vardin Village estate and the fortune was a Sneaky Lying Liar and it was really George who inherited with the condition that Morris oversee his inheritance until he turned eighteen. Shocking. And the Open Casting Call of friends all moved in and they lived happily ever after.

End Scene with an eye roll. Pass on this one. Seriously.