If it wasn't for LibraryThing's Early-Readers program, I'd never read this trash. It's a completely pointless and worthless book. Firstly, there's nothing enjoyable about it. And I'm not squeamish or one of those "you can't write something ugly or bad" or "everything needs a happy ending". This is just nothing more than grabbing horrific news stories and turning it into a book. And a poorly designed, badly written, with a few grammatical errors, bad unneeded disgusting artwork, and then calling it a "novel" and that its "Greek Catharsis" and that we should feel better afterwards for not being these people involved.

The writing is poor at best. Its tempted journalistic style, and where it is journalistic style, its because its just ripping straight from headlines, even using direct quotes already found in the news articles it mentions in the 'short stories'. Nearly every single 'short story' has some quote from an accompanying newspaper/newsite/etc, and in most cases it uses the same exact quote and same information these news articles, sites, and papers used. Making you wonder how much writing John Reed had to actually do, and what if any was the point of this, when if I just wanted to read horrific news stories.... I could do a simple google search or even read a regular newspaper?

There is plenty of tragedy, debauchery, ugliness, and disgusting behavior by humans all over the world. And it belongs in literature all the same. But this isn't literature, and it provides no point. Well written fiction showcasing tragedy, debauchery, ugliness, disgusting behavior, etc, is fine, admirable even, and does a far better job than this 'novel' ever could. It doesn't even come close to even decent 'non-fiction' writing, and has no style, no substance, nothing more than newspaper clipping style of horrific events tacked on with pointless artwork displaying the gratuity for its gratuitous sake. Its published by MTV Press (which isn't surprising at all) and seems to reflect the culture that MTV has become and represents, and seems aimed at the vacant brained Jersey Shore crowd that MTV now single-handedly created and thrives on.

If it wasn't free I'd never ever even begin to think to buy it and wouldn't even know why I'd be looking for something like this. Just flipping to the back of it now and seeing that the recommended price by the publisher is 20.00$ (flat US - 24$ flat Canada), I find it even more amusing trying to figure out who would pay 20$ for such pure rubbish. ( )

If it wasn't for LibraryThing's Early-Readers program, I'd never read this trash. It's a completely pointless and worthless book. Firstly, there's nothing enjoyable about it. And I'm not squeamish or one of those "you can't write something ugly or bad" or "everything needs a happy ending". This is just nothing more than grabbing horrific news stories and turning it into a book. And a poorly designed, badly written, with a few grammatical errors, bad unneeded disgusting artwork, and then calling it a "novel" and that its "Greek Catharsis" and that we should feel better afterwards for not being these people involved.

The writing is poor at best. Its tempted journalistic style, and where it is journalistic style, its because its just ripping straight from headlines, even using direct quotes already found in the news articles it mentions in the 'short stories'. Nearly every single 'short story' has some quote from an accompanying newspaper/newsite/etc, and in most cases it uses the same exact quote and same information these news articles, sites, and papers used. Making you wonder how much writing John Reed had to actually do, and what if any was the point of this, when if I just wanted to read horrific news stories.... I could do a simple google search or even read a regular newspaper?

There is plenty of tragedy, debauchery, ugliness, and disgusting behavior by humans all over the world. And it belongs in literature all the same. But this isn't literature, and it provides no point. Well written fiction showcasing tragedy, debauchery, ugliness, disgusting behavior, etc, is fine, admirable even, and does a far better job than this 'novel' ever could. It doesn't even come close to even decent 'non-fiction' writing, and has no style, no substance, nothing more than newspaper clipping style of horrific events tacked on with pointless artwork displaying the gratuity for its gratuitous sake. Its published by MTV Press (which isn't surprising at all) and seems to reflect the culture that MTV has become and represents, and seems aimed at the vacant brained Jersey Shore crowd that MTV now single-handedly created and thrives on.

If it wasn't free I'd never ever even begin to think to buy it and wouldn't even know why I'd be looking for something like this. Just flipping to the back of it now and seeing that the recommended price by the publisher is 20.00$ (flat US - 24$ flat Canada), I find it even more amusing trying to figure out who would pay 20$ for such pure rubbish. ( )

If it wasn't for LibraryThing's Early-Readers program, I'd never read this trash. It's a completely pointless and worthless book. Firstly, there's nothing enjoyable about it. And I'm not squeamish or one of those "you can't write something ugly or bad" or "everything needs a happy ending". This is just nothing more than grabbing horrific news stories and turning it into a book. And a poorly designed, badly written, with a few grammatical errors, bad unneeded disgusting artwork, and then calling it a "novel" and that its "Greek Catharsis" and that we should feel better afterwards for not being these people involved.

The writing is poor at best. Its tempted journalistic style, and where it is journalistic style, its because its just ripping straight from headlines, even using direct quotes already found in the news articles it mentions in the 'short stories'. Nearly every single 'short story' has some quote from an accompanying newspaper/newsite/etc, and in most cases it uses the same exact quote and same information these news articles, sites, and papers used. Making you wonder how much writing John Reed had to actually do, and what if any was the point of this, when if I just wanted to read horrific news stories.... I could do a simple google search or even read a regular newspaper?

There is plenty of tragedy, debauchery, ugliness, and disgusting behavior by humans all over the world. And it belongs in literature all the same. But this isn't literature, and it provides no point. Well written fiction showcasing tragedy, debauchery, ugliness, disgusting behavior, etc, is fine, admirable even, and does a far better job than this 'novel' ever could. It doesn't even come close to even decent 'non-fiction' writing, and has no style, no substance, nothing more than newspaper clipping style of horrific events tacked on with pointless artwork displaying the gratuity for its gratuitous sake. Its published by MTV Press (which isn't surprising at all) and seems to reflect the culture that MTV has become and represents, and seems aimed at the vacant brained Jersey Shore crowd that MTV now single-handedly created and thrives on.

If it wasn't free I'd never ever even begin to think to buy it and wouldn't even know why I'd be looking for something like this. Just flipping to the back of it now and seeing that the recommended price by the publisher is 20.00$ (flat US - 24$ flat Canada), I find it even more amusing trying to figure out who would pay 20$ for such pure rubbish. ( )

The idea of this book was appealing. Greek catharsis...reading terrible stories to make one appreciate what one has. This book was a disappointment though.
1) The illustrations cheapen the experience of the stories. The true stories are supposed to create emotion, but the images used seem to make fun of them. It would have been better without them. The human imagination is all one needs to see these stories.
2) A minor problem, but there were many editing mistakes. One or two are understandable, but there were missing letters, misspellings, and incorrect grammar. It just distracts from the writing.
3) One of the stories mentions others profiting from people's misfortunes and the unfortunate families having to see the lives and sometimes deaths of loved ones being entertainment for others. Good story, but the problem is that is exactly what this book is doing. I doubt that the proceeds are going to these families and if they were it should be mentioned.
I would not recommend this book. ( )

NO STARS. I imagine the only audience who would appreciate this pathetic collection is a handful of 13 year old self-proclaimed "bad-ass" emo boys. Poorly written and laden with spelling and grammatical errors, I only read this because I had committed to do so. Don't waste your time with this one. Seeing that it was published by MTV Books, I don't suppose that I should be shocked. This book being published is a tale of woe.