Novel Tease

What happens when an author gets bad reviews on Goodreads? Probably not this, but if the author also happens to work at a slaughterhouse … who knows?

Frequently funny, with a touching — and definitely unique — sex scene, this story does ask some good questions about just how far it's fair to go in trashing a bad novel.

It's not easy to see how much is satire and how much heartfelt hatred of hypercritical reviewers. I lean towards believing it's the former, but:

"And in this brand new digital age these malcontents, often young and with a sense of entitlement, have grown up quite ignorant of the laws of libel. In fact, they're already used to writing whatever they damn well please, happy to trot out the old defence of free speech."

Hmmm. Yes, that's dialogue and not necessarily the author's own opinion, but frankly I've been known to be hypercritical myself, and I do understand the difference between libel and opinion. After all, if a review is libelous, an author can actually do something about it. Short of murder.

I'm tempted to shelve it as "pigs-write-better-than-this", but I'm not sure Mr. Franklin would see the humor (or whether he works in an abattoir).