THIS ONE DOESN'T EVEN DESERVE A "1"
581033
What a disappointment...thought we could be one of the lucky ones...but, alas...our battery didn't hold a charge either - said it had 8 hours left...more like 8 seconds! The sound quality isn't what we expected either - some static and skipping. Instruction booklet is useless and the Riohome.com website is informationless!...
2531505
Stunned by the positive reviews on this novel.  There is nothing "well-written" about it.  The plot is one-dimensional and paper thin, and could only be interesting to the simpletons characterized in this story.  They are over-the-top caricatures, prone to juvenile behavior, crass and idiotic conversations and general stupidity.  The heroine especially comes off as exceptionally immature in both her speech and her behavior.  One has difficulty believing she graduated from eighth grade, let alone veterinary school.  There is very little that rings true or believable in this story, it's just plain silly.  I have a headache from rolling my eyes and shaking my head in disgust.  Save yourself .99 and two aspirin and don't bother with this one.
495735
I enjoyed the first one.  The second one was ok, but this one is just awful.  It reads like a slightly edited outline.  Or a book report by a sophomore in high school (who would probably have gotten a C on it).  There is a ton of exposition, followed by a little dialog.  "Show don't tell" is violated constantly.

Here is an example (and this is just from a random page -- it doesn't take long to find examples)

"There were individuals who dal Lupard would rather not have to reacquaint himself with, but he was rapidly running out of avenues to investigate.  His old networks of informants were gone, and everyone at the Grey Tower was at best obstructive.  There was one man who might be of use, however.  He had fallen even farther than dal Lupard, and dangling the prospect of some form of restitution before him might be all it took to secure his help.  Tracking down his old comrade-in-conspiracy was harder than he expected." ... it goes on.

The whole book reads like a plot summary.  At 238 pages, I guess there isn't enough space for silly things like character development, modeling real human behavior and motivations, non-linear plotting, or even dialog.

Dont waste your money.
1200794
Try as I might, I cannot call this a "book."  I have too much regard for the word "book."  This is disgusting, illogical, implausible and just total trash.  I regret having spent $2.99 and I seriously regret the hours I spent reading and believing that surely-to-goodness there would be something worthwhile perhaps on the next page.  I was soooo wrong.  There is nothing redeemable about this.  It surely does take all kinds to make a world because I just re-read the positive reviews and I feel as though we must have been reading totally different "books."  Save your money and take a nap or a walk.  You will get more benefit I promise.
1169428
I'm big on trying new things, hearing new sounds, seeing new perspectives. That's why I picked up this album. As with many of my recent acquisitions, I purchased them on the advice of Amazon customers. Well, this one was pretty bad. She gets 2 stars simply because "Maybe Baby" is actually decent. However, the album starts out horrible. I actually had to force myself to listen to it just so I could give a "fair and balanced" review.

The vocals are weak, out of control, and without any unique, redeeming quality. She's 90% on-pitch 90% of the time (no, it's not stylistic, it's lack of control). It's miserable enough to make me physically cringe at more than one moment.

The songs are some of the most pathetic examples of regurgitated popular song-writing I've heard (like she got together with Rhianna's people). The songs sound like she should be 12 years old singing them. Even Miley Sirus wouldn't sing this stuff, and she has pretty low standards!

Overall, it was BAD. I don't eliminate many albums from my collection once acquired, but this might be one of the first to go!
2249025
I have great eyes, so I brushed off the reviews that said the numbers were too small.  I should have heeded their warnings.  Awful, awful tiny numbers.  To the point where I can't even read half of them, even with a magnifying glass.  I am putting this one straight in the recycling bin, as there is no way that I will finish even one picture.  There are many other quality coloring books out there, and I am not wasting any more time on this one.
101732
It's not often that I read a book that's as bad as this one.  I can't even explain why I didn't give up a fifth of the way through it....P>By the title, it's sort of obvious that it's going to be about the mafia.  The write-up on the back of the book implies that things are going on between the mafia and various underground criminal organisations (for example, the Chinese Triad societies, Japanese Yakusa and ganglords), all set in exotic locations.  Mafia Wars doesn't exactly deliver on this promise, except for gratuitous cuts to places that aren't completely relevant to the very-thin plot and vague references to organisations that never materialise.  For instance: there is a link with an Asian-based drug cartel and someone gets blown away.  Is some master criminal organisation behind this?  Who knows?  Who cares?
The "family" is peopled by a collection of flawed and unlikeable characters.  I found that I didn't care what happened to any of them.  The main reason these people are so unlikeable is because they don't seem to act in character.  For instance, the "hero" (at least, I think that's what he's meant to be), Charlie,  decides that he wants out of the family so that he can devote his life to philanthropical causes, due to meeting a Hopi Indian woman with whom he has fallen in love.  Uh...right.  My other gripe is that various plotlines were half-introduced and never completed.  For example, Vince the Evil Mafia Man has supposedly killed his first wife for failing to conceive and his second wife is desperate to fall pregnant -- we also have Vince's nephews (at least, I think they were, I lost track of the family relationships because I just lost interest), who could possibly have been fathered by Vince -- so when Vince's wife conceives after having an affair, will Vince be vindicated and proved to be the virile stud that he perceives himself to be?  We never find out.
The writing style is rather atrocious and is filled with some of the most horrendous similes I have ever read, as exemplified by: "The hand that held the printed list suddenly clutched it so violently that the paper creased in a dozen angry folds like a washrag used to sponge blood from packets of $100 bills."  What is this supposed to mean?  I read it three times and still couldn't make sense of it.
Mafia Wars isn't clever, it isn't witty, it isn't particularly well written or plotted and it's almost impossible to identify with any of the characters.  We only have Leslie Waller's word for it that the characters are different people.  The only distinction that I could see was Good Guys and Bad Guys.  I wouldn't bother with this book; it was dreadful.
189443
I don't know how else to describe the dull "Dum dums" and unbearable "la-la's." I listened to the first track and nearly lost my lunch. I withstood about one minute before skipping to track two which made me feel like hitting the "Stop" button on my CD player, but I gritted my teeth and headed into number three. I didn't even make it to the vocals on that one. It went on like this for 20 mind-numbing tunes before I  merrily reached the end of this piece of utter trash. I bowed down before my CD player, grateful for an end to the misery and tried, for the life of me to understand what the appeal is here. Someone seriously needs to take these kids (And whoever put them together and wrote the unforgivably bad tunes.)into the woods, line them up and make them swear upon their lives that they will never EVER do another album. Furthermore, this should be retracted from every store shelf with elaborate apology letters being sent to everyone who fell for this along with a check for $100. I don't know what it is, exactly, it's NOT POP, it sounds more like a bunch of machines programmed to sound like human beings. Unfortunately, these machines weren't quite at the top of their class and still sound like machines. (Yes, it's really this bad.) In fact, by the time I reached track 12 (It seemed an eternity) I was thinking ATC stood for "All Technical Crap"
 You couldn't pay me to toture myself with this thing again. The only place ATC is suited for is a trash dumpster somewhere. And when they pick that dumpster, it better be somewhere far away from mankind, like whatever planet they're supposed to be from. As for me, I'm just waiting for my letter and check to arrive any day now.
930175
How in the name if Heaven did this thing get over a thousand reviewes ????.

1.11 minutes to write just 2GB of data using an INTEL i5 machine with 8GB of ram , say what ??????????.

2. If you guys could see the kid of packaging that this thing came in trust me those over a 1000 reviews would carry very little weight .

3. just like point number 1 above if it takes that long to write that small amount of data imagine the joy I'll have writing all the gigabytes I have stored...oh  joy.

DO  NOT  BUY  THIS  PIECE OF  GARBAGE.
4080366
Here we have a thoroughly dislikeable group of people focussing on obesity, over-eating, and general food disorders to the point of pyschosis ... while somehow never inspiring empathy or sympathy. I have rarely tried to read a book I disliked more than this one. It will probably stand forever in the top five most pretentious, distasteful, nasty books I've ever encountered. Who SAYS this is one of the best books of 2012? Based on what? The uninteresting characters? The unpleasant theme? The lack of plot? The near complete absence of any action at all? The pitiful self-absorbtion of the  characters? If this is the best, I hope I do not encounter the worst.

Surely there are writers out there who remember that readers like to have a discernible plot. It makes a book coherent. This one is not. Not coherent, not interesting and very far from entertaining.
3595789
DO NOT BE MISLED BY THE ONE STAR. (At least one star is required for a review.)  I GIVE THIS NO STARS.  I read the previous reviews and thought, "Surely it can't be that bad."  IT WAS.  After reading this sad attempt I purchased Happy, Happy, Happy, the autobiography co-authored by Phil Robertson himself and it became apparent that the author wrote an outline of Happy, Happy, Happy.  This "book" doesn't even read like a book, but rather like a C-  book report.  It is amateurish and poorly organized.  I am left wondering if this was a self-published effort because I can't see how any publisher would agree to publish this.  Just read the book, Happy, Happy, Happy which is the book you are looking for. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY OR YOUR TIME WITH THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4669546
There was absolutely nothing charming about this failed attempt at a character when we were hearing about him from Ana's point of view. At least now, there's no denying he is a creepy, abusive, manipulative, controlling, stalking rapist. There are literally no other aspects to his "character"! Unless you count his tortured past, which does nothing to excuse his behavior. If anything, it makes his behavior even more abhorrent, because the few other "characters" in this mess all forgive him for being lower than scum. If anybody still believes he is any kind of hero after reading this, then they need to get some serious help, and fast.
The only reason anyone even finds this trash romantic is because he's wealthy. Let's face it, if he weren't, this whole franchise would be seen for the terrible portrayal of a horrible relationship that it really is. Of course, it doesn't help it's basically a copy of an already more-than-terrible series, which, as much as E.L. James loves denying it, is really the only reason her "story" even became popular in the first place. Were it not for the Twilight books, Fifty Shades would never have existed, which would have been a perfect alternative to the past decade.
The still-terrible writing is just another notch in the belt. You'd think after "writing" four books, she'd have been able to develop her skills beyond that of a twelve-year-old. Of course, she doesn't seem capable of developing much of anything, unless you count her ever-increasing ego. It utterly terrifies me that this is what best-selling fiction has become, and I'm even more terrified to see what comes after this.

And if you still feel like Christain Grey is the very epitome of perfection after reading this, then I can only hope you become trapped in the kind of relationship you so obviously desire. Though I don't think even that would be enough to make you realize what sad, pathetic human beings you truly are.
4655598
I don't think it deserves even one star! It started out ok, Then it became disgusting. I wish I could delete it from my boo library.
4642254
This movie, by any reasonable standard, is a one- or two-star effort. The plot is a complete mess that jumps from one random scene to another and the ending feels like it was written by a group of preschoolers. It's far and away the weakest entry of the series (and to qualify that, in my view Rise of the Lycans is the best, followed by the original). I was really annoyed by just how awful and pointless this movie was.

Now, as for these ridiculous 5-star reviews, you'll note that IMDB also gives this movie four to five stars, almost certainly by the same people that are writing these Amazon reviews. If you want to get a reality check, go to rotten tomatoes, which contains legitimate reviews by professional reviewers, and you'll see that the movie gets 1-2 stars.

Cue the flabbergasted movie studio employees telling me that I'm wrong.
2019987
So deceptive I wish I could give this no stars, or even negative stars.
2985495
Wow, this guy does not have one nice thing to say about anyone.  I can't finish the book.  After 75 pages of the author whining  about how his father didn't play with him because he was too busy earning a living and helping others in need, I'm done.  He seems to have so much disdain for what he seems to see as the lowly, rough lives of folks in his hometown.  I have no connections to these people or this town, so it is not offensive to me in that respect. But it is just too dreary and disrespectful, and I have too many good books on my reading list to spend any more time on this one.
1937308
The 'heroine' is whiny, and really quite unlikable, not to mention kind of stupid for a supposedly intelligent woman. The references to faith and God were incredibly off putting and not something I expected from reading the synopsis. The mystery itself was poorly constructed and the writing was littered with so many cliches and weirdly constructed phrases that it was distracting. I am glad that I 'bought' this when it was free, otherwise I would be returning for a refund.

SPOILER ALERT! If you wish to read this book, do not read what follows here.

I was also found the reasons for her ex-husband leaving to be flimsy, and couldn't believe when she and the old boyfriend/baby daddy made nice-nice with him as though there weren't years of emotional crap between them all. And do not EVEN get me started on the 16 year old 'brother' that she is raising after her parent's deaths...the 'brother' that is really her son, but somehow the baby daddy has never managed to make the connection despite the overwhelming evidence. Somehow we are to believe that he left her when she was 16 and pregnant, then he thinks she lost the baby but that her mother somehow manages to also be pregnant at the same time with another child 16 years after her first, and with an incredibly abusive husband at that? A child that is mysteriously the same age his would have been had the 'heroine' not 'lost' the baby? PLEASE. Worst cover-up, EVER. This whole flimflam show is what completely pissed me off, the constant god-talk, notwithstanding.