Not even once: a rant.

A new review popped up on Amazon.co.uk recently:

It's by CDoug.

Cold Tom (Paperback)

I read this novel recently in preparation to teach it to a Year 7 English class, and it really didn't capture my imagination to the same extent it seemingly did the critics. I found its structure very repetetive; the amount of chapters ending in 'and then he looked the stars' made it a fairly unengaging read, and 40 chapters for a 130 page book led to far too many climaxes in a book where in honesty not too much happens. Tom's escape, housing and rehabilitation could have been narrated far more succinctly.

I appreciate that it is intended as an allegorical novel for youngsters, but I really think that the twelve-year-olds I will be reading it with this term will struggle to warm to it, as did I.

Okay, okay, it's a fair cop, I wrote the book he's talking about, but...good grief, where do I start?

Well, with some facts, perhaps. Cold Tom doesn't have 40 chapters.  None of them end with 'and then he looked the stars' (as a matter of fact only three of them mention stars at all).

In any case, how can a book have too many climaxes if not much happens?

Okay. That's the mini-rant. 

The BIG RANT is about the standard of the...I suppose I must be generous and call it English.

This is a teacher? A teacher, with a responsibility to teach children?

Good grief.

And God help us all.

Word To Use Today: review. This word comes from the French revoir, which means to see again, from the Latin vidēre, to see.

See again? Sometimes I just wish reviewers would look at the flipping book once!