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bodonereads's review
1.0
Its reads like a nano novel that hasnt been edited. There are what feel like two seprate poorly linked poorly developed plots. Had potential but failed to even get close to reaching it.
capellan's review
1.0
I'm pretty sure I got this when it was free in the kindle store.
I still feel like I overpaid.
There's some entertainment value in the horrifically awful prose, but there's certainly none in the story itself, which is basically 50 pages of preamble and 10 pages of "plot".
I still feel like I overpaid.
There's some entertainment value in the horrifically awful prose, but there's certainly none in the story itself, which is basically 50 pages of preamble and 10 pages of "plot".
xterminal's review
1.0
Amanda Lawrence Auverigne, The Bridge: A Horror Novella (Smashwords, 2011)
First off, let me say that The Bridge is, in fact, the scariest thing I have read this year. Not because of its subject matter (downright boring), its plot (nonexistent), its characters (ludicrous), but because The Bridge is a sterling example of the worst excesses of the self-publishing binge we're on. Simply put, Amanda Lawrence Auverigne cannot write. She has no idea at all what the process of writing entails; she seems to have had an idea and then put it down on paper, without asking herself any of the questions that might have given it depth, readerly interest, foreshadowing, or even coherence. And—this is highly unusual for me—I'm not the only person who thinks so. As I write this, the book has fourteen reviews at Amazon. One of them goes as high as three stars; that person has great intestinal fortitude indeed. The others all say pretty much everything I had intended to say about the surface elements (plot, characterization, etc.), so I'll focus on my other vector of attack here: her style. And I have to give Auverigne one thing: she does, most certainly, have a distinctive writing style. It seems to consist of finding the most inappropriate synonym for a given word and inserting it randomly (though consistently) into the story, leading to unintentional howlers like “The door flew suddenly ajar.” and “The old building possessed the color scarlet.” (Note: if you don't understand why those sentences are incorrect, I strongly suggest you stop reading this review now, head to your local library, and pick up Noah Lukeman's three excellent books on style, plot, and grammar: The First Five Pages, The Plot Thickens, and A Dash of Style. Read them over and over again until you do.) While this is by far the most obvious problem with Auverigne's writing, there are others. She has no idea how to correctly use paragraph breaks; the first page of this begins almost each sentence with a new paragraph. It was a great indicator that I wasn't going to be getting anything approaching professional-quality writing here, not that that is always a bad thing; I've read quite a few self- and vanity-published pieces that have still come off sounding just as good as anything spit out the doors of Random House in the past twenty years. This is not one of them. And then there are the chapter breaks, which make absolutely no sense. I got the feeling the break between Chapter One and Chapter Two was inserted simply because it was the halfway point in the book. It was not in a place where there could have conceivably been a cliffhanger, we didn't change narrative viewpoints, it wasn't even changing from one thought to another. In fact, the first sentence of Chapter Two shouldn't have even been in a different paragraph than the last sentence of Chapter One, though I can't imagine, given the structure of the rest of the book, Auverigne could have possibly known that.
This is, by far, the worst book I have read so far in 2011. Ms. Auverigne is in desperate need of remedial English classes, much less entry-level Creative Writing classes. Please, if you value your sanity, stay far, far away from this. (zero)
First off, let me say that The Bridge is, in fact, the scariest thing I have read this year. Not because of its subject matter (downright boring), its plot (nonexistent), its characters (ludicrous), but because The Bridge is a sterling example of the worst excesses of the self-publishing binge we're on. Simply put, Amanda Lawrence Auverigne cannot write. She has no idea at all what the process of writing entails; she seems to have had an idea and then put it down on paper, without asking herself any of the questions that might have given it depth, readerly interest, foreshadowing, or even coherence. And—this is highly unusual for me—I'm not the only person who thinks so. As I write this, the book has fourteen reviews at Amazon. One of them goes as high as three stars; that person has great intestinal fortitude indeed. The others all say pretty much everything I had intended to say about the surface elements (plot, characterization, etc.), so I'll focus on my other vector of attack here: her style. And I have to give Auverigne one thing: she does, most certainly, have a distinctive writing style. It seems to consist of finding the most inappropriate synonym for a given word and inserting it randomly (though consistently) into the story, leading to unintentional howlers like “The door flew suddenly ajar.” and “The old building possessed the color scarlet.” (Note: if you don't understand why those sentences are incorrect, I strongly suggest you stop reading this review now, head to your local library, and pick up Noah Lukeman's three excellent books on style, plot, and grammar: The First Five Pages, The Plot Thickens, and A Dash of Style. Read them over and over again until you do.) While this is by far the most obvious problem with Auverigne's writing, there are others. She has no idea how to correctly use paragraph breaks; the first page of this begins almost each sentence with a new paragraph. It was a great indicator that I wasn't going to be getting anything approaching professional-quality writing here, not that that is always a bad thing; I've read quite a few self- and vanity-published pieces that have still come off sounding just as good as anything spit out the doors of Random House in the past twenty years. This is not one of them. And then there are the chapter breaks, which make absolutely no sense. I got the feeling the break between Chapter One and Chapter Two was inserted simply because it was the halfway point in the book. It was not in a place where there could have conceivably been a cliffhanger, we didn't change narrative viewpoints, it wasn't even changing from one thought to another. In fact, the first sentence of Chapter Two shouldn't have even been in a different paragraph than the last sentence of Chapter One, though I can't imagine, given the structure of the rest of the book, Auverigne could have possibly known that.
This is, by far, the worst book I have read so far in 2011. Ms. Auverigne is in desperate need of remedial English classes, much less entry-level Creative Writing classes. Please, if you value your sanity, stay far, far away from this. (zero)
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