Stupid Reviews from Stupid People.

This review annoys me. It annoys me because it's stupid, written by a stupid person who I guess is paid to leave bad reviews. While they may have played it in the background at some point, it's obvious that they really didn't pay all that much attention because of their mentioning of things that didn't happen.

So let's look at the review (this is for Summers End - Audiobook):

Review is in italics, my responses are in plain text:

When you create a protagonist with a certain kind of background, it's important for their personality to match. If not, the reader will just find themselves pulled out of the story when things don't line up as they should.
An ex-siccario being so criminally naive, for instance.

Okay, first off, WTF is a 'siccario'? I mean, if you're going to try and sound cool by throwing out foreign words, maybe, just MAYBE you need to SPELL them CORRECTLY?

A SICario (one C) is a Spanish hitman. Guess what? Hero ain't Spanish. Or even from a Spanish speaking culture. So he's never been a 'sicario', much less an 'ex' one.

Oh, and to be CLEAR a 'hitman' is not the same thing as an 'enforcer' or as a 'killer'. Hitman are hired guns. Street gangs don't use hired guns. They have their enforcers (who are typically the people who administer beat downs) and they have their 'killer's. I don't know what the current slang is for them, but I can assure you it ain't 'Siccario'.

The second half of the sentence is actually funny—as well as the leading paragraph of this review. We have a reviewer who has never committed a major crime in his life, much less been any kind of 'career' criminal talking about someone who is yes, a 'former' killer being 'criminally naive'.

Well you know scooter, before you go talking about what is and isn't 'naive' among criminals, perhaps you need to tell us just how it is you know so much about the personality and behaviors of teenaged street gang members, both current and former, assassins, killers, and criminals?

Sitting at home watching 'Criminal Minds' doesn't count. Also hanging out with your loser friends back when you were in highschool and talking smack doesn't qualify either.

Or, for some reason, even though he wants to be a better man, to suddenly become squeamish or disarm himself in the worst possible situations, just for plot convenience.
I felt myself getting annoyed by this several times.

Ah, someone who has never tried to be a 'better man', and I'm sure has never been a 'bad man'. At best I suspect the guy who wrote hasn't even achieved the status of 'man' much less 'mediocre man'.

Now where in the hell he got 'squeamish' from is beyond me. Maybe he didn't really LISTEN to the book? From this comment alone I'd have to say so. And 'disarmed himself'? The character walked around with a loaded pistol in his pocket for more than half of the book. The only time he didn't have the pistol was when he was someplace where it was against the law and could send him to jail. You know, following the law like MOST law-abiding people do?

As for the pick? Well, if the reviewer had paid any attention at all to the story, he would have known that the hero was trying to disassociate himself from that part of his life. You can't stop being a smoker if everywhere you go, you have a pack of cigarettes in your pocket, now can you? Talk about an incredibly stupid comment. You find yourself annoyed? Maybe audiobooks aren't for you Scooter because you can't comprehend what people are saying to you. I'm already annoyed at you and I'm only halfway through your stupid review.

Also, there's almost no situation where I enjoy a protagonist getting 'lucky' to keep saving them from their mistakes. I don't know why people do this, it's supremely unsatisfying.

I'm trying to think of where exactly he got 'lucky' unless you talk about all of the bad luck he ran into? Most of what I guess this guy considers luck was the hero going into situations with a plan, and making his own 'luck'. That's how life works scooter - there really ain't no such thing as luck. What people call 'good luck' is actually the result of prior planning. Plus experience.

I normally don't ding a story for what I consider character flaws, but when said flaws run contrary to their own back story, I make an exception.

You know, an example of this would be interesting to see. Of course I doubt there is one, he just wrote this because writing bad reviews is what he's paid for (that or it's his hobby - in either case I am sure Scooter here is quite the miserable cuss).

Unsureb if I'll read the sequel. I'm not all that interested in seeing how the protagonist fails/lucks his way up.

Honestly I wished you hadn't even partially listened to this one, but I guess you needed that paycheck, or that shot of attacking something you really didn't understand.  

For someone who has reduced their life to sitting on the old musty couch in their mom's basement and who is both unwilling and unable to do anything useful with their life, putting down imaginary characters in a work of fiction is about the best you'll ever aspire to.