literary passport

one-star reviews #4

Amazon's disappointed reader-reviewers vs. Shakespeare's Hamlet:

• Worthless, pretentious trash.
• There is really no point and it's really long.
• I am hardly a fan of any Shakespeare: I find that his characters overact, talk too much about nothing, and spend most of their plays inserting extra words into sentences that could be said in four words or less. Hamlet, however, reaches a new level of Shakespearean lackluster.
• Hamlet does too much talking and not enough stuff.
• Hamlet was actually one of the most terribly boring, predictable, useless books ever written. The plot had no vital juices.
• The jokes fall flat.

one-star reviews #3

Amazon's disappointed reader-reviewers vs. Tolstoy's Anna Karenina:

• I could not stand all of the boring Russian politic talk or Levin and his boring farming or hunting talk.
• A huge book full of nothing.
• I say that if you are publishing a novel, let it have a story line. Anna's hardly even in the story anyway.
• I found the book to be incredibly boring and hard to follow.
• I never again want to read a "romance" novel where thirty pages are wasted describing how fields were "mowed" in Russia 100 or so years ago!!!
• Well, this could be an OK story if, you know, it was a short story.
• There were too many details, none of which were that interesting.

one-star reviews #2

Amazon's disappointed reader-reviewers vs. Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment:

• I didn't want to finish it because I was so bored. I would not recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a page-turner.
• The only people who should read this book are people who belong to so-called "intellectual" parties, or people who have committed terrible crimes.
• The Crime was him writing the book, and the Punishment was my reading it.
• Do you really need to include a six-page letter from his mother that had no relevance? No.
• In about one hour, I am going to walk down to the beach and throw this book into the Red Sea. I am in Africa and this is the right thing to do. I hope The Brothers Karamazov isn't this bad, because I own it too.
• Ugh.
• This book is very badly written. For example, this book has a completely tacked-on "Hollywood" ending.
• Tolstoy is a better writer, in my humble opinion.

one-star reviews #1

Amazon's disappointed reader-reviewers vs. Kafka's The Trial:

• This book is boring and doesn't make any sense.
• I am different after reading this book, in a very negative way.
• I wouldn't read it again.
• Possibly the most boring and pointless book ever written.
• It gives you a different, and a frightening, perspective on life.
• I think that my life has become worse after reading this book.
• I don't want to sound clueless, but... what trial?