I was planning not to say anything because so many people love this novel and I do have some shred of human decency that makes me hesitant to rain on other people's parades, but every time I see that 4.6 rating I lose a little bit of faith in humanity and actually I'm not that decent of a person anyway so... more>>

This is, no exaggeration, the worst piece of written fiction I have ever read in my life.

I'm counting fanfiction and Twilight. This is worse than My Immortal, because at least the author of that was joking. 50 Shades of Gray might win out as being worse due to word count (? actually not sure which is longer) and overall cultural impact (*Lemony Snicket voice* 'impact' here being used to mean 'terrible bd*m joke'), but I haven't actually read 50 Shades, and my guess is that it would be a narrow miss anyway.

This is worse than Dipper Goes to Taco Bell (don't google that), which still occasionally haunts my nightmares, because at least the trip to Taco Bell ended relatively quickly, whereas this waking terror stretches on for ungodly lengths and involves an entire America's Next Top Model arc which includes a passage where the insufferable ML asks the insufferable MC if he's afraid of heights (for a bungee jumping photoshoot challenge), to which the insufferable MC responds, no, he's only afraid of loneliness.

Reader, my eyes rolled so far back into my head, it was like I had quick transmigrated into my own skull.

I'm being completely serious here, how can anyone possibly like this novel? Like. Have you never read another book before??? Ever????? I'm not even really a huge Harry Potter fan but, like, most people have read Harry Potter, right? So they should have some kind of standard to judge against for basic writing quality? Did someone give you My Immortal and then tell you THAT was Harry Potter? And then you immediately read this as your second book ever in your life and were like, "Oh my god this is so much better," not realizing that the first thing was a joke specifically satirizing mid-2000s self-insert fanfiction written by teenage girls? And so was intentionally devoid of things such as character and plot development whereas this just appears to do those things by sheer accident?

I just don't understand it. Absolutely baffling. It's like watching people lick salt off a hot asphalt parking lot and then send their compliments to the chef. You think this is food??? How were you surviving up until now???

So many questions. I will probably never have any answers. I literally cannot trust anyone that would try to explain it to me because my instant reaction after hearing any person say "I like Quickly Wear the Face of the Devil" would be to safely discard any other opinions they might have about books as a whole.

Okay that got a little mean. But I'm a little mean!!!! Look, I like bad books. I am on this site. I've read and enjoyed some real stinkers. I can appreciate some guilty pleasure reading with objectively shitty love interests who are only attractive because they're not real and therefore not subject to restraining orders. I can root for a Mary Sue-ish protagonist who everyone loves except for the bad guys (who all meet horrific ends). I can even power through badly written s*x scenes, although the word turgid is an ABSOLUTE deal breaker. All I'm saying is

Come on people. Have some self-respect. You can do better than this. You DESERVE better than this. The WORLD deserves better than this.

Wow I hope the author never reads this. Actually I have mad respect for the author. You do you, chase that paper, if I could make bank off of objectively shitty writing, I absolutely would. And some of their other works are actually half-decent. Their novel 'How to Say I Love You' actually has a complex and interesting relationship happening between the ML and their current (soon to be former) boyfriend. The concept of being able to read minds and still not understanding the people around you or knowing how to communicate with them is, dare I say it, MATURE, NUANCED, and THOUGHTFUL.

Not that that novel's perfect either, I just mean.

You can do better. We can all do better. Pretty much anyone in the world could do better.

You know in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy how the worst poetry in the entire universe turns out to be written by some random person in Sussex? This is what I imagine that poetry is like. Vogons would love this shit.

But, man. I don't. <<less