So… I read a short story by Adam Croft, and reviewed it here earlier in June. I read the short first to see if I liked the author’s writing. I guess at the time I thought it was ok, because I went on to read this book. I went back and read my review after finishing Only the Truth, and saw that I really didn’t like the short! At first I wasn’t really sure why I went ahead and read the book. Then I read some comments and reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, and realized that I read it BECAUSE it looked bad. Sometimes the best way to gauge the quality of a book is to read the one star reviews on Amazon. Here are some representative review titles:
*Don’t waste your time!
*I felt like one thing had nothing to do with the other
*This was terrible
AND MY FAVORITE:
*Just… no
Now on to my one star review! This book was badddddd. And it wasn’t so bad it’s good. It was just so bad it’s bad. The story was super repetitive, hard to believe, and the characters were unlikeable as hell. The premise of this book was so cool (I thought). A man is an hour away from home on business, staying at a hotel. He’s cheating on his wife with the receptionist. He goes to dinner one night, then comes back up to his room and finds his wife murdered in his bathroom. I feel like I could write a compelling story with that premise, and I have like zero writing talent.
The rest of the story goes like this:
Flee with the receptionist (Jess)!
Be paranoid about fleeing
Who killed my wife?
Maybe it was Jess?
No, it couldn’t be Jess because of X
LATHER, RINSE, REPEAT!
There was some really cool backstory about the main character, who is an absolute assface. The backstory had less than zero to do with the story. Like not even a teensy little tie in. Wasted opportunity after wasted opportunity for this one! Don’t be tempted to read it to see for yourself. It’s not long, but you’ll never get that small chunk of your life back!