A Brief "LA Candy" Dissection

So I'm reading New York Times Bestseller LA Candy, "written" by reality starlet turned fashion designer Lauren Conrad, and I felt it highly important to say a few brief things about it. Forgive me as I dive in headfirst:

a) The writing in itself is a good skeleton, but does not have enough meat to be desirable. It's all bones, and as attractive a slender figure can be, bony doth not feel good.

b) If it was in fact ghost-written, that ghostwriter should find another gig. If you're getting paid to make something better, it should actually be friggin' good, and friggin' good it ain't. It's alarmingly mediocre.

c) Elaborate where appropriate. Descriptions such as "the pretty brick building" or "the tall, industrial-looking light" are too simple, or rather, too vague. A little less cut-and-paste and a little more realism, perhaps, would bring life to the surroundings and not the object only.

d) The constant mention places and having to explain them to the reader is not an effective way of description and involvement. Describing something shouldn't be a laundry list of adjectives or adverbs. They should sing and perhaps lure the reader into conjuring up their own images. Keep the parantheses to a minimum. And, El Pollo Loco does not need explaining. "The Crazy Chicken" we know.

I'm just disappointed in that she got a three-book-deal, but even more so that I'm actually reading the first of them. I'll probably read them all as some sort of modern, silent torture.

In reading it, I must say that I'm actually worried - worried in that I could one day submit a book idea to someone so shoddily put together and watered-down for readers, thinking it was hot stuff, and being made fun of/criticized harshly because of it. Being a bestseller wouldn't matter. Being the best at making money doesn't mean success, or prestige, or real value. I'm sure there are plenty of monetarily advanced drug dealers and prostitutes out there, too.

I know that I'm not the best writer out there, but I'd like to think that I'm good at what I do. That I'm honest in whatever format is in front of me. I've got to hand it to anyone writing fiction; it's not easy. But when this brand of fiction is based loosely on your real-life experience - come now. It should be [relatively] gravy. Again, I guess that's what one gets when making their real-life experience "fiction" instead of non-fiction so as to avoid all the legal fees.

I really don't mean to sound so bitter.