To Speak Ill of Other Reviewers…

… is not done, I know, but this just irritated me no end, and I just couldn’t let it go (and particularly the bit highlighted in bold):

It’s stunningly well-written, apart from the badly-written bits. It’s a really good thing, way too much of a good thing, served with good thing salad on a bed of bruised good thing, with stewed good thing and custard for afters. If fat is beautiful, it’s a supermodel. Two supermodels.

It’s a snippet from an SFX review of Nick Harkaway’s The Gone Away World, and just reading this short grab made me want to slap the reviewer silly. Then the reviewer (“Tom Holt” – oh how I hope it’s not the author of same name who’s reviewing this…) goes on to refer to the protagonist as “this bloke”. I stopped reading thereafter. I know I’m not the best reviewer in the world (far from it), but please: this is just plain unhelpful. This review from The Guardian is far more helpful, and does actually manage to be amusing.

The Gone-Away World is, incidentally, a “2009 Book That Got Away”… I will, hopefully, and at some point, have a chance to read and review it. There are quite a few of these. The pile of books is starting to encroach on my living-/breathing-space…