Book Review, not important

I received the book Prize of my Heart by Lisa Norato for free to review.  Here's my review.  While I am not an English major, nor do I make claims to be an expert on the English language (science majors, Texas elementary grammar), I still do know how to read.  This book was horrible.  I stopped myself from finishing it, actually my husband had to stop me from reading it due to the constant complaints I would yell out to the room after reading this hogwash!!  I believe that if you're going to test out a book you should give it a good 20%.  If the book can't grab you within 20% then you can feel justified in putting it down.

With this book, I could feel justified in putting it down, stomping all over it, putting it through a shredder and burning it.  No, wait!  I'll put the shredded pieces in my garden as compost, then grow a feast.  COMPOST, that's about the best value this pile of paper has.  <------- That sentence is probably better than the quality of writing you will find in this book.

First of all, when I come across the two words "close proximity" in proximity with one another it makes me cringe.  I lose respect for the author or person who utters those words in union.  It's redundant!!  Lisa Norato must have some knowledge of the English language, at least enough to use a thesaurus.  I'm assuming she didn't check the word proximity when she was researching all the other synonyms for "look," "stand," "yellow," and "speak."  Which leads me to my second complaint.  This book is full of horrible run on sentences with ridiculous prepositional phrases describing scenes with......oh, I can't do it!  I can't even pretend to write a sentence as horrible as this book!

Let me give you an example:  "Shoulders as broad and square as a doorframe, he towered above her, his boots planted in a wide stance that looked for all the world like even the strongest northeaster couldn't shake his timbers."     *mggglluh*  Oh, sorry, I just threw up in my mouth a little by having to retype that.  He's big, huh?  We get it.

Within the first 15 pages, I likened this book to reading a Disney cartoon.  The descriptions are very cartoonish.  Normally, when reading a book, I can picture the characters as people.  With this book, I actually started seeing them as a cartoon.  "He uncrossed burly arms from over a thick barrel of a chest and stepped forward into a pool of warm sunlight slanting in from the open window."  Now you tell me, cartoon or reality??  It continues, "He smelled of the sea, and in the glaring brightness his coarse head of coppery curls and bushy side whiskers came ablaze with glowing tints of orange and gilt."  Please!  All the has to do is describe the talking crab hanging out in his shirt pocket to complete the image.

The story seems like it could have had promise, a father searching for his little boy who is being raised by a family who has a young, pretty girl.  Whatdya know?  He's going to have to decide between the girl and his boy.  So sorry that I didn't finish it to find out what happens.  I. couldn't. take. any. more.

An eighth grader could have written this book.  An eighth grader being paid by the adjective who recently learned how to use the comma could have written this book.  It's horrible.  Don't waste your time or money.  If you don't want to have to think, or you're suffering from hypothyroidism, or otherwise in the hospital and only need something to pass the time but you're going to forget what you read and you don't care about following a plot, then read this book.  I'm really hoping my next free book is a bit better than this one.