Dying To Be Famous by R A HennerleyMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
Well, here’s another piece of total twonk to add to my “OMG Bad” shelf. In fact, this is right up there among the worst, most vile books I’ve ever managed to work through—and work it was. Not only has the author over-reached in an attempt to shock the reader, he has done so with myriad mistakes in continuity, grammar, spelling and punctuation, not to mention horribly bleak attempts at humor.
The book details the lives of British celebrities as they intersect with Andrew, a celebrity “fixer”. Screw young girls (or boys) and get caught? Andy has a solution for that. Call the Queen a “rancid old cunt”? Andy can get you off of the hot seat. Find you want to liquify fetuses and drink them to help you hide any signs of aging? Andy can keep your supply chain wide open. Each scenario presented is more disgusting than the last, as Andy and his murderous lover Johnny flit from setting to setting, protecting the reputations of clients whilst reigning hellfire and brimstone on everyone else in their path.
If the plot lines don’t confound, or at the very least nauseate, you, perhaps the language will. The word “cunt” is used as a noun, verb, adjective and adverb. Cunt, cunty, cunting and cuntola just scratch the surface. It’s like the author possessed a very thin thesaurus that stopped at the letter “c”. After awhile I found myself substituting my own words in place of the cuntfest just to mix things up. Equally as tiring was the author’s vast use of synonyms for gay men and women. Turd-burglar, shirt-lifter, dyke, bum bandit, faggot, gay wanker, shit-stabber...and the list goes on and on, one more offensive than the last. As the narrator is gay, however, the reader is somehow expected to find it all hilarious and forgivable.
Finally, lest you believe there is some inherent value in the writing itself, allow me to completely disavow that notion. This is an absolute nightmare in terms of asinine mistakes. A single character is at once referred to as both Jack Brierley and Jack Rigby, ping ponging from one identity to the other with nary an explanation other than piss poor editing. Articles are routinely absent, as if the author is getting charged by the word and had to eliminate a few to come in under budget, and comma splices and run on sentences are common as muck. It is an English teacher’s worst nightmare, surpassed only by the nightmare experienced by decent writers who have been unable to find legitimate publishing and are forced to acknowledge that trash like this gets front page billing on Amazon.
If you’re considering purchasing this, please, for the love of all things holy, reconsider. Support an author who deserves it.
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