Personal dilemma

[Piglord]

So, a friend of a friend wrote a book series. Met the dude a couple times, seems like a cool dude and writing these books were his literal life long dream. They asked if I would give them a read. Got some free time, so I thought why the hell not. Goddamn did they suck. It was a six book series. The first five were bearable, but the last book was absolutely horrible. The genre is post apocalyptic EMP/bio-attack/zombies/invasion. I don't particularly hate this genre, but I do not like his writing style. It is that style that has a couple pages with group A that leads to a cliff-hanger, jump to group B a couple more pages, cliff-hanger, jump to group C for a couple pages. Rinse and repeat.

Like I said the first five books were bearable. However, the last book you could tell that he had made up his mind to start winding down the series. Instead of giving any meaningful conclusions he decided to pull a Walking Dead/GoT and just started killing people off for the shock/sadness factor. It instead caused frustration and irritation, because it made at least half of all content he had written irrelevant, meaning with some very minor changes to just a couple scenes he could have completely deleted things he had spent hundreds of pages developing and it would have had zero impact on the story. To make things worse, I realized I'm about 90% finished with the book. Knowing it was the final book and with there being a lot of story left I was concerned how he was going to end it. Sure as shit he throws in a time jump, kills off a bunch of more people, another time jump that explains what happened, in a couple pages, between the second and final time jump and chose an ending that made absolutely zero sense.

Ok rant over, this was just the worst book series I have ever read. The only book I have given my own head cannon ending to.

Now to the dilemma, he wants me to write reviews on Amazon, and recommend it out to others, but I can't give a favorable review when I know it isn't true. Not sure what to do.

TLDR: Friend of friend follows dream and writes book series. The series absolutely fucking blows. Don't know if I should be honest, lie and say i don't use Amazon, or blow hot air up his ass.

[Shadowferal]

These books were published?
Name them please.

[Azadina]

Write a detailed review of why it's the worst series you've ever read. My fiancee is a writer, and I haven't lied once about the writings. If I've felt some parts are nonsensical and crammed with too many loose threads in too short a time, I've said as much. Or anything like that. Thankfully I happen to actually like most of my fiancees writing, so criticism I've had to offer isn't too often.

My short point is: if the books suck, then they suck, and they don't deserve being sold based on lies. If the author wants sales, then the author should write better.

[wunksta]

No point in coddling them, they will receive a lot worse from people they don't know. Best thing to do imo is present the criticism constructively to them privately and politely, point out the stuff you enjoyed as well and ask if they still want the review posted on Amazon.

[Piglord]

These books were published?
Name them please.

Self published as far as I know. Direct to e-reader (yeah I know, but I've read some decent ones like that).

Winchester: Undead series

[nymphetsss]

If it was my friend I'd just give them a good review and move on. In a world where 50 shades was a massive best seller whats the harm

I'd tell him personally what i thought though lol

[Hashtronaut]

Self published as far as I know. Direct to e-reader (yeah I know, but I've read some decent ones like that).

Winchester: Undead series

If he’s a good friend, I’d give him a good review on Amazon. But tell him straight-up they sucked with specific examples and constructive criticism.
He would gain from the favorable review and the criticism.

[Celista]

"Friend of a friend" so he's not really a friend?

Just tell him, "yeah sure" and then never do it.

[IIamaKing]

Fluff that Amazon review but give an honest review to your friend face to face.

[Shadowferal]

Well, I see multiple reviews;
An example of the negative:

The author jumps between multiple groups and leaves you hanging at many danger points for each group. Group 1 of the good guys gets into trouble and it looks like someone is going to die so he brings in another group, we as readers, have never heard of before. He does this constantly throughout all 3 books. Eventually he gets back to each group and lets us see what happened to each group, up to a point. Then continues the same method for each group in the next books.

In three books he resolves almost nothing. Just leaves the reader hanging.

By the time the third book is finished he has dragged in countless red hearings and false flag situations for each group. As the books progress it gets harder and harder to keep track of all the new groups he keeps throwing into the story. Soon you have numerous groups to keep track of and I found myself not really caring what happened to the original characters book 1 started with.

His “good guy” characters are all too dumb to survive and are so easily distracted they constantly get into trouble. On top of that his good guy characters have to constantly fight zombies and can’t seem to navigate the dead without someone getting bitten or having their vehicles torn up. However, the “bad guys” motorcycle gang seems to ride through hordes of zombies without taking any casualties.

In fiction of this nature it is critical that the reader turn a blind eye to certain impossibilities but this author seems to want readers who are brain dead.

There are way too many story issues to go into in a short review so I will leave this as it is with one other observation. The author is charging $6.00 for books 2 and 3 etc. I feel that is way overpriced for a mediocre story and a book so short you can read it in a couple hours.

-----------------

Pass... [i]

[Monster Hunter]

So, a friend of a friend wrote a book series. Met the dude a couple times, seems like a cool dude and writing these books were his literal life long dream. They asked if I would give them a read. Got some free time, so I thought why the hell not. Goddamn did they suck. It was a six book series. The first five were bearable, but the last book was absolutely horrible. The genre is post apocalyptic EMP/bio-attack/zombies/invasion. I don't particularly hate this genre, but I do not like his writing style. It is that style that has a couple pages with group A that leads to a cliff-hanger, jump to group B a couple more pages, cliff-hanger, jump to group C for a couple pages. Rinse and repeat.

Like I said the first five books were bearable. However, the last book you could tell that he had made up his mind to start winding down the series. Instead of giving any meaningful conclusions he decided to pull a Walking Dead/GoT and just started killing people off for the shock/sadness factor. It instead caused frustration and irritation, because it made at least half of all content he had written irrelevant, meaning with some very minor changes to just a couple scenes he could have completely deleted things he had spent hundreds of pages developing and it would have had zero impact on the story. To make things worse, I realized I'm about 90% finished with the book. Knowing it was the final book and with there being a lot of story left I was concerned how he was going to end it. Sure as shit he throws in a time jump, kills off a bunch of more people, another time jump that explains what happened, in a couple pages, between the second and final time jump and chose an ending that made absolutely zero sense.

Ok rant over, this was just the worst book series I have ever read. The only book I have given my own head cannon ending to.

Now to the dilemma, he wants me to write reviews on Amazon, and recommend it out to others, but I can't give a favorable review when I know it isn't true. Not sure what to do.

TLDR: Friend of friend follows dream and writes book series. The series absolutely fucking blows. Don't know if I should be honest, lie and say i don't use Amazon, or blow hot air up his ass.

hmm good dilemma on the one hand the likely reason hes written a book series is because no ones told him sooner to put down the pen for the love humanity, but saying that depending how old he is, if his invested in a college education to write that then his kind of all ready sunk.

depends how much you care about him or his future

[Independent voter]

There are writer's circles writers who self publish of like 6 people who'll review each other's books and write a review. Supposedly there' s no rule against it but it seems a little shady.

You could suggest he join one of those.

[Monster Hunter]

Well, I see multiple reviews;
An example of the negative:

The author jumps between multiple groups and leaves you hanging at many danger points for each group. Group 1 of the good guys gets into trouble and it looks like someone is going to die so he brings in another group, we as readers, have never heard of before. He does this constantly throughout all 3 books. Eventually he gets back to each group and lets us see what happened to each group, up to a point. Then continues the same method for each group in the next books.

In three books he resolves almost nothing. Just leaves the reader hanging.

By the time the third book is finished he has dragged in countless red hearings and false flag situations for each group. As the books progress it gets harder and harder to keep track of all the new groups he keeps throwing into the story. Soon you have numerous groups to keep track of and I found myself not really caring what happened to the original characters book 1 started with.

His “good guy” characters are all too dumb to survive and are so easily distracted they constantly get into trouble. On top of that his good guy characters have to constantly fight zombies and can’t seem to navigate the dead without someone getting bitten or having their vehicles torn up. However, the “bad guys” motorcycle gang seems to ride through hordes of zombies without taking any casualties.

In fiction of this nature it is critical that the reader turn a blind eye to certain impossibilities but this author seems to want readers who are brain dead.

There are way too many story issues to go into in a short review so I will leave this as it is with one other observation. The author is charging $6.00 for books 2 and 3 etc. I feel that is way overpriced for a mediocre story and a book so short you can read it in a couple hours.

-----------------

Pass... [i]

tbh it looks like from the review he didn't outline the narrative from the start

beginning -> middle -> end. gotta have at least an idea of whats going to happen in each of those before you even write the first word of the story.

[Thetruth1400]

TLDR: Friend of friend follows dream and writes book series. The series absolutely fucking blows. Don't know if I should be honest, lie and say i don't use Amazon, or blow hot air up his ass.

Assuming you're not Avidreader on Amazon, someone else made the same comments almost word for word of your complaints here.

The reality - The books were for you and you don't owe the guy a review. Just tell the truth to him, "Hey, I didn't really enjoy the books and therefore don't feel like leaving a review would be helpful."

[smityx]

Explain to him that you've been banned from doing reviews on Amazon due to past review trolling of their adult toys. Or be honest with him and just say no review would be the best thing at this point.

[Cizr]

Write good review but in your mind know that you are being VERY sarcastic.

[Violent]

"I didn't 'LOVE' it, but you might!"

[Piglord]

Assuming you're not Avidreader on Amazon, someone else made the same comments almost word for word of your complaints here.

The reality - The books were for you and you don't owe the guy a review. Just tell the truth to him, "Hey, I didn't really enjoy the books and therefore don't feel like leaving a review would be helpful."

Not me, I made it through all six. There were other issues I had, but cut it off to keep my op from being longer than at already was.

As for others. He is just a good friend of a good friend(my ex-wife). I've only met him a couple times. His wife and my ex-wife were good friends in college. My main issue with not giving a positive review is that there already are positive reviews that are factually incorrect. I know enjoyment is subjective, but one review was talking about editing being spotless when that isn't even close to being accurate. Grammatical mistakes out the ass. Swapping two characters when one of them is already dead. Things like that.

The issue with not leaving a review and saying I did is that the final book, the worst of them all, only has 4 reviews. All 5 stars. It would be easy to tell who I am.

[Ragedaug]

Ok rant over, this was just the worst book series I have ever read. The only book I have given my own head cannon ending to.

Now to the dilemma, he wants me to write reviews on Amazon, and recommend it out to others, but I can't give a favorable review when I know it isn't true. Not sure what to do.

TLDR: Friend of friend follows dream and writes book series. The series absolutely fucking blows. Don't know if I should be honest, lie and say i don't use Amazon, or blow hot air up his ass.

Because he is a friend of a friend I would recommend not being brutal on Amazon. Especially since it's still subjective. That said, people are potentially paying for his books based in part on your review, so I would think it morally wrong to lie about it. I guess I would say, if there's anything good in the books, highlight that, and let your short review about all the parts you don't talk about speak for itself.

In person however, I would recommend being honest with your friend, since they are asking you to write a good review, and then between the two of you, you can figure out what you want to say to your friend's friend.

[Rendark]

Tell him the truth. He will never get better if you lie about it.