Two Reviews, Both Stinkers

Well, I wasted my time reading two books that looked promising, but both of them let me down. Thankfully, they were library books, so all I wasted was my time, not my money. I have a new rating system I want to try out. Since this is the Daily Cud, I decided the scoring has to be bovine related. I decided to go with an udder theme, going from one to four teats for ordinary books, but the really great books get a full udder. I think both of these books are just one teeters.

The first stink bomb was called The Wizard's Ward by Deborah Hale. It looked good, a fantasy book with wizards and an orphan who turns out to be a princess. I read the reviews on the back, and the author sounded good. This was her first fantasy book. I should have read that part more closely. Her previous books were all romances. So this was a romance fantasy book. A lot of heaving bosoms and lustful looks. It wouldn't have been too bad, but the very end of the book, when the orphaned princess realizes that the lovable scoundrel who had been her guard and companion is really her destined king, or prince I guess, instead of just leaving it there like a normal fantasy book, it had to end with a big sex scene. Not what I was expecting, or wanting.

The other book, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco, had more promise. I really expected it to be a good book because the two books by Umberto Eco I read, The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum, were both good books. Especially Foucault's Pendulum, one of the best books ever written as far as I can tell, right next to The Lord of the Rings. It's like The Davincci Code, but better. If the Davincci Code was a candy bar, Foucault's Pendulum is a chocolate cake, with chocolate icing and sprinkles.

This book, on the other hand, is a piece of shit, not worth the time it took to read, but maybe worth the time it would take to burn it to little bitty ashes. It is about a man that has amnesia who goes back to his childhood home to go through all his old school work and comics and whatever was laying around to try and regain his memory. I would have probably liked it more if it wasn't about a 60 year old man in Italy. If it was about, say, a 40 year old woman in Missouri I would have probably liked it a whole lot more. As it is, all I can say is save your brain cells for something better. Read the back of a cereal box, or the labels in your coats. You'll thank me later.