Josh Greenfield's "Cutting Through the Knot" is the type of book that gives self-publishing a bad name.
Greenfield's book wouldn't be quite so bad... if it had a plot. Instead, it's a mind numbing 156 page ramble.
The synopsis on the back of the book reads:
"A humorous coming of age story, told in conversational first person voice, recounting a young man's adventures in overcoming mental illness."Doesn't sound too bad, right? Wrong.
I've read freshman creative writing stories written better than this piece. Pages and pages of misspellings, grammar errors and unformulated paragraphs are not funny. They're distracting.
Greenfield begins the book by giving a summary of the book. He finishes the paragraph with,
"It makes for a good story if I can tell it right."I'm not convinced. Any book that likens being "manic depressive" and "O.C.D." as having two scoops of ice cream, one vanilla and the other butter pecan, should stay safely buried in a computer's hard drive until it's had several massive revisions.
The author responds,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your thoughts Sari.
I'm sorry you didn't like my book. I put forward a product that I am proud of and consider finished. I would like to think that an attempt to address mental illness, a topic normally spoken of only in hushed tones, in a light heared manner, can serve some purpose.
I know it will not speak to every one, but to those who suffer in isolation it may provide some comfort.
Again, I'm sorry you had a bad time with it.
Josh Greenfield
This is the URL to a writer who has a different perspective on my book.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.riverdalepress.com/full.php?sid=7326¤t_edition=2009-01-15
Josh Greenfield