That $40 book from a TikTok recommendation was completely unreadable

I dropped $40 on a self-published novel that had grammar errors on every page, plot holes you could drive a truck through. Can we start a list of red flags for spotting these book club hype traps before we waste more cash?

2 comments

2 Comments

elliotjenkins9d ago

Got burned the exact same way. Bought this hyped up thriller everyone was screaming about on booktok. First chapter had three sentences that didn't even make grammatical sense. Felt like I got scammed honestly. The cover was pretty and the blurb sounded amazing but the actual writing was garbage. Never trusting a viral book again without checking the sample first.

the_sandra9d ago

elliotjenkins said "the cover was pretty and the blurb sounded amazing but the actual writing was garbage" and that's the whole problem right there. These viral books are designed to look good on a shelf and sound good in a thirty second video, not to actually be readable. They hire designers for the cover and they pay people to write catchy blurbs but nobody bothers to edit the actual words. I check the free sample on Amazon before I even think about buying now. If it can't keep me engaged for the first ten pages then it's not worth my forty dollars.