The Trouble with the Pears: An intimate portrait of Erzsebet Bathory

by Gia Bathory Al Babel

The Trouble with the Pears The Trouble with the Pears stems from a place understood by all who are mad, the story of Erzebet Bathory is a story of compassion mixed with passion, blood and fire. High Countess of Hungary during the sixteenth century, she tortured, killed, loved and destroyed everyone in her path. She shocked the Hapsburg Royalty and defied the very crown of Hungary. Her scandals have lived on for ages, six of them to be precise. Her story beckons one to come near, curl up and sip the crimson vitae of madness.

Genres: Fiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published February 14, 2006

Reviews

[Darrell · Rating 1 out of 5]

In The Trouble With the Pears, Gia Bathory attempts to tell the story of Erzsebet Bathory, a Hungarian Countess from the fourteenth century who murdered young girls and bathed in their blood because she believed it made her appear younger. However, as the author herself warns us in the introduction:

I want you, my readers, to pay less attention to the so called "facts" that historians have provided i.e. dates, times, "documentation" and legend. Pay more attention to the pain and suffering, loneliness and madness that was the real Erzsebet.

Bathory portrays Erzsebet as a victim unfairly imprisoned for her crimes. She wasn't responsible for her actions since demons made her do it. This book reads more like fan fiction than actual literature. Each sentence is dripping with pretentiousness. Several seemingly important characters are introduced, and then promptly forgotten about. Ten years pass without any characters aging. The author switches from third to first person inexplicably.

While the poor writing reveals this to be a first draft, the typos and inconsistent indentation reveal the manuscript wasn't even proofread. Poor grammar is the rule with commas and semi-colons appearing in places where they just shouldn't be. In addition to constantly confusing the contraction "it's" with the possessive pronoun "its", she also seems confused by the possessive tense in general. For example "their churches purse" instead of "their church's purse."

The only good thing that can be said about this book is it proves anyone can be published. Don't let the 272 page count fool you; every other page is left blank. The only reason for this I can think of is to make the book appear to be longer than it actually is. Advertising the book’s sequel at both the beginning and ending further bolsters the page count, as well as using two pages for the dedication instead of one. In reality, this book is just over 100 pages and can be read in a couple days, but why would you want to?

[Kerri]

I am not even going to give this book one freakin' star. I am amazed I made it through this, in fact I think the only reason I did was to enjoy the sheer badness of it.

I would actually read parts of this out loud to my boyfriend so he could be just as stunned then join in and make fun of it with me.

I read this book as research on a horror movie we are scheduled to shoot. At this point we had already visited the remains of Elizabeth Bathory's castle in Slovakia and I had a basic knowledge of her life and the lore surrounding her from information gathered there and online research. I found this book on Amazon, and not realizing it was self-published (that should have been the clue) and bought it based on reviews on Amazon. I think those reviews must have been written by the author's friends and parents.

This book is not only poorly and stupidly titled, but filled with misinformation, contradicting storylines (I am going out on a limb calling them storylines) and is written in the most confusing manner. It's hard to follow and poorly written from a grammatical and punctual standpoint.

Imagine my amazement as I try to follow the main character, serving girl working within the castle (which the first 3rd of the book is written from her point-of-view), I turn the page to start the next chapter, and suddenly I am lost. Apparently at that point the author just decided to hell with the story of the serving girl and just stopped writing about her. Without any reasoning, acknowledgement or transition suddenly the story continues from Elizabeth Bathory's point-of-view. WTF? We never go back to the serving girl and she, nor the other characters up to that point, just cease to exist and are never mentioned again. Worse, the story from that point forward - and the writing style - wavers back and forth in past and present tense and is sometimes Elizabeth telling her story and sometimes the author.

I mucked my way through the book, frustrated as hell but still holding out hope of some bit of information I could find useful for the horror movie I am Producing and doing Production Design for, or at least a bit of entertaining story.

Finally at the end of the book, abruptly, it is revealed that we are actually indeed (for the moment) in modern day times and that the story is being told by Countess Bathory herself...who is actually Gia Bathory, the author. She actually believes that she IS Elizabeth Bathory. Yup.

I am not saying she isn't a descendant of Countess Bathory, perhaps she is. Perhaps it is safe to say that if Gia is a descendant, insanity runs in their genes even. (I don't think anyone will argue Elizabeth's sanity, after all she allegedly tortured and killed young virgin women and bathed in their blood because she believed it kept her young...) I think at best this book might make a good case study on the author's sanity...

Again, I recommend this book to no one and found it an irritating and confusing read. And believe me, I am being nice in this review.

[Rebecca Mikulin · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is very likely the worst-written book I've ever read, I'm sorry to say. I really hate being mean about books, but this one had so much bad grammar, plus flawed and juvenile imagery that I could barely get through it at all. Despite being on a subject that has fascinated me, this story is presented in a wholly uninteresting fashion. The book is also only printed on one side of each page, so you really get half of what one would expect. Overall, I only powered through to actually finish the book because I wanted to be able to give it a thorough review for my own review site. Needles to say, I will never read anything else by this author -- sure, her style may have matured since I read this book in 2007, but it's just not worth taking a chance.

[Carole Gill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish that the author had written more from Bathory's point of view, I found that very interesting.
The setting and atmosphere was well done I felt.
All in all I enjoyed it and found it enriched my view of Bathory, her times and her awful crimes.

[Debbi Higginbotham · Rating 1 out of 5]

OMG!!! Whoever told this woman she could write should be horsewhipped!

Edited on 13 Mar 2014 to add:
OK, that was probably a bit harsh considering Ms. Al Babel was in her early twenties when she wrote this. Presumably, she has matured somewhat.

[Christine Loftin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can say that this was and interesting read. Also, knowing the author, she isn't to far away from that which she writes. To Learn more about Gia you can find her at ttp://www.myspace.com/giabathory.

[Kara · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is so badly done in every way that it has convinced me that bad writers need to be executed and those who publish them need harsh sentences put upon them.