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Maradonia #1
Maradonia and the Seven Bridges
The Maradonia Saga
starts as an everyday story. A girl called Maya and a boy called Joey found a mysterious place in a forbidden area which opened the way to a World between the Worlds Maradonia.
The Land of Maradonia
With their arrival in Maradonia a prophecy is fulfilled. Overnight their simple life in the small city of Oceanside has changed completely and they are thrust into a strange and perilous world. A world filled with magic and power. Mystery, murder, deceit, revenge, conspiracy, theft but also faith, knowledge, wisdom and passion percolate in this thriller... and it keeps the reader on the edge of their seat.
Can Maya and Joey take up the mantle of the prophecy?
Can they conquer the Seven Bridges of tests and temptations? Can they change the future of Maradonia?
The fate of the legendary kingdom of Maradonia rest in the hands of the Encouragers... Is the final battle between the armies of Light and Darkness unavoidable when the teenagers secure The Key to the Underworld and the rulers of the Empire of Evil are unable to enter their own kingdom?
starts as an everyday story. A girl called Maya and a boy called Joey found a mysterious place in a forbidden area which opened the way to a World between the Worlds Maradonia.
The Land of Maradonia
With their arrival in Maradonia a prophecy is fulfilled. Overnight their simple life in the small city of Oceanside has changed completely and they are thrust into a strange and perilous world. A world filled with magic and power. Mystery, murder, deceit, revenge, conspiracy, theft but also faith, knowledge, wisdom and passion percolate in this thriller... and it keeps the reader on the edge of their seat.
Can Maya and Joey take up the mantle of the prophecy?
Can they conquer the Seven Bridges of tests and temptations? Can they change the future of Maradonia?
The fate of the legendary kingdom of Maradonia rest in the hands of the Encouragers... Is the final battle between the armies of Light and Darkness unavoidable when the teenagers secure The Key to the Underworld and the rulers of the Empire of Evil are unable to enter their own kingdom?
810 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
7 people are currently reading
101 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
November 3, 2021
2021 Update: I got to page 368 and finally decided that I'd allowed it enough space in my brain and on my shelf. This is a literary ransom note made of snipped-up Bible phrases and fortune cookie messages, but what do you expect from a literal child? It should have stayed snug in a drawer or on a computer, to be looked over years later out of a sense of nostalgia. Instead it's the inciting event of yet another story of internet humiliation. Just go read some of the blogs reviewing Maradonia, they're shorter, wittier, and they have no delusions of grandeur.
2018 Update: This book's biggest flaw in terms of readability is definitely the pacing. Whether it's awkwardly placed descriptions, rambling conversations or even the quirk of using two descriptors for each thing (i.e., "They were interested in building a control station and outpost"), this book just drags.
Yes, I've added a star to this review. This book has caused much laughter throughout my household, and since the purpose of fiction is to entertain, it qualifies. Maradonia and the Seven Bridges is the worst fantasy book I've ever read--if one can even honestly call it a book. It is one of those rare, magical moments where everything goes wrong--characters, plot, pacing, mythology, description, dialogue, continuity, grammar, spelling, punctuation, even the FONT inspires giggles.
If anyone is confused, I have read through a very detailed sporking of this book, and have recently begun reading the original--hence the review for a book I have technically not finished.
The plot is hackneyed, unoriginal and disjointed, and my spell-checker would have a heart attack at the sight of one page. Random "words" get "quotation marks," italics or "both." I've seen better formatted fanfiction. The "characters," Maya and Joey, are paper-thin idiots treated as intelligent heroes. Joey is especially unbearable, constantly spouting "wisdom" that anyone with a teaspoonful of brains could deflate and outdoing all of the villains put together in selfishness and pointless cruelty. The most unique element of this story is the outright plagiarism from the Bible. Some passages are nearly word-for-word--and yet, Miss Tesch completely misses the point of the passages she inserts.
Here is one shining example of all of my greatest problems with this book: Joey decides to test their troops by declaring that nobody can eat or drink for three days. Maya doesn't like the plan at first, but after seeing the results she calls it splendid and brilliant. On the third they cull the army with a "who drinks straight from the river vs using their hands" test.
One: a healthy human cannot live for three days without water. I know this through Google. A large portion of the army are teens and children, explicitly stated to be younger than the 14-year-old Joey, not healthy adult men. They should all be dead.
Two: this is a mashup of two Biblical stories, 1st Samuel 14:24-46 and Judges 7:4-7. The first was when King Saul made a (rash) vow that nobody should eat or drink until he'd avenged himself on an enemy--and then went and fought a battle. Guess what, everyone including his own son said it was a stupid decision, and it didn't even last an entire day. The second is part of the story of Gideon, where God trims down Gideon's army to the point of absurdity, so that when they win there's no doubt that He was the reason they had the victory. There is no good reason for the "Encouragers" to do this to their army.
Three: On the third day, Joey proceeds to wander through the camp eating and drinking. I assume the only reason he wasn't immediately lynched was because his "men" (again: mostly teenagers and kids) were too weak to move, which is a pity.
Miss Tesch, if you stumble across this while Googling yourself, please don't take this personally. I'm a homeschooled girl who likes to write, like you, and I'm not jealous of you. I know how painful it can be to have some story you've worked hard on criticized. I don't hate you--though if you paid the "editor" of your book, you were ripped off. I even "saved" it from being removed from this site. Please, stop embarrassing yourself with deceptive, self-aggrandizing advertisement, and go back and read the Book you've plagiarized so very often with a willingness to be taught, absorbing the meaning, not just the style.
2018 Update: This book's biggest flaw in terms of readability is definitely the pacing. Whether it's awkwardly placed descriptions, rambling conversations or even the quirk of using two descriptors for each thing (i.e., "They were interested in building a control station and outpost"), this book just drags.
Yes, I've added a star to this review. This book has caused much laughter throughout my household, and since the purpose of fiction is to entertain, it qualifies. Maradonia and the Seven Bridges is the worst fantasy book I've ever read--if one can even honestly call it a book. It is one of those rare, magical moments where everything goes wrong--characters, plot, pacing, mythology, description, dialogue, continuity, grammar, spelling, punctuation, even the FONT inspires giggles.
If anyone is confused, I have read through a very detailed sporking of this book, and have recently begun reading the original--hence the review for a book I have technically not finished.
The plot is hackneyed, unoriginal and disjointed, and my spell-checker would have a heart attack at the sight of one page. Random "words" get "quotation marks," italics or "both." I've seen better formatted fanfiction. The "characters," Maya and Joey, are paper-thin idiots treated as intelligent heroes. Joey is especially unbearable, constantly spouting "wisdom" that anyone with a teaspoonful of brains could deflate and outdoing all of the villains put together in selfishness and pointless cruelty. The most unique element of this story is the outright plagiarism from the Bible. Some passages are nearly word-for-word--and yet, Miss Tesch completely misses the point of the passages she inserts.
Here is one shining example of all of my greatest problems with this book: Joey decides to test their troops by declaring that nobody can eat or drink for three days. Maya doesn't like the plan at first, but after seeing the results she calls it splendid and brilliant. On the third they cull the army with a "who drinks straight from the river vs using their hands" test.
One: a healthy human cannot live for three days without water. I know this through Google. A large portion of the army are teens and children, explicitly stated to be younger than the 14-year-old Joey, not healthy adult men. They should all be dead.
Two: this is a mashup of two Biblical stories, 1st Samuel 14:24-46 and Judges 7:4-7. The first was when King Saul made a (rash) vow that nobody should eat or drink until he'd avenged himself on an enemy--and then went and fought a battle. Guess what, everyone including his own son said it was a stupid decision, and it didn't even last an entire day. The second is part of the story of Gideon, where God trims down Gideon's army to the point of absurdity, so that when they win there's no doubt that He was the reason they had the victory. There is no good reason for the "Encouragers" to do this to their army.
Three: On the third day, Joey proceeds to wander through the camp eating and drinking. I assume the only reason he wasn't immediately lynched was because his "men" (again: mostly teenagers and kids) were too weak to move, which is a pity.
Miss Tesch, if you stumble across this while Googling yourself, please don't take this personally. I'm a homeschooled girl who likes to write, like you, and I'm not jealous of you. I know how painful it can be to have some story you've worked hard on criticized. I don't hate you--though if you paid the "editor" of your book, you were ripped off. I even "saved" it from being removed from this site. Please, stop embarrassing yourself with deceptive, self-aggrandizing advertisement, and go back and read the Book you've plagiarized so very often with a willingness to be taught, absorbing the meaning, not just the style.
May 28, 2024
April 29, 2024: A CRITICAL MOMENT IN LITERARY HISTORY!
The question of our time remains: can Maradonia be redeemed?
The world will find out on August 6, 2024. May King Astrodoulos have mercy on our souls.
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST. Now on with the original review.
*********************************
None of it is the author's fault.
You can't blame her for any of it. Not for the constant run-on sentences. Not for the horribly artificial, stiff, and repetitive dialogue that is nothing but exposition. Not for the countless word errors. Not for the incredibly stupid storyline, filled with laughably stupid events. Not for the awful, uninspired place and person names. Not for the uninspired biblical and Narnial inserts. Not for the completely wrong paragraph formatting. Definitely not for the inexplicable abuse of ... ellipses ... so, so many ... ellipses ... and not for the bizarre use of 'scare quotes' throughout the book for things like 'names of people and places' and 'any expression that seems to indicate the author didn't know quite how to express the thing' and for some reason 'awe', always 'awe', no one ever feels awe but only 'awe'. Not for the decision to print this in the largest type you've ever seen in order to bloat the page count. Take a look next to another book for children:
You can't blame the author for how incredibly dumb the entire book is, so dumb that it's hard to demonstrate succinctly because every single element of the book is so clearly and utterly awful. Thankfully, it was amusingly so! I had many good laughs during its 810 pages, and entertained my daughter with accounts of some of the worst of it. There were boring segments too, sure, but classic passages like this one, in which the main characters are breaking mermaids out of captivity in the big bad's lair (paragraph spacing and hard returns are as per the original):
This book takes the chosen one trope and choosily chooses it to death with choice. The main characters, acclaimed as "The Encouragers" because everyone is encouraged by their mere presence, absolutely do not do anything noteworthy to earn themselves one ounce of the adoration and worship they receive. The book's titular "Seven Bridges" refer to a supposed "seven bridges of temptation" or seven tasks that Maya and Joey overcome, except that they overcome nothing, accomplish nothing, and are not subject to temptation in any way. One example: They are told they have to find some sunken rocks to cross a river as one of the tests. A giant eagle flies them to the river, they look around an oh hey there are the rocks! Joey then falls into the river while crossing the rocks, and the giant eagle plucks him out of the water and deposits him on the other side, while some doves fish his backpack out of the water and return it to him. Hooray, task accomplished! The whole land is saved! In every other way, the pair are told in advance exactly what to do, handed the tools to do it, and then are praised for being wildly successful, mostly by virtue of all enemy characters being as dumb as rocks themselves.
You can't blame the author for self-publishing or any of the marketing efforts that followed the writing, including the book trailer, obviously fake publicity photos that attempted to show the book on bestseller racks and in libraries, fake online reviews, claims that she was the youngest-ever published author, and more.
You especially can't blame the author for the Maradonia movie. That's right, there's a movie, one years in the making and the thing that finally sunk the Tesch would-be empire. I've watched all 1h40min of it and I can authoritatively say there's a not a single 2 minutes of it that makes a lick of sense or shows an ounce of talent or awareness on the part of anyone involved. There are watermarked copies of it online despite the family's attempts to eliminate it, but I don't recommend that anyone watch it. The 9-minute trailer is quite sufficient.
Gloria Tesch is not to blame for any of it, because she was a child throughout the extended affair. By all account, blame the parents who, as the legend goes, saw in this child their ticket to fortune and started "home""schooling" ("home" because they only lived in a house by the grace of serial bureaucratic abuses conducted by both parents to repeatedly defer foreclosure after they failed to ever make a single mortgage payment, and "schooling" because, well, obviously) so she could write full time. And write she did; despite the artificially inflated page count, I estimate this paper brick at 140,000 words, and she ended up producing three of them (later split into six, I'll get back to that).
In fact, blame the father foremost. Guenter "Gerry" Tesch was by all appearances a serial con man and narcissist who possibly has never read a book or seen a movie, yet felt qualified to make both of those things with some expectation of success. He dead now, but before that, he was the driving force behind promoting the hell out of his daughter and the Maradonia "franchise". He produced and directed the movie, such as it is. He split the original books in half to make it look like a longer series* (more on this at the end of this review in a post-script), added the 9/11 framing at the start that went into the movie script, penned the glowing and poorly-written introduction included in the new editions (it's uncredited but clearly him) and ten pages of fake testimonials like the following:
Mom helped too, seemingly to a lesser extent in all of the nonsense; she probably had better things to do. But she did illustrate the books including the cover art. Her artwork in the author's later effort, The Secret of Moon Lake was okay, but for Maradonia I can only call it, "good for high school art class". Some are okay, but what the holy hell is this:
For the record, that is the chapter whose first half is word-for-word copied and pasted as the book's prologue.
[On the topic of the parents, some Maradonia scholars hold the theory that the dad actually wrote the books. The introduction to the new editions bolsters this claim: it's hard to imagine Gloria wrote that herself, and yet it contains weird grammar and other errors and style choices that match the content of the books. It's as reasonable for the terrible writing to be Guenter Tesch's as Gloria's; believe me, with the breadth of awful writing I've indulged in, there is no age limit. The frequent use of German terms and uniquely strange (and wrong) word usage fits this theory, but it could just as well represent the father's influence on Gloria. We'll probably never know for sure either way, unless Gloria were to one day make a deathbed confession.]
I'd like to think that Gloria's direct involvement with the books faded over time. She remained the face of the would-be franchise, starred in the "movie" and participated in the marketing, usually sounding as if she was constipatedly reading off a script, and she eventually shifted her efforts to modelling, singing, and glamorous lifestyle videos, none of which caught fire for some reason. And even now, as a grown-up adult person, with her father dead for several years, having written and published another book under a different pen name, one which again was beset by fake reviews and which was at least remarkably better than Maradonia if still not exactly "very good", you might still blame Gerry for any shenanigans. The family curse of narcissism is hard to overcome. At least she has attempted to cut all associations with Maradonia with her new public persona, which shows some degree of sound judgment. The books only exist now on the resale market, long wiped from Amazon, although the first five of six revised editions can still be purchased as e-books from Barnes & Noble. Being an OG kind of reader, I snagged myself an original edition, signed and dedicated by the author:
An unsigned copy is probably rarer; most existing copies were likely sold at the in-person promotions. I can't believe Jeff ever gave this one up, though. It didn't even look like it had ever been read. I was sure to put some wear and tear on it myself. At least now someone has read this book this decade; the legend lives on.
The go-to source tracking all of the Maradonia and Tesch family goings-on for a long time was conjugalfelicity.com but that is defunct at the moment. An alternate one-page summary can be found here: https://everything2.com/title/Gloria+...
And a recent long-form video that captures it all well is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJAgg...
**************************
Yes, with the announcement of the new upcoming book I've become a bit obsessed with catching up on the prior Maradonia material. I'm plowing through the original print edition of book 2, Maradonia and the Gold of Ophir, and I finally took the time to do a side-by-side comparison of the first Maradonia book with the newer split-edition e-book. I'm not comparing the whole thing, because gawd, who could? But I did finally read the new intro chapter in full, the one that frames the saga as a tale being told to a classroom of rapt children to explain where the evil that led to 9/11 came from. The exact same unnumbered chapter now appears first in each of the Maradonia half-books . . .
With what little I did compare side by side, I was surprised by the amount of rewriting that took place. It's a full sentence-level revision, with many passages shortened, cut, or rewritten, and new material inserted. A lot more work went into the new editions than I expected. They're still laughably terrible and full of errors, but at least there is a notable reduction in unnecessary quotation marks, and the paragraph formatting was mostly fixed. For a taste of the new, "improved" quality, here is the final passage of the first book, formerly the first half of Maradonia and the Seven Bridges. It takes place at the end of chapter 56, originally titled "General Council of the Titans" but now "General Council of the Empire". King Apollyon, the series stand-in for Lucifer, has just finished delivering his war plan to his followers (all line breaks, varied existence of spacing around ellipses, and bold/italic markups as per the text):
The question of our time remains: can Maradonia be redeemed?
The world will find out on August 6, 2024. May King Astrodoulos have mercy on our souls.
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST. Now on with the original review.
*********************************
None of it is the author's fault.
You can't blame her for any of it. Not for the constant run-on sentences. Not for the horribly artificial, stiff, and repetitive dialogue that is nothing but exposition. Not for the countless word errors. Not for the incredibly stupid storyline, filled with laughably stupid events. Not for the awful, uninspired place and person names. Not for the uninspired biblical and Narnial inserts. Not for the completely wrong paragraph formatting. Definitely not for the inexplicable abuse of ... ellipses ... so, so many ... ellipses ... and not for the bizarre use of 'scare quotes' throughout the book for things like 'names of people and places' and 'any expression that seems to indicate the author didn't know quite how to express the thing' and for some reason 'awe', always 'awe', no one ever feels awe but only 'awe'. Not for the decision to print this in the largest type you've ever seen in order to bloat the page count. Take a look next to another book for children:
You can't blame the author for how incredibly dumb the entire book is, so dumb that it's hard to demonstrate succinctly because every single element of the book is so clearly and utterly awful. Thankfully, it was amusingly so! I had many good laughs during its 810 pages, and entertained my daughter with accounts of some of the worst of it. There were boring segments too, sure, but classic passages like this one, in which the main characters are breaking mermaids out of captivity in the big bad's lair (paragraph spacing and hard returns are as per the original):
The mermaids had brought a lot of water into the room but also a lot of excitement.
Maya and Joey had to calm them down, especially Marabou who was talking like a waterfall and could not stop. Maya became angry with her and said, "Marabou, stop talking you have the 'diarrhea of words'. You have to listen very carefully to us because this is a difficult mission and not an entertainment trip.
"How exciting!" Marabou said but she didn't stop talking.
Queen Aquamarisha had to hit her finally with the flat hand on her cheek. Joey laughed and said, "Bitch slap!"
This book takes the chosen one trope and choosily chooses it to death with choice. The main characters, acclaimed as "The Encouragers" because everyone is encouraged by their mere presence, absolutely do not do anything noteworthy to earn themselves one ounce of the adoration and worship they receive. The book's titular "Seven Bridges" refer to a supposed "seven bridges of temptation" or seven tasks that Maya and Joey overcome, except that they overcome nothing, accomplish nothing, and are not subject to temptation in any way. One example: They are told they have to find some sunken rocks to cross a river as one of the tests. A giant eagle flies them to the river, they look around an oh hey there are the rocks! Joey then falls into the river while crossing the rocks, and the giant eagle plucks him out of the water and deposits him on the other side, while some doves fish his backpack out of the water and return it to him. Hooray, task accomplished! The whole land is saved! In every other way, the pair are told in advance exactly what to do, handed the tools to do it, and then are praised for being wildly successful, mostly by virtue of all enemy characters being as dumb as rocks themselves.
You can't blame the author for self-publishing or any of the marketing efforts that followed the writing, including the book trailer, obviously fake publicity photos that attempted to show the book on bestseller racks and in libraries, fake online reviews, claims that she was the youngest-ever published author, and more.
You especially can't blame the author for the Maradonia movie. That's right, there's a movie, one years in the making and the thing that finally sunk the Tesch would-be empire. I've watched all 1h40min of it and I can authoritatively say there's a not a single 2 minutes of it that makes a lick of sense or shows an ounce of talent or awareness on the part of anyone involved. There are watermarked copies of it online despite the family's attempts to eliminate it, but I don't recommend that anyone watch it. The 9-minute trailer is quite sufficient.
Gloria Tesch is not to blame for any of it, because she was a child throughout the extended affair. By all account, blame the parents who, as the legend goes, saw in this child their ticket to fortune and started "home""schooling" ("home" because they only lived in a house by the grace of serial bureaucratic abuses conducted by both parents to repeatedly defer foreclosure after they failed to ever make a single mortgage payment, and "schooling" because, well, obviously) so she could write full time. And write she did; despite the artificially inflated page count, I estimate this paper brick at 140,000 words, and she ended up producing three of them (later split into six, I'll get back to that).
In fact, blame the father foremost. Guenter "Gerry" Tesch was by all appearances a serial con man and narcissist who possibly has never read a book or seen a movie, yet felt qualified to make both of those things with some expectation of success. He dead now, but before that, he was the driving force behind promoting the hell out of his daughter and the Maradonia "franchise". He produced and directed the movie, such as it is. He split the original books in half to make it look like a longer series* (more on this at the end of this review in a post-script), added the 9/11 framing at the start that went into the movie script, penned the glowing and poorly-written introduction included in the new editions (it's uncredited but clearly him) and ten pages of fake testimonials like the following:
"Gloria's books are scholastic! Every child should be given a chance to read Gloria's Maradonia books. Many public libaries carry her books, but schools should also make an effort to get them into their libraries. Gloria is a person of human interest, a role model for many in our generation! She needs our support."
-Edward G. Teacher-
Mom helped too, seemingly to a lesser extent in all of the nonsense; she probably had better things to do. But she did illustrate the books including the cover art. Her artwork in the author's later effort, The Secret of Moon Lake was okay, but for Maradonia I can only call it, "good for high school art class". Some are okay, but what the holy hell is this:
For the record, that is the chapter whose first half is word-for-word copied and pasted as the book's prologue.
[On the topic of the parents, some Maradonia scholars hold the theory that the dad actually wrote the books. The introduction to the new editions bolsters this claim: it's hard to imagine Gloria wrote that herself, and yet it contains weird grammar and other errors and style choices that match the content of the books. It's as reasonable for the terrible writing to be Guenter Tesch's as Gloria's; believe me, with the breadth of awful writing I've indulged in, there is no age limit. The frequent use of German terms and uniquely strange (and wrong) word usage fits this theory, but it could just as well represent the father's influence on Gloria. We'll probably never know for sure either way, unless Gloria were to one day make a deathbed confession.]
I'd like to think that Gloria's direct involvement with the books faded over time. She remained the face of the would-be franchise, starred in the "movie" and participated in the marketing, usually sounding as if she was constipatedly reading off a script, and she eventually shifted her efforts to modelling, singing, and glamorous lifestyle videos, none of which caught fire for some reason. And even now, as a grown-up adult person, with her father dead for several years, having written and published another book under a different pen name, one which again was beset by fake reviews and which was at least remarkably better than Maradonia if still not exactly "very good", you might still blame Gerry for any shenanigans. The family curse of narcissism is hard to overcome. At least she has attempted to cut all associations with Maradonia with her new public persona, which shows some degree of sound judgment. The books only exist now on the resale market, long wiped from Amazon, although the first five of six revised editions can still be purchased as e-books from Barnes & Noble. Being an OG kind of reader, I snagged myself an original edition, signed and dedicated by the author:
An unsigned copy is probably rarer; most existing copies were likely sold at the in-person promotions. I can't believe Jeff ever gave this one up, though. It didn't even look like it had ever been read. I was sure to put some wear and tear on it myself. At least now someone has read this book this decade; the legend lives on.
The go-to source tracking all of the Maradonia and Tesch family goings-on for a long time was conjugalfelicity.com but that is defunct at the moment. An alternate one-page summary can be found here: https://everything2.com/title/Gloria+...
And a recent long-form video that captures it all well is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJAgg...
**************************
Yes, with the announcement of the new upcoming book I've become a bit obsessed with catching up on the prior Maradonia material. I'm plowing through the original print edition of book 2, Maradonia and the Gold of Ophir, and I finally took the time to do a side-by-side comparison of the first Maradonia book with the newer split-edition e-book. I'm not comparing the whole thing, because gawd, who could? But I did finally read the new intro chapter in full, the one that frames the saga as a tale being told to a classroom of rapt children to explain where the evil that led to 9/11 came from. The exact same unnumbered chapter now appears first in each of the Maradonia half-books . . .
With what little I did compare side by side, I was surprised by the amount of rewriting that took place. It's a full sentence-level revision, with many passages shortened, cut, or rewritten, and new material inserted. A lot more work went into the new editions than I expected. They're still laughably terrible and full of errors, but at least there is a notable reduction in unnecessary quotation marks, and the paragraph formatting was mostly fixed. For a taste of the new, "improved" quality, here is the final passage of the first book, formerly the first half of Maradonia and the Seven Bridges. It takes place at the end of chapter 56, originally titled "General Council of the Titans" but now "General Council of the Empire". King Apollyon, the series stand-in for Lucifer, has just finished delivering his war plan to his followers (all line breaks, varied existence of spacing around ellipses, and bold/italic markups as per the text):
The faces of the three dark fairies started intensively to glow and the green yellow eyes of Gertrude flamed with evil excitement as she looked at her sister fairies Lorris and Ceara and uttered,Doesn't that just make you immediately want to read book 2?
"Soon... very soon, we have a real war! How exciting! Ohhh...how wonderful...
Fire... Explosions... People will die...
Ohhh... That's marvelous!"
Gertrude was deeply inhaling... "Haaaach!
Yeah... how awesome it will be to see multitudes of enemies die... and we will get drunk... Yes...Yes...
We will get drunk ... Ahhhh...
We will get drunk...
by drinking the warm blood of our enemies!"
September 12, 2014
The impression you'd get from the reviewer "Sam" is that this is the best thing since sliced bread and that you should TOTALLY buy this BRILLIANT work of ART. This SWEEPING EPIC will make you positively orgasm with vicarious delight.
If only that were the case.
The book is a mess. Not even drinking games will make this a worthwhile read unless you have a penchant for seeking out and mocking horrific writing. In which case, proceed at your leisure.
If you want to learn how not to write something, this series is that collection of textbooks you've been looking for. Feel free to get out the highlighter, as each page has some choice piece of malignant prose to offer.
There are redundancies, paradoxisms, half-baked philosophies, an overflow of fridge logic, and even simple spelling errors. It's everything you'd expect if the book was written by a child with little-to-no concept of story writing.
I'm sure there have been readings of this work, and even some reaction videos posted online in pursuit of the Troll 2 "so bad it's good" viral trend.
Go pop over to ImpishIdea to get a real idea of the "treat" you, the potential reader of this literary heap are in for. Or you could buy the book- although I wouldn't suggest it.
You'll laugh
You'll cry
You'll kiss fifteen bucks goodbye.
And you just might just find yourself fantasizing about the milkshake and hamburger deals you could have gotten if you'd decided to not get the book.
If only that were the case.
The book is a mess. Not even drinking games will make this a worthwhile read unless you have a penchant for seeking out and mocking horrific writing. In which case, proceed at your leisure.
If you want to learn how not to write something, this series is that collection of textbooks you've been looking for. Feel free to get out the highlighter, as each page has some choice piece of malignant prose to offer.
There are redundancies, paradoxisms, half-baked philosophies, an overflow of fridge logic, and even simple spelling errors. It's everything you'd expect if the book was written by a child with little-to-no concept of story writing.
I'm sure there have been readings of this work, and even some reaction videos posted online in pursuit of the Troll 2 "so bad it's good" viral trend.
Go pop over to ImpishIdea to get a real idea of the "treat" you, the potential reader of this literary heap are in for. Or you could buy the book- although I wouldn't suggest it.
You'll laugh
You'll cry
You'll kiss fifteen bucks goodbye.
And you just might just find yourself fantasizing about the milkshake and hamburger deals you could have gotten if you'd decided to not get the book.
July 12, 2011
This is basically the Rebecca Black of self-published books.... without the ironic rise to fame, of course. It's always amazing when something is so bad in just the right way that it becomes more successful as a meme than as its intended purpose, and this is exactly one of those rare gems. I've only been able to read parts of this mess online, but I've heard from many reviewers that the actual books themselves are just as physically shoddy and poorly held-together as the writing and story, how appropriate. I wasn't sure whether this deserved a 5 for its unintended entertainment value, but in the end I'll have to be honest.....it's 1 star or less, in every real sense.
April 30, 2011
If you've heard of Gloria Tesch, you've probably heard that she promotes herself as the youngest novelist in the world. Well, she's not.
And even if she were, her debut novel "Maradonia and the Seven Bridges" wouldn't exactly be a rousing advertisement for teenage authors. This self-published disaster is a meandering plotless mess, making its way through a sludgy mixture of cutesy fantasy, horrible Christian symbolism, and writing bad enough to make your eyeballs burn.
Maya and Joey are a pair of Mary-Sueish teenagers who meander onto a mysterious beach that transports them into a world of talking animals, house-sized sunflowers, and an army conveniently waiting for them to show up. They are soon informed that they are the Encouragers of Maradonia... which means they... have to encourage people. Yeah, it's stupid.
So they are immediately recruited by the kindly King Astrodolous to defeat the evil King Abbadon, which seems to involve a lot of rescuing mermaids and unicorns while blurting out ridiculous pseudo-philosophy ("Every living creature in this world has a soul and everything what lives has eyes and ears and a voice!").
Obviously "Maradonia and the Seven Bridges" is a blatant ripoff of C.S. Lewis' Narnia stories, but that doesn't really do justice to the mind-blowing horror of this book. There is not one chapter, one page, one SENTENCE that does not drip ineptitude from every word, to the point where a parody could not rival its ridiculousness.
Part of this is because Tesch is just a horrible writer -- her book really has no plot, and she tries to distract us from that by cramming in simplistic Christian symbolism, nonsensical perils (oh no, a random puddle of toxic waste!), and storylines that go absolutely nowhere. Even worse, her dialogue. It's full if bizarre non sequiturs, run-on sentences, random quotation marks and italicization. And it makes absolutely no sense.
Here's a small sampling of her writing style... and keep in mind, it is like this on every PAGE:
"The `Land of Maradonia' is a land between lands or let me explain it with these words `a space between spaces' and you came bodily into this land."
"Mountains cannot be conquered! You conquer yourself! You conquer your fears and can conquer your own future but you will never conquer a mountain!"
And Tesch doesn't make up for this with likable characters -- Maya is pretty much useless, and Joey is absolutely vile. There are seemingly thousands of other characters who are never fleshed out at all, and Tesch manages to completely forget about one of them for about half the book.
"Maradonia and the Seven Bridges" is far, far worse than you would expect a teenage girl's book to be -- there are books by preteens that are superior in quality. The best thing I can say about it is... nothing.
And even if she were, her debut novel "Maradonia and the Seven Bridges" wouldn't exactly be a rousing advertisement for teenage authors. This self-published disaster is a meandering plotless mess, making its way through a sludgy mixture of cutesy fantasy, horrible Christian symbolism, and writing bad enough to make your eyeballs burn.
Maya and Joey are a pair of Mary-Sueish teenagers who meander onto a mysterious beach that transports them into a world of talking animals, house-sized sunflowers, and an army conveniently waiting for them to show up. They are soon informed that they are the Encouragers of Maradonia... which means they... have to encourage people. Yeah, it's stupid.
So they are immediately recruited by the kindly King Astrodolous to defeat the evil King Abbadon, which seems to involve a lot of rescuing mermaids and unicorns while blurting out ridiculous pseudo-philosophy ("Every living creature in this world has a soul and everything what lives has eyes and ears and a voice!").
Obviously "Maradonia and the Seven Bridges" is a blatant ripoff of C.S. Lewis' Narnia stories, but that doesn't really do justice to the mind-blowing horror of this book. There is not one chapter, one page, one SENTENCE that does not drip ineptitude from every word, to the point where a parody could not rival its ridiculousness.
Part of this is because Tesch is just a horrible writer -- her book really has no plot, and she tries to distract us from that by cramming in simplistic Christian symbolism, nonsensical perils (oh no, a random puddle of toxic waste!), and storylines that go absolutely nowhere. Even worse, her dialogue. It's full if bizarre non sequiturs, run-on sentences, random quotation marks and italicization. And it makes absolutely no sense.
Here's a small sampling of her writing style... and keep in mind, it is like this on every PAGE:
"The `Land of Maradonia' is a land between lands or let me explain it with these words `a space between spaces' and you came bodily into this land."
"Mountains cannot be conquered! You conquer yourself! You conquer your fears and can conquer your own future but you will never conquer a mountain!"
And Tesch doesn't make up for this with likable characters -- Maya is pretty much useless, and Joey is absolutely vile. There are seemingly thousands of other characters who are never fleshed out at all, and Tesch manages to completely forget about one of them for about half the book.
"Maradonia and the Seven Bridges" is far, far worse than you would expect a teenage girl's book to be -- there are books by preteens that are superior in quality. The best thing I can say about it is... nothing.
June 9, 2021
"She looked around and when she saw Joey she asked, 'Did you also fell down?'"
That passage says it all for this laughably bad book.
That passage says it all for this laughably bad book.
August 25, 2012
Kill it, kill it with fire, please...
February 5, 2015
Instead of wasting your time with this turd just spend a day sniffing glue you'll enjoy it a lot more and its better for your health
July 10, 2012
So, I made a review on Drew Markus's revew, and while it shows up on his account, it doesn't seem to be showing up on the actual page. So, in order to not run the risk of it being deleted or lost, I'm putting it as a stand alone review in response his post:
A couple of "average kids" go through a "secret portal" and find an "alternate world" where they become "instant royalty" and fulfill an "ancient prophesy." That doesn't sound familiar to you? You've never heard of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia?
Grammar isn't a guideline, it's a rule; an inflexible law of the literary universe. It's the gravity of the written word. A teen author is not exempt from that; if anything being a teenager makes it twice as important that the writing be above par. When I was ten, I wrote a story about a group of kids who go back in time onto the Titanic. The writing reflected that I was ten and I never gave any thought to publishing it. Gloria’s writing also reflects that she was ten, and it was a bad decision on her parents to send it to publishing when it was the clearly novice work of a very young girl.
Maya and Joey weren’t relatable at all. First of all, Gloria’s character started out as a pair of high school students when Gloria was still in elementary school. She had no idea what the social structure of a high school is like, and that was glaringly obvious. Maya was also an unrelenting Mary-Sue. She’s a beautiful, brilliant, talented, artistic, strong etc. ad nauseum, and the character of Joey is even worse.
Really? You’re going to compare the work of a self-published adolescent girl to one of the most prolific and talented modern fairytale writers of our time? Are you joking? Neil Gaiman, the author of Coraline, Graveyard Book, Sandman, and co-author of Good Omens isn’t as good as Gloria Tesch? The two aren’t even comparable. That’d be like comparing a garage band made up entirely of seven-year-old boys to Aerosmith.
I’ll agree that authors like Tolkien or Goodkind go way too far overboard with world building, but Gloria has almost none at all. She drops in a sentence or two about this magnificent world she’s supposed to have created, but you never see the world. She knows nothing about the concept of show-don’t-tell and there is no such thing as unimportant grammar. Once again, it’s a literary law.
The world has lost fairy tales? Really? Are Libba Bray, Jim Butcher, Terry Pratchett, Holly Black, Rob Thurman and Simon R. Green figments of my imagination? People who write fairy tales don’t edit them out of their stories; that would be counterproductive.
What you don’t understand is that there is more to building a story than “and then they did this, this, and this and they all loved happily ever after.” It’s a process of creating a believable and enticing world that is rich and complicated and insights emotions. Scary moments in a story should scare the reader, not say “and they were scared.” Again, it’s the rule of show-don’t-tell. If grammar is gravity, show-don’t-tell is the also unbreakable rule of exponents.
I personally hope that Gloria Tesch puts the Maradonia books away and tries writing a new story with a worthy manuscript that she sends to editors and publishes legitimately. She’s obviously got drive and determination, but if the Maradonia books are all she has to offer, then she clearly lacks the talent to be a successful writer, and the way she conducts herself is already ruining her chances of ever accomplishing anything lasting and worthwhile.
A couple of "average kids" go through a "secret portal" and find an "alternate world" where they become "instant royalty" and fulfill an "ancient prophesy." That doesn't sound familiar to you? You've never heard of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia?
Grammar isn't a guideline, it's a rule; an inflexible law of the literary universe. It's the gravity of the written word. A teen author is not exempt from that; if anything being a teenager makes it twice as important that the writing be above par. When I was ten, I wrote a story about a group of kids who go back in time onto the Titanic. The writing reflected that I was ten and I never gave any thought to publishing it. Gloria’s writing also reflects that she was ten, and it was a bad decision on her parents to send it to publishing when it was the clearly novice work of a very young girl.
Maya and Joey weren’t relatable at all. First of all, Gloria’s character started out as a pair of high school students when Gloria was still in elementary school. She had no idea what the social structure of a high school is like, and that was glaringly obvious. Maya was also an unrelenting Mary-Sue. She’s a beautiful, brilliant, talented, artistic, strong etc. ad nauseum, and the character of Joey is even worse.
Really? You’re going to compare the work of a self-published adolescent girl to one of the most prolific and talented modern fairytale writers of our time? Are you joking? Neil Gaiman, the author of Coraline, Graveyard Book, Sandman, and co-author of Good Omens isn’t as good as Gloria Tesch? The two aren’t even comparable. That’d be like comparing a garage band made up entirely of seven-year-old boys to Aerosmith.
I’ll agree that authors like Tolkien or Goodkind go way too far overboard with world building, but Gloria has almost none at all. She drops in a sentence or two about this magnificent world she’s supposed to have created, but you never see the world. She knows nothing about the concept of show-don’t-tell and there is no such thing as unimportant grammar. Once again, it’s a literary law.
The world has lost fairy tales? Really? Are Libba Bray, Jim Butcher, Terry Pratchett, Holly Black, Rob Thurman and Simon R. Green figments of my imagination? People who write fairy tales don’t edit them out of their stories; that would be counterproductive.
What you don’t understand is that there is more to building a story than “and then they did this, this, and this and they all loved happily ever after.” It’s a process of creating a believable and enticing world that is rich and complicated and insights emotions. Scary moments in a story should scare the reader, not say “and they were scared.” Again, it’s the rule of show-don’t-tell. If grammar is gravity, show-don’t-tell is the also unbreakable rule of exponents.
I personally hope that Gloria Tesch puts the Maradonia books away and tries writing a new story with a worthy manuscript that she sends to editors and publishes legitimately. She’s obviously got drive and determination, but if the Maradonia books are all she has to offer, then she clearly lacks the talent to be a successful writer, and the way she conducts herself is already ruining her chances of ever accomplishing anything lasting and worthwhile.
April 10, 2013
I found out about this book from the WriterfromNowhere on YouTube, and he reviewed it as horrible, so of course, I had to check it out for myself.
Let me first off say that I feel bad for Gloria about as much as you feel bad for an orphan...divided by ten trillion million thousand.
I understand she wanted to write a book. She just did a crap job at it. The story, just from reading about it sounds reminiscent of Narnia and Harry Potter and is littered with cheap Christian symbolism. This book sounded like something an 8 year old wrote in her spare time.
Did she even edit? Probably not? Maya and Joey are just...boring. They make Mary Sues look good. Which is saying something.
Plot
Oh God. With a capital 'G'. Gloria steals from the Bible, The Chronicles of Narnia and well, her own strange mind. It's just confusing, stereotypical, and sounds like the brain-child of a dreaming 6 year old who wants to go to Narnia. It sounds like a fanfiction, to be honest.
Characters
I swear Gloria first made Joey and Maya love interests, but then thought that would be too Sue-ish. Well, yeah, but making them siblings and in love is just weird. Sues, again and just boring.
Also, it seems every single character is mentioned when they are present.
"...Abbadon, Plouton, Aruses, Gertrude, Lorris, Ceara, Andromeda and Cassandra, Persiano and Pegany and seven other powerful fairies,".
Grammar and Other Mechanics
Usually this doesn't have to be included, but it does here. Armed assault against ellipses, strange italics, other strange stuff...
Style
Boring. I think when she was learning to write, she took 'show don't tell' and changed it into 'tell don't show'. For God's sake, you don't have to tell every single breath one of the characters takes.
Pro's - Rivals My Immortal fanfic, hysterical to read and poke fun at.
Con's - Everything listed above, plus Gloria shamelessly self-promotes using 'psychological doctors' with names like 'Earl J.' as sock puppets who say 'with my astute knowledge, I say that ____ is right and _____ is amazing. Bull. Don't bother reading this or buying this unless you want to poke fun.
Let me first off say that I feel bad for Gloria about as much as you feel bad for an orphan...divided by ten trillion million thousand.
I understand she wanted to write a book. She just did a crap job at it. The story, just from reading about it sounds reminiscent of Narnia and Harry Potter and is littered with cheap Christian symbolism. This book sounded like something an 8 year old wrote in her spare time.
Did she even edit? Probably not? Maya and Joey are just...boring. They make Mary Sues look good. Which is saying something.
Plot
Oh God. With a capital 'G'. Gloria steals from the Bible, The Chronicles of Narnia and well, her own strange mind. It's just confusing, stereotypical, and sounds like the brain-child of a dreaming 6 year old who wants to go to Narnia. It sounds like a fanfiction, to be honest.
Characters
I swear Gloria first made Joey and Maya love interests, but then thought that would be too Sue-ish. Well, yeah, but making them siblings and in love is just weird. Sues, again and just boring.
Also, it seems every single character is mentioned when they are present.
"...Abbadon, Plouton, Aruses, Gertrude, Lorris, Ceara, Andromeda and Cassandra, Persiano and Pegany and seven other powerful fairies,".
Grammar and Other Mechanics
Usually this doesn't have to be included, but it does here. Armed assault against ellipses, strange italics, other strange stuff...
Style
Boring. I think when she was learning to write, she took 'show don't tell' and changed it into 'tell don't show'. For God's sake, you don't have to tell every single breath one of the characters takes.
Pro's - Rivals My Immortal fanfic, hysterical to read and poke fun at.
Con's - Everything listed above, plus Gloria shamelessly self-promotes using 'psychological doctors' with names like 'Earl J.' as sock puppets who say 'with my astute knowledge, I say that ____ is right and _____ is amazing. Bull. Don't bother reading this or buying this unless you want to poke fun.
April 14, 2014
You know what's worse than a bad novel? A bad novel with a whole marketing machine behind it. No, I'm not talking about the latest from Shlockmeister Stephanie Meyer, I'm talking about Gloria Tesch and her "Maradonia" books.
You might have never heard of her and consider yourself lucky if you have. You have been spared the pain of knowing such a self-centered, vapid excuse for a person actually exists. If you search, especially on this site, you'll notice one thing really quickly. All the 5 star ratings she gets are from certain people or these same people have only written one review which is co-incidentally for her book(s).
The whole Maradonia series is a mishmash of poorly thought out situations, obvious setups, anachronistic technology and some of the worst dialogue you can imagine.
The story itself is rather bland not to mention cliche in the extreme. Two ordinary kids find a portal to a magical land. Here they find they're important and fulfilling a prophecy. Personally I much preferred it when C.S. Lewis wrote about Narnia. He at least was able to put some rather obvious Christian allegory into his story without being hamhanded about it.
Gloria writes with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. A few times I could almost imagine her giggling in the background shrieking "ask me what it means!" over and over again when some obvious symbolism crept in.
It's a shame to say that I picked this up from a box of old books by the side of the road and I still feel I was overcharged for it. That's right. I got this book for free and still feel somebody should have paid me to take it off their hands.
There is nothing redeeming about this book or the author. Avoid it at all costs.
You might have never heard of her and consider yourself lucky if you have. You have been spared the pain of knowing such a self-centered, vapid excuse for a person actually exists. If you search, especially on this site, you'll notice one thing really quickly. All the 5 star ratings she gets are from certain people or these same people have only written one review which is co-incidentally for her book(s).
The whole Maradonia series is a mishmash of poorly thought out situations, obvious setups, anachronistic technology and some of the worst dialogue you can imagine.
The story itself is rather bland not to mention cliche in the extreme. Two ordinary kids find a portal to a magical land. Here they find they're important and fulfilling a prophecy. Personally I much preferred it when C.S. Lewis wrote about Narnia. He at least was able to put some rather obvious Christian allegory into his story without being hamhanded about it.
Gloria writes with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. A few times I could almost imagine her giggling in the background shrieking "ask me what it means!" over and over again when some obvious symbolism crept in.
It's a shame to say that I picked this up from a box of old books by the side of the road and I still feel I was overcharged for it. That's right. I got this book for free and still feel somebody should have paid me to take it off their hands.
There is nothing redeeming about this book or the author. Avoid it at all costs.
January 6, 2015
The internet hype machine indicates that this is some of the worst writing ever printed in book form. Now that it's available as an ebook, I decided to pick it up, ready to be amused. My reaction was...blah. I've come across much, much worse writing. Yes, it's silly and unoriginal. But I can name you dozens of fantasy series that are silly, badly plotted, and unoriginal. Same goes for characterization: lots of books get this wrong, and Gloria Tesch is no worse than some other self-published authors that have crossed my path. Sure, the writing is stilted, but it isn't stilted enough to be particularly amusing. In short, Gloria Tesch's awful promotional techniques, internet drama, movie and theme park delusions, and Youtube clips are all much more amusing in their badness than are her actual books.
July 12, 2012
I've waited for this book all summer and it was definitely worth the wait. This book was so fun to read and engaging that I finished it in one day. I just could not put it down. This book was written for children but it will also appeal to older readers as well. I should know, I'm 18 years old. The descriptions of the magic world were so fun and imaginative.
This book will probably make a great movie but it will be hard to put all the enchanting descriptions into words. I loved it so much that I had to order the sequel Maradonia and the Gold of Ophir. I can't wait to read it and I hope the author continues the adventures of Maya and Joey for years to come. A fantastic book!
This book will probably make a great movie but it will be hard to put all the enchanting descriptions into words. I loved it so much that I had to order the sequel Maradonia and the Gold of Ophir. I can't wait to read it and I hope the author continues the adventures of Maya and Joey for years to come. A fantastic book!
November 25, 2011
This book is BAD.
I mean it. BAD.
But it's one of those hilariously horrible books that, if you can get your hands on it, is worth reading. Just don't pay the price to get it, okay?
The only reason I got a chance to read it is because a friend's mother had it for bookclub or something.
Just... if you get a chance, read it. If not, read a sporking of it. It's too funny to miss out on.
I mean it. BAD.
But it's one of those hilariously horrible books that, if you can get your hands on it, is worth reading. Just don't pay the price to get it, okay?
The only reason I got a chance to read it is because a friend's mother had it for bookclub or something.
Just... if you get a chance, read it. If not, read a sporking of it. It's too funny to miss out on.
January 10, 2010
It seemed like a rebranding of c.s lewis's narnia series... Except that he has far better writing skills and more imagination with naming things, people, and plot in general. Boring.
December 31, 2012
The only way I could retain my sanity while reading this was by reading it out loud with a friend of mine. This POS takes itself way too seriously. It thinks it is the next moral guide to help the youth of the world. It is not. Not by a mile. The characters, if one could call them that, were so one dimensional and unlikable Mary Sues. It is, to quote another reviewer for a different book, "as if the writer took the Mary Sue test and checked all the boxes." everything they do is presented as wise or perfect. If they have flaws, they are completely irrelevant and unhelpful to the plot. The plot was a complete rip-off of the Bible- according to various reviewers, there are some scenes completely plagiarized from The Bible.
The writing was awkward and clunky at best, downright terrible at worst. The dialogue was too theatrical to be beliavable, and the logic made no sense.
The only good thing this book offered was unintentional comedy, and fantastic sporking material.
The writing was awkward and clunky at best, downright terrible at worst. The dialogue was too theatrical to be beliavable, and the logic made no sense.
The only good thing this book offered was unintentional comedy, and fantastic sporking material.
February 29, 2016
I bought this book for a penny, and it was a signed copy no less. Unfortunately, it seems to not be worth even as much as that, and here's why: While I will give Ms. Tesch credit, this book made me laugh and I had a fun time reading it, it wasn't for the reasons that she was probably hoping for. This book is generally awful, with poor formatting and writing that was clearly unedited from the first draft. I would be willing to forgive that if the story was interesting, but it's not. The story itself, without giving away anything, is boring, generic, and easily predictable. And as for the main characters, Maya and Joey, they are, without a doubt, the most sociopathic, awful main characters I've ever seen that were not supposed to behave in that sense.
However, for what's it worth, it's good for a laugh or a gag gift, or even to explore the mind of a young girl with an incredibly large ego, so I'll give it two stars. I also recommend it if you're a writer, that way you can remind yourself you can always do better than this.
However, for what's it worth, it's good for a laugh or a gag gift, or even to explore the mind of a young girl with an incredibly large ego, so I'll give it two stars. I also recommend it if you're a writer, that way you can remind yourself you can always do better than this.
February 26, 2017
The book isn't as bad as the reviews say. I really enjoyed the story even though it was made for twelve-year-olds. It's nice to relax your mind with something new and see things from another perspective. Give her a chance. 5 stars for effort.
September 3, 2013
I hope the author realizes that there is a book about lying concrete that's more successful and interesting than this.
August 8, 2012
The new E-Book version of Maradonia and the Seven Bridges hit my brain and burned a big hole into my soul. I am pretty sure that several people might not agree with me, but I really believe the edited version with its brand new prologue of this book is World Literature. The stories of this teenager author and novelist Gloria Tesch are just overwhelming because of the simplicity and they show from their psychological proportions in the life of the siblings, Maya and Joey, and in their fight between good versus evil a far deeper substance – basically a story behind the story - and this is one of the reasons why I believe that the Maradonia Saga will certainly have a longer life line in the future than the Twilight or the Harry Potter series. But as a doctor with solid psychological background I see also other reasons: The Maradonia Saga is not just entertainment! Maradonia is a life style because it meets our longings to experience the truth of life, love and death. However, this Maradonia Life-Style is in my opinion able to help the reader better to understand life itself and his role in his own family, the nation and in the universe.
I read all six books of the Maradonia Saga and forgive me, but I believe this series can play sooner or later an important role for fans, middle readers and young adults. Again, this series is a must-read for parents, teachers, and librarians that will serve as a bridge to growth in knowledge, faith and in the understanding that there is also tremendous power in positive thinking.
I read all six books of the Maradonia Saga and forgive me, but I believe this series can play sooner or later an important role for fans, middle readers and young adults. Again, this series is a must-read for parents, teachers, and librarians that will serve as a bridge to growth in knowledge, faith and in the understanding that there is also tremendous power in positive thinking.
July 17, 2012
Maradonia and the Seven Bridges is a very well-written book, portraying an epic battle of good vs evil between a brother and sister and many mythical, dangerous creatures. It is a story that gives good morals as well as philosophical morals, and you read on in the book, you see the brother and sister really mature in the story, which makes Maya and Joey relatable characters for children of all ages! It starts out as just a pair of outgoing, adventurous teenagers who soon encounter a conquest depicitating the powers of darkness. They must go over several tests and temptations. I give the Maradonia Saga my recommendation for anyone who wants to lose themselves in a grant sweeping epic fantasy that can stand up against the finest of the genre!
July 12, 2012
This is a magical story of two young teenagers who learns bravery, positive thinking, magic and friendship withheld in the land of Maradonia.
I was looking for a non-sports book for my ten year old to enjoy. Much to my delight Maradonia became the read out loud bedtime story for the past two weeks.
I must admit that I read ahead when I was going to be out of town for the night, so that I could share the story with them over the phone. I intend to purchase many for Christmas gifts.
I'm actually on the internet looking to see if there's a sequel. Beautifully written.
I was looking for a non-sports book for my ten year old to enjoy. Much to my delight Maradonia became the read out loud bedtime story for the past two weeks.
I must admit that I read ahead when I was going to be out of town for the night, so that I could share the story with them over the phone. I intend to purchase many for Christmas gifts.
I'm actually on the internet looking to see if there's a sequel. Beautifully written.
June 15, 2013
My eyes hurt after reading this.
February 27, 2017
Just finished this one this afternoon. great story. i really enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next n the series
October 20, 2017
It's interesting that the only positive reviews that don't delight in the 'so bad it's atrocious' hilarity of this thing come from accounts that have reviewed nada apart from Gloria Tesch's magnum opus. The book itself is very, very funny in all kinds of unintended ways: horrible grammar, weird formatting, Unnecessarily Capitalised Words, a humongous font, and so much plagiarism (Narnia and the Bible, mostly), it'll make your head spin. The worst aspects are the author's arrogance, though, and well as her (and her parents', I suppose) dishonest promotional tactics: sockpuppetry, highjacking Yahoo Answers, and blatant lies (no, she was never the youngest novelist in the world). It's fun to mock all this, but the book itself reads like (as Swankivy put it) a child's literary potty training. Now it's out there, though, and worthy of ridicule. I would be more forgiving if Tesch didn't compare herself to Stephen King and J.K. Rowling, but she does, so there.
October 11, 2011
I tried to finish this book. I really did........it was just.....BAD. There is just know other way to describe it. No word that could convey just how horrible this 'book' truly is.
April 9, 2013
This book was a door opener for me! I loved reading the concept of this story... There is more story in it then you ever thought. People really need to have an open mind for this story. K thanks.
Want to read
April 13, 2012Because I don't want to believe there could possibly be an 'published' author who is actually far worst than the likes of Alexandra Adornetto or the author of the My Immortal fanfic (okay I'm making wild exaggerations here but who cares, really?).
This I have got to see. I'm gonna read this as constant inspiration for my own worksand prime example of how NOT to write a novel.
This I have got to see. I'm gonna read this as constant inspiration for my own works
April 27, 2014
I've had to think for over a month about what to write about the first four books. I can't even continue reading anymore. I realize it was ostensibly written by a ten-year-old, and that some people think anything written by a kid should get a good rating by default. However, if this was aimed at an audience of kids, it would be confusing and boring. If aimed at an adult audience, it's snark-fodder and still confusing and boring. Even if you're ten, you need an audience in mind. Who would read this book and enjoy it? The very rare person, that's who.
Since the author is now an adult and refuses to put out a revised edition, we can assume that she stands by this book as written, so I will review it with the mindset that the author is an adult, not a child.
Some major problems include an extreme lack of editing, aside from the story. Punctuation, grammar, spelling, etc., could have been cleaned up by an adult, if not the author herself, to some degree. I can give a pass to an occasional error. However these mistakes shouldn't be so often that it's not far off to say they occur in every sentence.
The reliable on purple prose goes into urple. Prose properly used is poetic. Purple prose is overly flowery. Urple is just plain distracting. The entire saga opens with an over-the-top description of a sunset that is so far out there that it's easy to not realize for a beat what she's talking about. It's jarring in a way that removes you from the pages, and that's not a good way to open any book.
On the other side, when urple wasn't used, overly-cliched descriptions were. The one that made me laugh the most was mentioned by another reviewer. "Tall and evil" for the villain! Stephenie Meyer was snarked for describing the Volturi in a similar manner, and others have joked about how the bad guys might be standing there twirling their comical mustaches. An imposing man with a hard face that seemed to have never known more than a sneer, with a cruel glint in his eyes, gets the idea across without relying on "tall and evil."
As far as the story goes, it does read like bad Narnia fanfiction. A couple kids, siblings, of course, go through a portal, and the fate of that world relies on those kids. Lewis weaved a complex story with many characters we wanted to know about. Maya and Joey were whiny, and I wished Tolkien's Nazgul would swoop in, grab them, and drop them into Mt. Doom. More or less, they meandered from one disaster to the next, saved by deus ex machina. It dragged, and to be completely honest, I started reading these books in bed when I was having a hard time sleeping. Classical music relaxes me, but these books bored me to sleep.
I don't think much of this is Gloria's fault. Her parents have clearly been pushing this since she was a child. They're the ones who funded print runs, paid their friends to be editors, laid out large sums of money hiring Hollywood filming crews (most who have quit) to make a movie and film trailers. It seems that, from early childhood, the girl's parents have told her everything she does is perfect, and that she mastered the art of story-telling when she was still a child. Gloria might be shielded from any real criticism. She's been pushed into modeling and writing, and has clearly only heard praise from the very people who should have encouraged her to learn the craft instead of telling the world how they parented the world's youngest published author (she's far from the youngest) and forcing her into their mold. The Tesches are a train wreck, and unfortunately their daughter is a casualty of their delusions. If they had encouraged her education instead of living vicariously through Gloria, she would have written better books, if she herself even decided writing is what she genuinely wants to do.
Gloria, if you ever happen to read this, go back to school. Finish your basic education, and figure out what YOU want to do, not what your parents have forced you to do. It doesn't matter if they get disappointed if you don't want sexy pictures taken on beaches or if you don't want to sit at yet another book-signing signing books for the same crowd your parents hire each time, the same people who appear in all the videos. You're the one who has to live your life. If your parents will only be proud of you for turning out books that their friends/editors won't actually edit lest it make you sad to see a dot of red ink, then they're not worth it. What does Gloria enjoy doing for Gloria? As these books go in, it starts to come through that you're forcing out words instead of putting your heard into this.
Since the author is now an adult and refuses to put out a revised edition, we can assume that she stands by this book as written, so I will review it with the mindset that the author is an adult, not a child.
Some major problems include an extreme lack of editing, aside from the story. Punctuation, grammar, spelling, etc., could have been cleaned up by an adult, if not the author herself, to some degree. I can give a pass to an occasional error. However these mistakes shouldn't be so often that it's not far off to say they occur in every sentence.
The reliable on purple prose goes into urple. Prose properly used is poetic. Purple prose is overly flowery. Urple is just plain distracting. The entire saga opens with an over-the-top description of a sunset that is so far out there that it's easy to not realize for a beat what she's talking about. It's jarring in a way that removes you from the pages, and that's not a good way to open any book.
On the other side, when urple wasn't used, overly-cliched descriptions were. The one that made me laugh the most was mentioned by another reviewer. "Tall and evil" for the villain! Stephenie Meyer was snarked for describing the Volturi in a similar manner, and others have joked about how the bad guys might be standing there twirling their comical mustaches. An imposing man with a hard face that seemed to have never known more than a sneer, with a cruel glint in his eyes, gets the idea across without relying on "tall and evil."
As far as the story goes, it does read like bad Narnia fanfiction. A couple kids, siblings, of course, go through a portal, and the fate of that world relies on those kids. Lewis weaved a complex story with many characters we wanted to know about. Maya and Joey were whiny, and I wished Tolkien's Nazgul would swoop in, grab them, and drop them into Mt. Doom. More or less, they meandered from one disaster to the next, saved by deus ex machina. It dragged, and to be completely honest, I started reading these books in bed when I was having a hard time sleeping. Classical music relaxes me, but these books bored me to sleep.
I don't think much of this is Gloria's fault. Her parents have clearly been pushing this since she was a child. They're the ones who funded print runs, paid their friends to be editors, laid out large sums of money hiring Hollywood filming crews (most who have quit) to make a movie and film trailers. It seems that, from early childhood, the girl's parents have told her everything she does is perfect, and that she mastered the art of story-telling when she was still a child. Gloria might be shielded from any real criticism. She's been pushed into modeling and writing, and has clearly only heard praise from the very people who should have encouraged her to learn the craft instead of telling the world how they parented the world's youngest published author (she's far from the youngest) and forcing her into their mold. The Tesches are a train wreck, and unfortunately their daughter is a casualty of their delusions. If they had encouraged her education instead of living vicariously through Gloria, she would have written better books, if she herself even decided writing is what she genuinely wants to do.
Gloria, if you ever happen to read this, go back to school. Finish your basic education, and figure out what YOU want to do, not what your parents have forced you to do. It doesn't matter if they get disappointed if you don't want sexy pictures taken on beaches or if you don't want to sit at yet another book-signing signing books for the same crowd your parents hire each time, the same people who appear in all the videos. You're the one who has to live your life. If your parents will only be proud of you for turning out books that their friends/editors won't actually edit lest it make you sad to see a dot of red ink, then they're not worth it. What does Gloria enjoy doing for Gloria? As these books go in, it starts to come through that you're forcing out words instead of putting your heard into this.
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