Review by cpulchra -- Randy Love...at your service

[cpulchra]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Randy Love...at your service" by Shay Carter.]

---

1 out of 4 stars

---

Share This Review

---

Randy Love…at your service!
by Shay Carter

This is a book about an young man called Randy Love who seems to be living up more to his first name than to his last. His main purpose in life is drifting through the day with minimum effort, going out for drinks with his mates, and bedding as many women as he can. He appears to be both emotionally and intellectually stunted.

During the course of this book he does temp work, he gets a full time job, he goes to university, but doesn't really have any aim in life. He acquires a sort of steady partner at some point but doesn't respect her all that much, and continues his wayward ways.

I rate this book 1 out of 4 stars, because it was too laddish for my taste, and none of the characters had any redeeming qualities, or were at least interesting to read about. It seems fairly dated to me, the sort of book you'd pick up at the airport in the 1990s. There was no real growth of character at all during reading his book, just an immensely unlikable boychild who gets away with being unlikable for a while because he is good looking, and a bunch or sloppily characterized Mary Sues.

It was hard to keep track of who was who, and I didn't even care to. I found myself drifting off and being bored through most of the book. There's little that tells me where (London, but the personality of the place doesn't show) or when (judging by the band Linking Park getting mentioned and the Internet being fairly new, late last century to early noughties) the book is set.

I can't think of anyone I'd recommend this to at all, it's too tedious and confusing for a quick cheap read, and too badly written for something more savory and meaty. Other reviews pointed out that this reads like a first draft, and that was my impression as well. I am not sure this is salvageable at all, though. It's too generic, too boring, too sexist to work well in 2017. A character like Randy Love would make for a good side character at best, but would probably be irritating even in small doses.

This is clearly self-published and probably wasn't edited at all. There are a few mistakes, the most glaring being "hair-brained", but that didn't distract too much from a book that was already cumbersome to finish to begin with.

******
Randy Love...at your service
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon

Like cpulchra's review? Post a comment saying so!