Review of The Pig's Trough
Posted: 15 May 2025, 11:44
[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Pig's Trough" by Stephen Murrell.]
The Pig’s Trough by Stephen Murrell was a fast-paced, thought-provoking read. This book is a fictionalized version of events that the author went through as a group of high-ranking people try to compete for a very valuable contract from the European Commission. There are themes heavily related to corruption, moral compasses, and how money can change everything for a person. I rate this book a 2 out of 5.
Something I enjoyed while reading this book was how fast-paced the story was. It wasn’t boring; something was always happening or on the verge of happening, creating an unexpected tension.
My biggest criticism is that this book seems entirely unedited. I found over ten mistakes in the first fifteen pages, and it greatly hindered my enjoyment of the book. Having a large number of spelling and grammar mistakes affects the professionalism of a book, which in turn affects how seriously the readers take the material. In my opinion, because of all the mistakes, I found myself uninterested and unable to immerse myself in the content. I deducted a star from my rating for the sheer number of mistakes I found, and I deducted another star because of how frustrating it was to read through this book.
Another criticism I had was that the language switches quite often, without much translation or context clues to help the reader figure out what is being said. Some of the sections are translated, but not all, and no reader should need to Google Translate sections of a book just to understand what is going on. Why is some dialogue in Italian, and other dialogue is written in English but has parentheses that say, “in Italian”? If the author is going to switch from English to Italian and then back to English, they need to simplify it. This was simply not enjoyable and failed to add any sort of depth or meaning to the story in my opinion.
Overall, The Pig’s Trough by Stephen Murrell was thought-provoking but needs some work. I would only recommend this book to readers if it goes through a more serious, professional editing process.
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The Pig's Trough
View: on Bookshelves
The Pig’s Trough by Stephen Murrell was a fast-paced, thought-provoking read. This book is a fictionalized version of events that the author went through as a group of high-ranking people try to compete for a very valuable contract from the European Commission. There are themes heavily related to corruption, moral compasses, and how money can change everything for a person. I rate this book a 2 out of 5.
Something I enjoyed while reading this book was how fast-paced the story was. It wasn’t boring; something was always happening or on the verge of happening, creating an unexpected tension.
My biggest criticism is that this book seems entirely unedited. I found over ten mistakes in the first fifteen pages, and it greatly hindered my enjoyment of the book. Having a large number of spelling and grammar mistakes affects the professionalism of a book, which in turn affects how seriously the readers take the material. In my opinion, because of all the mistakes, I found myself uninterested and unable to immerse myself in the content. I deducted a star from my rating for the sheer number of mistakes I found, and I deducted another star because of how frustrating it was to read through this book.
Another criticism I had was that the language switches quite often, without much translation or context clues to help the reader figure out what is being said. Some of the sections are translated, but not all, and no reader should need to Google Translate sections of a book just to understand what is going on. Why is some dialogue in Italian, and other dialogue is written in English but has parentheses that say, “in Italian”? If the author is going to switch from English to Italian and then back to English, they need to simplify it. This was simply not enjoyable and failed to add any sort of depth or meaning to the story in my opinion.
Overall, The Pig’s Trough by Stephen Murrell was thought-provoking but needs some work. I would only recommend this book to readers if it goes through a more serious, professional editing process.
******
The Pig's Trough
View: on Bookshelves