No hook. No reason to read on. Life's too short.
596209
Do any new authors get the idea of a hook? a reason to keep reading? I know be-atches like this in real life, why read about one? Returned it.
4942571
This is a book stuffer book. Three "books" in one. So if you are expecting a full length book,  forget it. Better off Dead is less than a third of the advertised page length. The story is an incomplete cliffhanger. Book stuffing is against Amazon policies and more importantly, infuriates me! Quit trying to con us into buying another book. If you write a decent book, we will buy the next. But crap like this? I'm out. So about this book...I laughed like anything at the nasty little angel character, Bill. That guy was a riot. In a gross, inappropriate way. If you are not okay with masturbation jokes, you might want to pass. The biggest problem was he overshadowed every other character and I got bored when he wasn't around. I was disappointed the author did not fully explore Lily's transition to life in a completely new body. I thought the magical clone replacement was contrived and unbelievable. It makes much more sense that she be injected in a dying body and have to work around the life and people that person left behind. The continual quotes from self-help gurus got old quick, but seemed to be the only time Lily had a personality. I feel like this story had so much potential but fell flat. Lily a Medieval re-enactor, career girl, loving daughter, she could have been funny, wry, smart, bubbly, bratty, or ANYTHING, but she was nothing and I felt nothing for her. In a way, I'm grateful for the big ole cheater ending on this short story passed off as a book, because I had had my fill of Lily Blank Canvas Character anyways.
450626
Very long and empty content. Just not worthy of the time to watch.
1068170
I am not going to review the content of this short, serialized bit of fluff except to offer this warning:
Way way too short! Almost no plot! Completely unnecessary CLIFFHANGER!

~~
~~
In response to this bit of writing (which I cannot, in all good conscience, call a "book"), I have this to say:
Like so many others, I have become increasingly irritated by all the cliffhanger-filled, unnecessarily serialized crap that's been routinely passed off as "books" these last few years. When did serialized novels become the literary soup du jour (at least in the romance genre)? Why do we, as readers, continue to accept this insane rip off of our purchasing might? What happened in the publishing world that allowed actual novels to become so rare that, today, they have their own designation, the 'stand-alone novel'?

This "book" is a perfect example of all that's so insane with today's serial-novel craze. A decade ago, relatively few (and, mostly, well-known and talented) authors utilized this as a very effective method to showcase their work. Magazines, for example, utilized "serial" stories to help authors get their work out to a much wider group of people than would otherwise read it. Back then, almost every book/story in almost every genre was well-imagined and -written. Cliffhangers, when present, was meaningful in the context of the story and made sense to the reader. Authors didn't overuse this method of forwarding content, as is so prevalent today. Everyone was happy.

Now, though, the big business of cliffhangers and serialized novels (works which seem to keep getting shorter and shorter; they're hardly more than long chapters in some "books" today) are quite obviously the rule rather than the exception. Everyone with a word processor and a rudimentary ability to string words together seems to have jumped aboard this particular gravy train. The plots are dull, repetitious and craze-driven.

Just how cliffhangers in how many plots about gazillionaires who fall for a poor-but-honest office temp can one industry sell? Bad boys of all ilks who fall for good girls, there to "fix" them? Rock stars who clean up in order to win the love of that one woman who, alone in the world, doesn't know who he is? Sports stars who need nursing but are too afraid to let anyone know, except her, that one girl from his past, the one who got away?  My god! USE YOUR IMAGINATIONS, authors! Stop relying on cliffhangers to add badly needed drama to your sad little stories! Come up with something new(ish)! We're tired of the same old crap, the same old tired serialized crap with stupid, useless, nonsensical, for-money-only cliffhangers. STOP IT!
~~
~~

I'm done buying crappy serialized books. I'm exceedingly annoyed by and resentful of authors who push drivel out at me as if it's work they really labored over, a manuscript they're proud of. I'm no longer going to buy books that (1) aren't complete, (2) contain less than 200 pages, or (3) have CLIFFHANGER!!! warnings in the comments. Like so many readers, I almost always scan through the comments before buying a book unless, of course, I already know/trust the author--and now I'll be doing more of it.

Authors: Write a BOOK!
Charge me more for it, if you must, but write a whole damn book!
And while we're on the subject--just in case you don't already know--your shoddy writing habits have engendered the beginning of a groundswell of massive discontent. If you pay attention to the comments in places like this, you'll understand that it's begun. It should come as no surprise, therefore, when--some time in the near future--you find it difficult to sell the kind of cursory, mediocre and inadequate offerings that today you're calling a "book".

~~
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Note: This author, this "book", is definitely not alone in earning my ire over such shoddy and borderline-dishonest writing/publishing/business practices.
2740231
The entire story could have been written in about 25 pages.  No interest to move on to volume 2.  A story of hard times in Ireland.
1177862
It was an easy read with a very abrupt ending. So, to me, a waste of time. Silly
4398452
I'm sorry to be negative, but I can only sum up my wasted  hour reading this book with one word.

No two...boring, boring. Dark. Brown. Grey. Watery sun and rain, rain and more rain. Sentences run amok, or amuck in this case. My old English teacher advised her students not to use run on sentences. But the very thing I liked the least about this short story was there was absolutely no HOPE. One must have hope in order to survive. All I read was disparate dispare. Maybe 2 & 3 will be better, but they will have to be free for me to read.

.
889854
5 stars? Really? This book is really showing it's age. I found it implausable and uninteresting. About halfway through I just stopped reading. Life is to short to slog through books that don't interest you.
3474494
The story hasn't progressed for about 100 pages or so. Nothing is happening. No character development. No furthering of the plot. OUCH. I have given up. I wasted time trying to read this. Good points: I found only 3 or 4 typos in the first half of the book. The author is a decent writer. I just wish she had a story to tell.
2832060
dum mabe it could have been good the story nwas good and it just ended. no story!!!!! what happened, why, when. stuped not worth the 20min. read.
4879038
Sorry, I gave up.  The author starts with a bold move, a murder....then 22 pages of really not much, some vague characters with some relationships, a mother a son a school chum, a little bicycling, a bit of description of a modern Swedish town, some curiosity about finding the body.  The initial murder got me that far, but I could draw no hope from the 22 pages that anyone or anything might get interesting.  You know when you flip through a few more pages to see if anybody says anything witty or perceptive or if there are any exciting words....nothing.
2607719
I really wanted to like this.  I saw coming attractions for the upcoming movie with Ben Affleck and & thought it would be really good.  I should have listened to another reviewer who said "I hated the ending."  Amen to that!  Additionally, I am not a fan of the back and forth narrative that the author uses. I feel like I wasted my time.  Never felt that way about a book before.  On reflection, none of the characters were likeable.  I am left wondering what was the real point?  The author includes at the end, a kind of "made for book club discussion list of questions". Those conversations would certainly be full of "why this, why that." There are better uses and books for my time.  This is one time where I suspect the movie will be much, much better than the book.
335634
I didn't finish this book. 50 pages in, I had no clue who was telling the story. I didn't care who Billy was, or why others liked him. I had to leave the book unread and move on to something more satisfying. Life's too short to waste on books like this.
3483704
As much as this book is ingenious, clever, unique, poetic, and philosophical, I regret to say that it's tedious.  There is simply no momentum, after the first 25 pages.  The relationships have no plausibility.  There is not enough plot, not enough real life.  The main character does not "read" believably as a middle aged man.  His mental life does not hang together as a genuine possibility.  Events don't seem real. While reading I keep feeling like I was counting grains of sand, or sifting through cookie crumbs, or maybe sinking in quick sand.  Although the amusing, clever gems kept coming, the novel didn't create a palpable world I could enter into.
4172292
There was nothing inspiring here. These were people already in their careers or people who were successful in other careers.  They were merely recognized later in life. I was hoping for people who never did something getting to do it later in life. These were short, not very well written and not very interesting. A waste of $.
2186538
Not worth the time.  Not very science oriented. Nothing to think about after being bored to death.  I would rater see the Day Earth Stood Still again.  Or how about 2001.
1475507
i just don't get it.  i read several glowing reviews on this book, but it bored me to death.  i kept waiting for something exciting to happen, but it never did.  i thought about not finishing it, but i kept thinking perhaps something would happen to give the story a little life - but again, nada.  it's just told from a woman's point of view who falls in very tame love with a boy in florida, marries him, has a daughter with him...and that's about it.  there are the obstacles every marriage, every life faces, but it was a very dull read for me since nothing really out of the ordinary takes place in the midst of these obstacles.  i couldn't even invest myself in the supporting characters, really.  i felt like a visitor of the family, listening to them discuss their boring daily routines.