Apparently my review of "Any Given Doomsday" by Lori Handeland has become popular enough to be officially labeled a Hot Review on LibraryThing. So...I thought I'd post it here for those who aren't 'Thangers - may my simple little review save as many lives as possible.
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Any Given Doomsday - Lori Handeland
I honestly cannot find one redeeming quality about “Any Given Doomsday.” Despite the fact that the cover states that Lori Handeland is a New York Times bestselling author, this book reads like an amateur first draft with character inconsistencies, bad plotting, terrible dialogue, and classic blunders.
The main character, Elizabeth Phoenix, is not the brightest crayon in the box, and frequently has to have things explained to her two and three times before she understands something, but will then follow up with the exact same question that started the long, boring, and stilted explanation the reader has just suffered through. Her actions and reactions are also inconsistent with previous experiences in the story. For instance, after fighting two demons who turned to ash upon their deaths, learning that her ex-boyfriend is a half-vampire, and killing off a town of werewolves, Elizabeth Phoenix drops the phone in shock to learn that a previous victim had the blood sucked out of her body. To the reader, that seems like the *least* shocking revelation, but not to our sharp-as-a-bowling-ball heroine.
Another moment of supreme stupidity is after Elizabeth is captured, stripped of her clothes, and seduced/raped by her ex-boyfriend turned temporarily evil, she is told that she will become a sex slave and will never again wear clothes for the rest of eternity. She leaves to take a shower, only to be insulted and shocked upon her return to find her tattered clothes missing from the bedroom with no new clothes left in their place.
The two male characters are so two dimensional that their every action seems contrived, and their feud and mistrust of each other goes beyond absurd to simply annoying and distracting. But that fits lock-in-step with the overly simplistic and predictable plot. The supremely intelligent, ancient and wise evil vampire/antagonist is killed off with the easiest of effort stolen straight from an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but only after revealing his “secret” plan to our nude and captive heroine (i.e. in the classical-cheesy method: I’m going to kill you, but first I will reveal my plan to take over the world.). Then after one more poorly written sex scene, our heroine’s now reformed ex-boyfriend disappears like a cliché in the early dawn hours, leading us straight into a sequel you couldn’t pay me to read.
This novel is proof-positive that once publishers spot a hot trend or sub-genre, they will rush any ol’ title out there to grab as much cash as they can as quickly as they can, thereby smothering with certifiable crap the very market they’re trying to build. It’s just unfortunate that the authors don’t at least make an honest attempt to craft a better story.
Scale of 1-5 Stars:
one-half star
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Hoping for criminal charges to be filed,
Michael OCD
