Customer Reviews

Henry's List of Wrongs

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The book starts off well enough, but after the prologue, it goes waaaay downhill. If I hadn't lived in Kansas (where a lot of the book takes place) I would have put the book down after the first couple of chapters. It's painfully obvious the author wants this to be a movie - why he didn't simply write a screenplay, I'll never know. I expected the words "extreme close-up" to pop up any second. The dialogue is mostly fluff and cliche, and the characters are stock. The "guy who lost his heart" meets "the wacky girl" and blah blah blah. "Wacky Girl" has a past, which takes the reader all of 5 seconds to figure out. The reader can't help but picture Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock or Sarah Jessica Parker saying these lines (and that's exactly what Shepherd wants you to do). If this was only a movie, and I saw it, I would have found it mildly amusing. Since it was a book, I simply found it completely annoying. Apparently, this book is going to be a movie soon (there's a schocker). But with "Life Or Something Like It" failing at the box office, I can't help but see this one doing the same. Save your money, and check it out at your local library.

I finished this book, threw it across the room and yelled a swear.

It's drivel based soley on melodrama that really goes no where. No hurtle is crossed, nothing is lost, and nothing is really at risk. The guy is a jerk, he decides not to be a jerk (a big step) and goes about doing it. In the process of not being a jerk, he's a jerk. Everyone forgives him with almost no resentment or question, and we are supposed to be moved by this? Bugger off!

Novelists should be daunted by moments when a character describes his feelings. Shepherd, however, has the worst debriefing habit I've ever seen. Characters often discuss a scene that has just passed before readers' eyes, gambling that what the character says will align with what the reader feels. In this novel, people often say how much they were moved. What happens, however, if the reader wasn't, or, worse, if the scene before left the reader flat? In Shepherd's novel, we are supposed to believe in Henry's transformation. Through righting a list of wrongs, Henry "The Assassin" Chase is supposed to rediscover the idealist he once was. It's a fun premise, but for me the "supposed to" was its most vivid element. I never reacted as Shepherd thought I should, and who moves a reader by proffering he or she ought to react?

I'd like to say some good things about this work given that it's written by a local author, but Henry's List of Wrongs doesn't offer me any reasons to do so. This book reads like a bad first novel, one that should have been shoved in the back of the top desk drawer and left alone. The characters are completely two-dimensional. I didn't believe in Sophie at all, and Henry's transformation from a basically good and hard-working high school kid to total corporate shark is impossible to comprehend; at least, the author never develops the character enough so that we accept the change. Much of the dialogue here is clunky and unrealistic. That astounds me, because in places the novel appears to have been constructed in sort of a "screenplay ready" format. You could almost write in "cue the score" or plan a laughtrack moment in places. At least one of the chapters feels added on (the second scene featuring Henry, Sophie, and the girlfriend that Henry dumped after he made into a highly-coveted fraternity at his university). I grow increasingly tired of modern novelists who have to use the tired pop-culture references as short cuts to character and scene description, especially the hackneyed use of Tom Cruise, Marilyn Monroe, etc. This novel has been purported to be about how men really think and feel, but at its core it reads like another Danielle Steel weeper, only with basketball references. *** Not recommended ***. And if this is the best of what's out there in fiction for men these days, you'll find me back with the Chilton's car manuals and woodworking books, thank you very much.

WOW.....it's great to see a book written with such verbal skill. John says with a sentence what many authors waste pages attempting to do. He writes with the assumption that his readers can grasp the picture, the scene, and the characters without pounding them with excess words. It's a confidence in his readers' intelligence that I appreciate. I enjoyed this first book by JSS from the first word to the last - it's hard to put down, and I love books like that. He leads us down the path of disastrous mistakes that a young Henry makes in the name of love, and then throws us onto the road to redemption filled with intrigue, mystery, love, and second chances. Henry is a fast and memorable read - you'll love it! What a great first book.....keep them coming!

I will start this review by saying that the dust jacket claims that Mr. Shepherd writes his book in the attic of the home he shares with his wife, while in his Acknowledgements, the author claims that he writes in his basement. I know. This seems mundane and trivial, but I believe this silly little discrepancy is like a billboard for everything that's wrong with the book. Mr. Shepherd can't decide which is cooler: the attic or the basement.

Because this book is all about cool. Consider this phrase from the novel's opening line: "brain belch of accidental brilliance". Apart from being an inherent contradiction in terms, this phrase also sums up much of what's wrong with Mr. Shepherd's prose. He can't decide what to say or how to say it.

There are parts that are undeniably well written -- a paragraph here, a line there -- but there are also times where the novel actually repeats itself and its descriptions. Likewise, the tone varies from the hip and tongue-in-cheek voice of a ne'er-do-well to the lofty proclomations of a formal, literary narrator. Again, the author doesn't know what to sound like. While the basic premise is moderately intriguing, it is made monotonous and trite by this uneven writing and the unsalvagable dialogue. Every character sounds the same: like the confused, yet pleased-with-himself author.

And finally, the premise, I said, was intriguing, but the story is absolutely ridiculous. Sure, Mr. Shepherd has captured high school's idiosyncracies quite well (in addition to his own distaste for teenagers), but the tale just doesn't hang on these well-written backdrops with anything close to approaching believability. Henry's experiences with the Girl of His Dreams, his reasons for becoming the Assassin, his reasons for writing The List, well, it's all melodramatic sophism, and it plays out weakly.

Ignore this pretentious and contrived first novel of "redemption." Instead, check out Invisible Monsters or Motherless Brooklyn.

The good part of this novel is the plot premise. The idea that someone's life can be changed from a single moment in time to something completely different. Unfortunately instead of exploring something interesting the author John Scott Shepherd randomly shifts views every 15 or 20 pages into something different. While I think this can be effective it is overused by Mr. Shepherd to create a book that becomes almost sterile. The book to me has very fake emotions and becomes almost contrived; you may not know what comes next, but you definitely know that something unexpected is coming. A previous reviewer for Amazon stated it perfectly that this reads like a movie script. However withstanding all of this the book is an Average light read with a good premise, which can be enjoyable sometimes.

I really loved this book (I know I didn't give it 5 stars, but that is because it was a little too hollywood). It got me. The opening chapters, the part about Henry's teen life are so dead on that I still can't believe it. The book has a silly premise, but Shepard himself knows that. It works the vast majority of the time. It is quick and sweet read. My biggest complain is the subplot of Sophie's secret past. It is a little too much. The reality of it seemed a bit cartoonish and ended too neatly. Still, the rest of the book works. I was surprised by the ending and enjoyed it. It made me laugh (particularly the line about Starsky and Hutch from the Nigerian grad student at the college) and made me a bit misty. It ain't perfect, but it sure is sweet. It seems Jim Carrey will starring in the movie. Perfect.

Henry Chase is from Kansas - a shy boy who loves the most beautiful girl in school. He turns into a Wall Street tycoon years after she has broken his heart and returns to Wichita to show her what she missed. Instead, Sophie Reilly takes him on a journey to purge his past transgressions and start over. Along the way, he falls in love with her and in the end, saves her just as much as he is saved.

A man wrote this book, so there is no time wasted on cheesy romance - which I truly appreciated! I didn't like that everyone seemed so capable of forgiving his evil ways. He plowed through 6 in a long weekend for Pete's sake!!! But, it was a nice touch that Elizabeth popped back into the picture in the end and Henry got to make the real choice to be with Sophie.

This book reads like a script for a TV show or bad movie. While entertaining at times, nothing stands out. The characters are paper thin and the plot is unbelievable. A guy goes from being a nice kid to a complete a-hole with a killer instinct over the course of ten years and then reverts back to a nice person again in a matter of days. The maid helping him has a surprising past that is not believable at all. I kept waiting for a bombshell to be dropped about who she really is and instead it was a dud. The whole time I read this story I kept thinking about the tv show, my name is earl. Not really an original idea. If you like a quick read that require little thought, then go for it.