Has anyone bought a book online recently? You search and search and find one that seems decent and you pay, download and start reading only to quickly find out it's just the first few chapters? Ya, me too. Crazy annoying, mostly because most of the time there is no indication that you aren't buying the whole book. It's just a hook. Here's a great book, only a dollar buy me buy me, oh ya wait if you actually want to see what happens you have buy 5 more installments at 2 dollars each. Grrrrr. Needless to say I did not do that. I put the whole damn book out there for sale, priced it fairly and let people read to the very end. Oh ya and it's a complete book. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It continues in book two but that is a complete book as well not just the second half of book one. God, what is happening to writers and publishing that people feel the need to parcel out their work a few pages at a time? 

I have never bought the second installment of any of these books. Even if I liked them I can't be bothered to try and find the next cluster of chapters, so, oh well, I guess I'll never know who Hannah chose or how Troy got himself out of trouble. If you had charged 5$ for your whole book I would have paid it, but I'm not paying 1$ five times for five different chunks. Sorry.

I subscribe to Bookbub, and every day I get an e-mail with a list of books on special for that day. Every day I peruse the list and read the short write-up on each book. Every day it's the same old crap. The plot lines I can't stand above all others is the special object/special destiny "hooks". Lisa finds a dark ruby in her grandmother's attic and now she's on an adventure to save the world... or, Hannah wakes up one morning with antlers on her head and now she must fulfill her destiny as the antelope enchantress before the evil magician enslaves the entire human race...blah blah blah. Boring as shit. I think too many writers have subscribed to the fallacy that big stakes equals an interesting read. That's not it at all. A good book that I can't put down is one that a) I can relate to, and b) has an emotional connection to something I care about. I can't relate to the concept that any one person is responsible for the safety of the whole world. Nope. Nor can I get on board with the magical item that will save the whole world, sorry all you Lord of the Rings fans. Give me a great story about a person who has to protect his or her family during a real crisis like a fire or a home invasion. Or a story of a girl who uses her brain to discover who her stalker is and put him in jail. Small scale stakes that hit home are far far more intriguing than a global apocalypse as far as I'm concerned.

Think about it. If 100 people were asked 'what's the most important thing in the world to you', what do you think their answers would be? The protection of the galaxy from radioactive space bugs? or to protect their kids from the bully at school? People care about their fully restored classic car in the garage, their spouse and kids, their dog, their stack of unpublished manuscripts under the bed. As important as the galaxy is it's not the first thing that comes to mind during a crisis. So why do so many writers write about such fantastical things?!!! gah, I don't get it.

And frankly, the hero of a book doesn't have to be a super hero. It can be a normal person with no powers or special artifacts or a prophecy foretelling their destiny. The sheer of mass of all that B.S makes it boring. Another cookie cutter over the top plot. Sorry but I'll pass. I'll save my money for something a little ...less.