Antigua: The Land of Fairies, Wizards and Heroes

by Larry Ellis

Suddenly, there were black clouds in the sky. Everyone heard a loud noise coming from the sky and they all knew that Vorltrarr the Dragon was coming. King Aurthorr yelled out, "Daughters, Vorltrarr comes! Get ready your weapons! The time has come for you to fulfill the prophecy!" Princess Sasha, Princess Trina, Princess Alexandra and Rebecca walked up ahead of the army and lined up together in a row. They looked like warriors! Rebecca was not afraid! She took a deep breath and got her weapon ready for the task that lay ahead. She understood the prophecy now and had faith in herself and the Princesses. She was determined not to let them or the Land of Antigua down. They each pulled out their bows and prepared to kill the dragon. The Dragon Vorltrarr got nearer to the heroes! Fire came out of his nostrils and his mouth. Princess Alexandra handed each of the other girls one of the special arrows that they had gotten from the Head Centaur of the Unicorns. All four of the girls pointed their bows up into the air and waited for Vorltrarr to come nearer. Vorltrarr let out such a loud noise that the ground shook! Then fire came right out of his nostrils. The Wizard Thandorfur held his mighty wand up toward the sky and yelled, "Mighty clouds of the sky, I call upon you to bring forth lightening to destroy the Dragon Vorltrarr!" Suddenly the black clouds over the Dragon Vorltrarr began to roar like a freight train. Large lightening bolts came out of the clouds toward Vorltrarr. One lightening bolt struck Vorltrarr and wounded him but it didn't kill him!

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Adventure

300 pages, Paperback

First published September 26, 2007

Reviews

[Marc *Dark Reader with a Thousand Young! Iä!* · Rating 1 out of 5]

(Now with bonus early promotional material at the end of the review.)

The Dragon Vorltrarr let out such a loud roar that everyone in the easternmost, westernmost and southernmost kingdoms of the Land of Antigua heard him!

And they all suffered hearing loss as a result. It's the only plausible explanation for all of the exclamation marks in this book; everyone has to yell, all the time. That's right, it's that book. You know you've heard of it. Practically every sentence ends with an exclamation mark, so much so that when you reach a sentence with a regular ol' boring period, it's a real let-down.

The ocean creatures from both King Aquarmand and King Harnaqua began to fight. The octopuses and squids began to sword fight! The mermen from both sides also began to sword fight! The battle began! The sharks from both sides began to attack each other with their noses made of sharp swords!

Can you imagine reading this aloud with the exclamations intact?

Suddenly, as the princess was hugging him, Zrantorr’s fingernails grew into long, sharp claws! His face and body turned into a hideous-looking goblin! The creature that was holding onto the princess began to smell bad! The princess realized that she wasn’t hugging the Great Wizard Zrantorr at all! She had been tricked into thinking that she was with the Great Wizard Zrantorr! It wasn’t him at all! Princess Sasha realized that she was hugging one of the Evil Sorceress Gwendeviere’s goblins! The sorceress’ goblin let Princess Sasha go. Princess Sasha jumped back! The princess gasped at what she saw!” [sic] She was terrified! She had never been that close to one of the sorceress’ goblins before. Nor had she been alone with one. The goblin reached up and tried to attack the princess with its long, sharp claws!

I've been wanting to read this for some time, as one of the 'classics' of terrible self-published literature. It emerged around the dawn of e-books and has a certain cache due to the author's promotion (NB: there are two listed authors, a husband-and-wife duo, but Denise was the only one ever active online and I think the book is mostly her, based on some later writing) and somewhat infamous poor response to criticism. Sadly for Antigua scholars, Amazon deleted the majority of her posts.

I consider this as a soft blend of the inconceivability of Moon People and the author clapback of Empress Theresa. Oh, to think of a time, back in the mid-00s, when we were aghast that such a thing could be A) written unironically, B) not even breathed on by an editor, C) published, and then D) defended by the author. We were so naive then! I must report that I have seen the depths of self-published dreck that continues to this day, thankfully unnoticed by most. Antigua and a scant few other titles that have captured some public attention represent only the tip of the iceberg.

What makes Antigua special? Partly the absurd preponderance of exclamatory sentences, but equally the sheer condescending stupidity of the text. The author states that it is intended for children, the target age sometimes listed as 9-13, elsewhere 7-11, and supposedly intentionally written at a 5-year-old level. In reality, the book indicates that the author thinks children of any age are drooling morons. It's all written in an exaggerated storytime tone, with excessive repetition, one-dimensional characters, and oversimplicity. The best way to characterize it is to imagine some old lady telling a story, to her dog, in baby-talk. The dog is named Muffins, frequently piddles on the rug, and has its own stroller.

And of course, as everyone knows, kids love 300+ page books with no chapters, and run-on paragraphs lasting multiple pages.

In addition to the overall stupidity, every other page presents a brand new, specific stupid thing to laugh at (not with). A mere few examples:
-A character planning to take a train from "the river in Britain" to England.
-Sharks with "noses made of sharp swords!"
-Princess Trina's "special stick".
-Magic wands that you can sit on to fly.
-The Head Centaur of the Unicorns.
-Characters say the title of the book at least three times in-book.
-"They brought in monkeys on bicycles and a performing lion." (Antigua: Land of Fairies Wizards Heroes and Bicycles)
-A certain pointless random fox encounter.
-A talking glass table that never talks.
-Almost every use of "sarcastically" or "actually".
-"One of the cows said, 'Moo'." Did it actually moo, or literally say, "Moo"?
-The author's inability to look up words like 'scabbard' (instead, a sword goes "in the holder around her waist"), and 'bugler' or 'herald' (instead, "horns men").
-The entire plot.
-The names...

Oh, the names! This book rivals the entire Wheel of Time series for sheer number of named characters. Many of them are a mouthful. "Vorltrarr". "Vlandoorft". "Chrandria". "Shraundrella". Several are recognizable names with extra letters tacked on:
King Arthur --> King Aurthorr
King Alexander --> King Arlexjandrio
Charlie --> Charliey
King Aquaman --> King Aquarmand. Why yes, he is a merman king.
Pinky --> Prinkiee

And most of them appear for one brief moment only and are utterly inconsequential, so one wonders, why bother?

Here is the (mostly) full cast, for your reading pleasure:
The Blue Dragon Vorltrarr
The Evil Sorceress Gwendeviere
King Thomasson
King Arlexjandrio
King Aurthorr
Bernardo, husband of Belinda and father of ten year old Sharif and twelve year old Molly.
Queen Eleanordora
Knight Sir Luke
Princess Trina
Billy
Rebecca
The mermaids Chrandria, Filiandra and Shraunna
King Aquarmand
King Harnaqua
Charliey
The Great Wizard Thandorfur
Knight Sir Alistair
Knight Sir Barrington
Knight Sir Nigel
Knight Sir Philip
Knight Sir Ralph
Knight Sir Willoughby
Knight Sir Samuel
A pink fairy named Prinkiee
The Great Wizard Vlandoorft
Centaur Olympos
Young centaur Uclepsis
Princess Alexandra
Centaurs Delphinia, Prandora and Naphtali
Centaurs Aberlardo, Falconner, Amenphis, Erebus, Heracles, Acharon, Tabor, Kaisho and Barachiah
Miniwads Ruth, Delilah, Charliey (this makes two Charlieys), Buster, Elena, Aaron, Donovan, Elijah, Ambrosia and Cornelius
The Maidens Johanna, Reginna, Angelica, Charlotte, Tamika, Tahira, Samantha and Davila
The Knights Sir Roland, Sir Petersburg, Sir Winthrop, Sir Appleburg and Sir Morgan
The Owl Orend
Knight Sir Kenneth, Knight Sir Davis and Knight Sir Harry
The king's advisers Abiezer, Bainbridge, Fairbanks and Maaziah
The king's brothers Victor, Anthony and Peter
The queen's mother Elena and her sister Reyshana
The Fairy Prisandra
The Fairy Briana
The Fairy Dianna
A pixie named Tarah
The Pixie Sharinah
The Fairies Anyaya, Dervila and Hannah
Fairy Elverleen
Queen Gwyndeth
Knight Sir Vinson, Knight Sir Vladimir, Knight Sir Malcolm, Knight Sir Horatio, and Knight Sir Victor
Benjamin
Leonard
Bernardo Thomasson
Shaun Williams
Peter Wellington
Princess Alexandra
Wizard Apprentice William
Wizard Apprentice Brandon
Wizard Apprentice Jonathan
Delilah
Great Master Wizards Semyohn, Agnessa, Fyodoro, Groshu and Krill
Timothy
The Wizard Anechka
The Wizard Leonido
The Wizard Stepan
Peter
Jonah
Iriss
Evil witch Shraundrella
Queen Lyndrianda
Maiden Lily
Maiden Angelica
Princess Sasha
The Maiden Antoinette
Maiden Diane
Maiden Jasmine
Knight Sir Bronson, Knight Sir Williamsburg, Knight Sir Livingston
Sorceress Chrinlaundria
Dragon Escalizar
Orlando
Dragon Damethia
Sophia
Angelica, Trina and Priscilla
Tanya
Cheryl
Ann
Fairy Fatima
The Royal Physician Kennings
The Gnome Hori
The Gnome Keoni
The Gnome Lowan
The Gnome Alina
The Gnome Bogdan
The Gnome Barwon
Gnome Daku
Gnome Bardo
The Elf Aleroy
Elf Finbar
The Elf Maahon
The Elf Neevens
Wizard Zrantorr
The Lion Thorne
The Gnome Grunddleburg
The king's Advisor Balgair
The king's Advisor Jamieson
The Advisor Bothan
The talking tree
The talking glass table Isadora
Gordle Gorilla
Glendrah Gorilla
Bubo Gorilla
The Head Goblin Gozarrf
Stephen
The other three boys Billy, Anthon and Joseph
The Witch Cassadorna
The Archer Sanford
The Archer Alexis
The Archer Selig
Head Archers Adrien, Daniel, Gilbert and Xavier
Head Archers Roberto, Tina, griffith, Herman and Asheem
The Elves Kavan and Cathal
The Gnomes Beagan, Jarlath, Marnaduke and Carrick
The Sorceress Alessanda
Princess Bianca
Dragon Aldastandt
Lady Alamage
Natrassha
Nathan
Beneatha
Cantina
Peter
Angelina and Sissy
Muffy
The Dragon Aghamora
The Creature Darfgonn
Eagle Man Aethroh
The Rebel Knight Antwoine
The Rebel Knight Duane
The Rebel Knight Shamar
The Rebel Knight Laurent
The Rebel Knight Pierre
The Rebel Knight Franklin
The Rebel Knight Bubba
The Rebel Knight Simone
The Rebel Knight Frederica
The Rebel Knight Schwarz
The Rebel Knight Alexandre
Dr. Richardson
Amanda
Maitland
Rachel
Tabitha
Samantha
Maintenance crew Barrington, Walter and Laurence

Are you still with me? Let's talk publishing history. If you are inclined to get a copy of this book for yourself, you should know that there are two versions currently for sale on Amazon. The e-book is the original version. The print version, though, is revised. For the better? Not really. It added proper paragraphs to the text and divided the book into chapters. But to make up for all the extra line breaks, multiple scenes were deleted or truncated, sometimes resulting in nonsensical sequences of events. But saddest of all, it removes most of the exclamation marks! Compare these two sections:

The original:

Stephen yelled, "Take that Sir Billy!" Joseph yelled, "I got you Anthon! I have destroyed you with my sword!"

The revised:

Stephen yelled, "Take that Sir Billy."

Joseph yelled, "I got you Anthon. I have destroyed you with my sword."

The author managed to suck out what little vitality there was in the otherwise banal, droning text.

Can you imagine, getting the kind of feedback the author did on this gloriously awful book, and then actually changing it? Is that even allowed? It took more than simply upating an e-book file back then; she paid AuthorHouse, vanity press extraordinaire, to publish the book, and then certainly had to pay them again for the new version. I'm guessing it cost at least $2000 each time. Strangely, the back cover blurb for the e-book (which uses the full wrap-around cover as its cover art) reveals restrained spellings of various names: Voltar the Dragon, King Artor, the Wizard Thandor (instead of Vorltrarr, Aurtorr, and Thandorfur). What version if any did those appear in?

This is my very favorite change from the original version: the book ends with a character returning to the 'real' world, and perhaps it was all a dream.... The original version:

"I guess you're right! There really is no such place as the Land of Antigua!"

And the revised version:

"I guess you're right. There really is no such place as ANTIGUA: The Land of Fairies, Wizards and Heroes."

That's an improvement? Having your character speak the full title and subtitle of the book they are in, including all-caps and a colon? It boggles the mind.

The keen observer will note that, per the book's cover, this is merely 'Volume 1'. WHAR SEQUEL?

After reading this, all other books will feel quiet and subdued! Periods will never again suffice! I need this level of excitement in everything I read forevermore!

[Wealhtheow · Rating 1 out of 5]

There is a crazy exuberance to this terrible novel that is almost endearing. Well, it's endearing for about a paragraph. Then I got tired of reading something that exactly replicated a five year old's storytelling ability. For extra lols, go here.

[Megan]

I've had just about as much as I can take of actually reading this book. But due to the absolute hilarious nature of how bad it is, I'm recommending it to everyone I know.

Also! Be sure to look for it on Amazon and read the many comment threads - the funniest ones are the ones the author started herself, which are mostly hidden because they've been voted "unhelpful" by Amazon users.

And for the finale... google her name + this title and check out her website. There are talking animated GIFs and a old school HTML wizard comet-trail curser!

Part 1! I may not Surrvive! But you'll never stop meee!

[blake · Rating 1 out of 5]

Suddenly Sarcastically Beautiful

No, not really anything about the book, just the three most common words.

Jon Gardner, in The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers, talks at some length about common errors writers make, and he goes into detail about the "periodic sentence" and how varying (e.g.) the subject-verb-object form of sentence is done (typically by loading up one of the three slots—subject, verb or object—with variations). It's a good book. Worth reading. I don't know why I bring it up.

There is some defense issued by the authors that this book is written for children. At 75K words it is comparable in length to the beloved The Secret Garden. Secret Garden, however, is written for clever nine-year-old Eduardian girls, and this book can only be excused (if it can be at all) as being written for kindergartners.

To say something. Then to say it again in almost exactly the same way. And sometimes to say it a third time. That's "Sesame Street" stuff and, quite frankly, the experts I trust on child education say children are far faster than adults and so slow repetition is more likely to bore them than anything.

Wherever Dr. Seuss fits in your esteem, he was a master of rhyme and rhythm and word economy. If he repeated himself, it was like a song lyric, not like the reader is presumed to be dumb. Take out the repetition and this book gets down to a more tolerable 35K—enough for Roald Dahl to build a chocolate factory or populate a giant peach—but there's not even enough here for 35K.

Rattling off a list of names is not "world building". Saying "Bob and Joe were going to fight" and then following that with "They fought and Joe won" is not "story telling". It's barely reporting the news. Saying there's a prophecy which nobody knows but everyone knows isn't really "magic". Borrowing creatures from stock post-D&D-era fantasy, but also not describing them and then also clearly perceiving them differently from how they are generally perceived is not "imaginative".

A wizard is not a stage magician. He does not wear a top hat. Magic wands are not large enough to ride on in a non-comical fashion. England is not Wales and Britain is not either and there are more rivers than one in all of them.

You cannot create a sense of verisimilitude for an exotic locale and throw in colloquial expressions like "Yo, dude." This results in a sort of comedy that may even have been intentional here, but juxtaposed next to pseudo-medieval cant just sounds like a sloppy D&D game.

If everyone is a hero, no one is a hero.

Everybody borrows, steals, copies, even plagiarizes, especially with children's works, on the rationale that the children don't know the source material. That said, if you're going to plagiarize so blatantly, stay away from things your intended audience is almost certainly familiar with, like the 1939 movie, Wizard of Oz.

Pick your intended audience and stick to it, and deliver a much edited, much sharpened product. And remember C. S. Lewis' admonition that a book that is only worth reading as a child is not really worth reading even then.

[Kevis Hendrickson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was one of the first wave of self-published books that made its rounds during the release of the Kindle. Back then there was literally no quality controls on the books that went up for sale. It could quite possibly be the worst book I've ever attempted to read. Just a few paragraphs in and it instantly went to the DNF list. I should have known from the title alone what I was in for. Why would anyone name their fantasy kingdom after an island in the Caribbean? In all fairness, I wanted to like it. But it's juvenile, poorly written, unreadable, and unbelievably bad. If this one ever shows up on your radar, stay far, far away.

[Jenna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Quite frankly the worst book I have ever read in my entire life. If I was rating this book based on the amount of laughs I had out loud as I read this book to my family as means to entertain ourselves it would be a 5/5. Unfortunately that is not how this works.

What is grammar? What is world building? What is a plot? These are answers that the author cannot answer because they were not used at all in this book.

Amazingly awful, it feels like a draft of a draft written by a 10 year old who just writes whatever comes to mind and forgetting what was written previously.

This book doesn’t even deserve a star.

[Jeffrey Greek · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a world in which Ready Player One has an average rating of 4.24, it's downright criminal for this book to be rated so low. I'm just doing my part to correct this injustice.

[Hurlock · Rating 5 out of 5]

This might be the longest children’s book ever written. Also, for a book supposedly written for children, I only ever hear adults like me talking about it. I guess the kids are the silent majority or they got bored one page in and threw it across the room. I’m of the opinion it is the latter.

To those that aren’t aware, there are two versions of this book, a kindle and paper back. The kindle is the more authentic one because it contains all the original mistakes. Now, every book has flaws, but this book is special in that it makes flaws anyone would think is common sense. Even books I consider worse than this didn’t make the mistake of having no chapters and almost no paragraphs. Those two flaws alone turn the entire book into a wall of text that is the most demoralizing thing to look at. This makes the reading experience a chore even for readers like me who enjoy flawed books. Granted, at least a third of this book is repetition that can be breezed through like every book written by Dwight David Thrash.

Setting the repetition and chore reading experience aside, there is fun to be had in this kids book that is only read by adults. A fun game to play is figuring out who wrote certain scene, Larry or Denise. Especially when there are many scenes where it doesn’t matter who wrote them, they are hilarious regardless.

Most of this book relies heavily on story beats and tropes from other fantasy books like The Chronicles of Narnia and The Silmarillion. Not that I think Larry or Denise read either of those. However, there is originality in this book like the “miniwads”:

‘The miniwads were very tiny people of only four feet tall. But, do not let their size fool you! They were also warriors and just as dedicated to protecting their way of life in the Land of Antigua as anyone else!’

I love that they squashed all assumptions of their size in the sentence after we are told about their size. I guess this is how children’s books are written:

‘The wives of the knights provided the men, miniwads and centaurs with food and drink to give them energy and to prevent them from getting thirsty.’

The best kind of books need to clarify every miniscule detail that is common sense to everyone. Perhaps the most fascinating thing about this book for children is the story is so complex I doubt any child would understand it. Hell, I wouldn’t be shocked if many adults couldn’t understand this book because of the way its structured. Instead of following one main character exploring this fantasy world, we bounce around several kings, their queens, princesses, the evil sorceress, wizards and their apprentices, and the chosen one. Those are just the perspectives I considered important. We get introduced to so many more characters. Most of them are inconsequential or could easily be nameless background noise. If you want an idea of how extensive this character list goes look at “Marc*Dark Reader with a Thousand Young! Ia!*” review.

Despite the abundance of characters, there is a plot. The evil Sorceress Gwendeviere is trying to conquer all the kingdoms in the Land of Antigua because she wants Princess Sasha’s beautiful sword. Technically there’s more evil motivations than that but it’s the only thing the evil Sorceress is most excited about. A classic story of good versus evil with a prophesized chosen one from Britain.

Wait what?

Yes, it is prophesized, in a prophecy we are never told, that someone from the other side of the waters of Antigua will save them. It’s a prophecy everyone knows about and is apparently specific enough to outline exactly what needs to happen. Specific plot points happen because it is prophesized.

We meet the chosen one, Rebecca, in the beginning of the book and don’t see her again until the halfway point. In the meantime, we learn about magical creatures like Centaurs that aren’t like the classical ones. In Antigua they are the creations of a mad scientist who stitched men, women, and children onto the bodies of horses. With descriptions like this, prove me wrong:

‘The top of them were made of men and women… The bottom half of the centaurs were made of beautiful horses.’

Most of the Centaurs do chores or get drunk on blue berry juice from the woods. But one Centaur is “The Head Centaur of the Unicorns.” Don’t ask me how this works.

Among the many world building vignettes we get introduced to all the Princesses. There are no Princes for some reason and no king is concerned about this. Then again, this kingdom is very progressive in its views despite having a monarchy system.

One of the princesses, Trina, wants to learn how to fight using a “special stick.” So, she enlists the help of the Knight Sir Samuel:

‘“I command that you teach me to fight using a special stick such as the one you are holding in your hand!”’

By the end of it the princess is a professional and uses her skills on Samuel:

‘“The Knight Sir Samuel was pleased with the progress that Princess Trina had made in her training. Samuel started laughing and rolling around on the ground. He said, “Good princess! Good indeed!”’

Then she used her skills on every boy in the kingdom. I’m not lying it’s in the book and I’m assuming Larry wrote it.

I’m also assuming Larry wrote this reverse peeping Tom scene where three young women try to get a peek at the Wizard Apprentice William:

‘The girls were peeping through the side window of Vlandoorft’s cottage. They were looking at the Wizard Apprentice William. The girls put their hands on their right cheeks and sighed.’

William doesn’t like this intrusion of privacy and uses magic to make firecracker noises to make them scatter. Then the weird stuff happens when the Wizard Vlandoorft walks in and says:

‘“It’s just a harmless crush! That’s all! You should be flattered! William you are turning into a young man now!”’

Larry, what the fuck are you talking about?

All three of those plot points are just a percent of the madness that happened for half of the book. When we finally get back to Rebecca, she encounters Gordle Gorilla. This book is something special:

‘Gorlde was so happy to see Rebecca that he began to dance around and sing a song.’

I’m sorry to report that we don’t get the song in the book. We’ll just have to fixate on the hilarity of a girl from Britain not only seeing a talking Gorilla, but a Gorilla that is dancing around and singing.

Lucky for Rebecca, Gorlde is actually Don Gordle Gorilla who knows everybody. That isn’t directly stated but it’s the only thing that makes sense considering he not only gets an audience with the king, but the king knows him. We need a mock Netflix documentary called “Get Gordle.”

This book is so insane that not even knowing how it’s going to end will tell you anything. The beginning and end have nothing on the journey through this madness. I should have known after seeing the “Part 1” in the title that there would be sequel bait with Aethroh the Eagle Man from the Village of Knoxville Woods. I’m still waiting for it to come out, but as of this review there is nothing.

If everything above doesn’t convince you to read this, I don’t know what will. You can read every review ever written about this book and you still wouldn’t know so much about what happens. The book is loaded with too much insanity to summarize which makes it a must read for anyone with a sense of humor. Five stars.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

(This was another reading assignment for the 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back book club podcast. As such, it was a shared read-aloud with Donald.)

Take hunks, chunks, and nuggets of ideas from some of the best-selling and most beloved fantasy novels and movies of the past hundred years. Chop them up and reassemble them haphazardly. Throw in some cuckoo ideas of your own to counterbalance the clichés and tropes. Apply a liberal dose of exclamation marks-- and voilà! You have this book!

Well. What is there to say? Where can you even begin? Taken as a serious effort, this is not good. It borrows too heavily from better works, characters are cardboard cutouts, it's repetitive and poorly-paced, and there are errors, plot holes (in the thinnest plot imaginable), and way too many exclamation marks.

However, this is one of those books you simply can't judge against the same standard as a normal book, especially when you go into it knowing it's not a good book (by any stretch of the imagination). It was a lot of fun to read and dissect, even without taking the podcast into account. As much as it "borrows" blatantly steals from fantasy classics, it also occasionally throws a curve ball that you would never see coming, if you were to spend hours guessing. And ultimately, it has plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, which is more than I can say about many objectively better-written books I've read!

...Still can't give it more than a one-star rating, though!

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is now the new "worst book I've ever read" front-runner! I certainly would not have read it (or definitely not finished it) if not for 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back choosing it as their 19th book!

It has no redeeming qualities! The prose is unreadably awful, laden with superfluous exclamation points, unnecessarily repetitive appellations, and just a juvenile, pointless "plot"! This was only exacerbated by the total lack of chapters or even just whitespace breaks between paragraphs to indicate that we're jumping to a new POV!

I hope the podcast episodes provide me with more amusement than reading this garbage did! I couldn't even really laugh at it like I have for past reading chores like Midnight Sun that were a slog but still made me laugh in new ways! It was fun to laugh at the child-like writing quality at first, but that does not persist through the rest of the text where it simply becomes a trial to endure!

I think the next book they've chosen might also be one of my more hated of their selections, but at least it should have something resembling a plot and an editor to at least make the prose readable on a very basic level!

I don't know who wrote this, I just hope they're not writing anymore!

[Steven Mix · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would never recommend spending money on this book as a serious read, HOWEVER the redeeming quality here is, the book is so bad that it is hysterical.

If you're doing a dramatic reading somewhere like a convention, then this is sure to make an audience laugh hysterically.

It's an exercise in "how not to write a book." However, the infamy from this book being so bad, has made it a little well known. I guess it's a similar effect as with the movie "The Room." It is so cringey at times, that it has made it funny.

I guess the comedy of it all is worth two stars. I don't recommend this book to anyone unless you expect to read something poorly written, never edited, and laugh about it.

[Arkrayder · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nothing can describe how awful this book is. Painfully bad writing, grammar, use of !!!! No part of the story making any sense or having any relation to what came before it. If I hadn’t been reading it for 372 pages we’ll never get back podcast, I would have bailed long ago. Then I would have burned the book and scattered the ashes to make sure it didn’t rise again. Stay away! Your life might just depend on it!

[Maya · Rating 1 out of 5]

So bad that it’s good! The entire thing is just wrong. The book is literally (no exaggeration, I’m deadly serious) one big unbroken block of text. Even the dialogue isn’t broken up into new paragraphs. Truly awful. It’s really funny. 10/10

[Wes Rowsdower · Rating 1 out of 5]

Technically readable.

[Melly]

DNF at 40%. I'm gettin' too old for this shit.

[PP9000 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful but fun to read.

[Mary · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was the worst piece of "writing" I have ever read. This book is a flaming pile of dragon crap. If I could give it negative stars I would.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was amazing.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Needs more Gordle

[Damian Penny]

I...I...I got nuthin'

[Lisa M. Eldridge · Rating 2 out of 5]

Terrible, terrible book. Extremely entertaining.

[Will Keightley · Rating 1 out of 5]

One star for the book. Five stars for the "372 Pages We'll Never Get Back" exploration of it. Long Leave the Nasty Fox!

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was one of the absolute worst 372 Pages books in the entire oeuvre.

There are some that are dumber (but not many or by much), but this was the absolute hardest to read. I'll even take the flat, pointless exposition of Dwight David Thrash over this crap. I was slogging through this for so long I had no hope to get through it any time soon to the point that I didn't even remember to add this on here to track it; I'd get through maybe 5 or 6 pages at a time, it was a real struggle.

Looking at my read history below, this was also the case the first time.

Anyway, I think it's like the Star Wars Holiday special, where you should experience it once to see how bad things can really get, but I will never reread this again, even if I do another marathon of 372 pages. Some skips are just necessary .

[Gunnar Peters · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was an incredible experience and, although I'm giving it 1 star (it's terrible), I want to share it with everyone. This book is truly amazing and must be read to be believed. Over 200 characters are introduced over the course of 300 pages, there are exclamation marks after 82% of the sentences, characters are introduced as if they've been there the whole time and other characters are dropped immediately never to be seen again. The last 15% of this book may be the wildest shit I've ever read in my life; I still struggle to believe that it was real. This is a book! Written by human beings! Actual people wrote this! HOW!?!?! Talking gorillas and cats, nasty foxes, special sticks, specific ages, dragons that come out of nowhere, etc, etc, etc. This was a truly special experience. 1 star.

[Carol · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is hilarious only because of how horrible it is. The author puts an exclamation mark after almost every sentence, there are so many grammatical errors, and it sounds like something a five-year-old would write. Do yourself a favor and stay away from this book.

[Jon the · Rating 1 out of 5]

this is awful, worst book I've ever read

[Bleachedblackcat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a good book at all but weirdly charming in some bits. Mostly super dumb and wtf-y but not offensive so it gets an extra star because of other books I have read this month that are worse

[Maggie Brace]

Seemed like it was written by Ai... difficult to follow.

[Spitz · Rating 1 out of 5]

How do I even start.....well lets just say the book was TERRIBLE. Cheesy, has no hook, and hilariously boring. I do not recommend this to anyone let alone anything. This author....i don't know what she was thinking. She cleary needs a lesson on writing.

[Avaminn F'nett · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hilariously bad.