A One Quarter Book Review of "The Disappearance of Olivia"

UNCLE!

Somebody tap me out. I'm done. I can't take it any longer. If I read another page of "The Disappearance of Olivia" by Nancy E. Ryan I may have to resort to removal of my eyes with a plastic spoon. I am only 26% through the book, according to Kindle, and that's as far as I'm going to get.

I no longer recall how I heard of this book, but when I bought it last year I was under the impression that it was published by a regular publishing house. Since I wanted to review it here, I looked up the publisher and discovered that it is CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Ah, this explains much.

The writing style is juvenile. No, I don't meant it is aimed at teenagers, I mean it reads as though it was written by one. By one who did not pay very much attention in English class. Almost all of the sentences are short and simple; nearly none are complex. Any attempt by the writer to construct complex sentences results in complete nonsense. The prose and the dialog are riddled with misspelled words, bad grammar, missing or misused punctuation, and an over-abundance of cliches, most of which are American cliches spoken by characters born and raised in England. This is another peeve I have -  people who think English is English everywhere. It isn't. But that's a discussion for another day.

Here is an example of a typical paragraph:

Olivia sat in her chair paralyzed for almost two minutes and then almost like in slow motion she headed for the Bombay. She didn’t say a word as she poured herself straight gin in a tall glass. She appeared to Daniel to be processing this information with that brilliant mind of hers.

...

“Oh dear god!” shouted Olivia, before downing her entire glass of gin. “Daniel, if this is true, it is almost unfathomable,” said Olivia. “How am I supposed to take this? What does this mean? This must be a lie. What else do you know?”

We get both a "shouted Olivia" and a "said Olivia" in the same paragraph. I suppose the writer wanted to make sure we knew that she hadn't switched speakers mid-paragraph. 

As for "downing her entire glass of gin," YIKES! I'd say a case of alcohol poisoning is in Olivia's immediate future. At the very least she's about to be VERY drunk, and will have one hell of a hangover. I'm not sure that the writer knows much about drinking alcohol. Yes, I do think this was written by a young teenager.

Needing to satisfy my curiosity about the author, to know if this really was written by an adolescent, I consulted the Internet. Here is what I found on Amazon.com:

Nancy E. Ryan was a New York and New England media executive for 40 years. After accomplishing her goals in the media world she decided to try her hand at writing. Nancy now lives in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida with her husband Barry O'Brien and their two Bichon Frises, Nicholas and Alexander. The Disappearance of Olivia is her first novel. Nancy engaged the talents of Alan Forray for The Disappearance of Olivia. Alan is a writer, media consultant, and newspaper columnist with over thirty years of experience in journalism, entertainment, and education. He is a graduate of the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

I am not sure who is to blame for the bad writing: Nancy, Alan, or both. I seriously hate to think that someone with 30 years experience in journalism could write so poorly. Although, it does say "journalism, entertainment, and education," so I am likely making a bad assumption that Mr. Forray has 30 years experience in Journalism.  I suppose it could be combined, overlapping experience: 18-20 years of attending school, including college (education), plus delivering the paper as a kid and working on the school newspaper (journalism), plus a job at a movie theater or amusement park (entertainment) would easily add up to 30 years. I know plenty of people who use similar fuzzy math to pad their experience on a resume.

Finding out that the book was written by adults made me sad. I always expect competent writing from adults; I am frequently disappointed.

This is the paragraph that finally made me throw in the towel:

After Daniel’s revelation neither Daniel nor Olivia could swallow another bite of food, including an amazing chocolate soufflé and a creme brulée that was simply magnificent, but now not even a thought. Daniel asked Olivia if she would be ok if he took a shower. She hardly heard him, and just gave him a faint smile.

There are so many things wrong with that paragraph that I do not know where to begin.  But all that gin Olivia drank a minute ago seems to be having an effect.

Daniel stood in the shower for a very long time, just letting the soothing water wash the stress of the day from his entire being.

When he got out, Olivia was naked and waiting in bed. The gin had really relaxed her and also numbed her thoughts.

Silly me. I expected that she'd be out cold, snoring away, after drinking that much alcohol at once. Unless she was an alcoholic, but it was never said to be the case.


After suffering through one quarter of the book, which wasn't as badly written in the beginning as it was where I left off, I just couldn't stand to read it any longer. Reading for fun is supposed to BE fun. It's not supposed to induce the desire to hurl your book across the room in frustration (this temptation is especially bad when you are reading on your iPad). It's not even written so badly as to be hilariously badly written. It is just your everyday version of badly written.

I am curious to know how it ends, but not curious enough to keep reading. Nope. No way. No how. Not if this were the last book on Earth and I was bored out of my skull. This will just have to remain one of the unanswered questions in my life.