Favorite scathing review?

Is there a scathing review found here on LT that you just love? Something that really puts an awful book in its place?

I remember reading a few good ones of an Early Reviewer book a while back - I forget the book's title, I think the author's name was something like Rita Hsu Myers.

I have no ideas, but I too would love to read some clever ones!

I wrote one or two and have read one or two, but I can't remember them.

Stout: Rita Hsu Syers. I'm reading the reviews now to find the one you were referring too. Can't say I've read a really good review myself.

ETA: Oh, dear. Was it this review? http://www.librarything.com/work/8195717/reviews/43663685

If you'll par-doan the tacky self-pimpage, I'd like to offer two of my reviews for this awful lit scathing review thread. I do hope they meet whatever "scathing criteria" is necessary for inclusion here. If they don't, let me know, and I'll happily delete this post:

Fucking Frankenstein
http://www.librarything.com/work/8535917/reviews/49146615
the top one is by a good friend of mine; the bottom one is mine.

Ulysses
http://www.librarything.com/work/8520/reviews/11605824
the second one down, written on July 2nd, 2009

I like this one:
http://www.examiner.com/x-562-Book-Examiner~y2010m4d16-The-50-best-author-vs-aut...

The 50 best author vs author putdowns of all time.

One of my favorite examples:
"I have been reading a translation of Goethe's 'Wilhelm Meister.' Is it good? To me it seems perhaps the very worst book I ever read. No Englishman could have written such a book. I cannot remember a single good page or idea....Is it all a practical joke? If it really is Goethe's 'Wilhelm Meister' that I have been reading, I am glad I have never taken the trouble to learn German."
- Samuel Butler on Goethe

I thought the most unbelievably ironic, was old Virginia talking about Ulysses...

I very much enjoyed tanstaafl's review of The Book of Mormon (http://www.librarything.com/work/30693/reviews/3249707). That is the best review I've yet seen on LT (though I haven't read the ones posted in this thread yet).

Oh there are lots! Here's one I found recently:

"Incoherent babbling of somebody apparently on LSD. Didn't like this book at all - it remains half-read on the shelf. " The book was Pilgrim of Tinkers Creek, which I know nothing about.

Another one I really liked from Amazon.ca for As For Me and My House is:
"1 out of 5 stars Candidate for the most boring book ever written, Nov 28 2007
By Jol O'Lantern (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: As for Me and My House (Mass Market Paperback)
While I understand the views of other reviewers, and might concede that Ross' treatment is a vivid exploration of the bleakness of the life of the main protagonists, I would also suggest that in this novel, were "eliciting boredom" an Olympic sport, Ross could have bored for his country. Even the part of the book dealing with the husband's extramarital affair was tedious. Anyone with an interest in developing themes of boredom and indifference in their own writing would do well to read this novel."

edited to see if the touchstones would "take" this time. Nope-- they seem to be out of commission.

ETA: Oh, dear. Was it this review? http://www.librarything.com/work/8195717/reviews/43663685

I remember that one! I was one of the 300+ thumbs up. Too funny. I can see why you didn't just copy the whole review over here.

But if the reviews are relatively short, everyone, please copy them here.

I gotta say that I rather enjoyed TomcatMurr's 1-word reviews of Jodi Picoult novels, posted the other day and landed on the Top Reviews module. He started them all with a brief statement of why he read as much of the books as he did, which was repeated for all ~5, then provided a one-word review, each of which was different.

I'm not sure if it wore as well to see the statement repeated across all the reviews, but the review words were well chosen, I felt. Here's one: http://www.librarything.com/review/64552062

#11 -- those are funny.

There was a big controversy about short reviews a while ago. Most people in the conversation thought that even one word could convey exactly a meaningful thought about a book. A few people wanted a longer limit, and one person got belligerent in his or her need for all reviews to be much longer. Around this time someone was going through LT reviews and flagging all short reviews as "not a review". One of mine was hit :

"Hannibal by Thomas Harris
Ewww. This is . . . just, no."

The flag has since been removed. It was an interesting time in the democracy that is LT.

I personally don't find one word reviews helpful. It assumes that I know details about the reviewer that I don't.

Perhaps what they diliked about the book wouldn't bother me, but a short review does not explain why the user disliked the book.

But I couldn't imagine flagging a short review. Whoever did that is a jerk. Maybe they should instead write longer reviews themselves.

Some shameless self-promotion, I present my review of The Time Travelers Wife,

http://www.librarything.com/review/50748759

I don’t know if the review is scathing enough. All I know is that I hate that book!

#9 LOL!

I read that award-winning nature memoir and reacted the same way!

Warning!!! This collection of Amazon.com reviews might offend some people.

http://www.amazon.com/Control-Christian-Marriages-Priesthood-Children/dp/1425992...

I remember reading a few good ones of an Early Reviewer book a while back - I forget the book's title, I think the author's name was something like Rita Hsu Myers.

I think you may be thinking of my review for Rita Hsu Syers' truly awful Pureheart.

Usually, I think it's too easy to write a scathing review. The review can easily become far more amusing than the book, and it's easy to get carried away in one's own cleverness. Authors can be a bit like Bambi. Cruel to skewer them so well.

That being said, the review on the Book of Mormon is absolutely brilliant, and the review on Hannibal, brief but too the point.

My favorite all time was from Dorothy Parker's Constant Reader column about Winnie-the-Pooh. I happen to like Winnie, but her review was "Constant Weader thwowed up."