Saturday, June 13, 2015

First review: Woman who hasn't read Silver Lining says it's drivel

The attacks on my book Silver Lining in a Funnel Cloud have already begun, something which does not come as much of a surprise.

The first review of the book was posted this morning on Amazon from a person who obviously has not read it and has no intention of reading it.

The review gave the book one star out of five and was from someone named Johnna Golden:

Sadly, Mr. Turner was a teacher who was dismissed from the Joplin school systems. His negative blogs and sour book is merely a continuation of his wretchedness. I certainly wouldn't waste $22 for this drivel.

The review, for some reason, is not on my desktop computer when I call up the Amazon page, but it on my mobile device. On both it says that there are no customer reviews yet and the only place it can be purchased at this point is through Amazon. com or through its CreateSpace website, which is also owned by Amazon.

This reminds me of when the first two reviews for No Child Left Alive were one star out of five and came from bloggers and frequent Joplin Globe guest columnists Anson Burlingame and Geoff Caldwell.

And they at least read the book (though I am not sure they understood it).

This appears to be another instance of those who are trying to sell the notion that nothing bad was happening in Joplin until I started writing about it.
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For those of you who are not scared off by a review from someone who has not read the book, the book can be purchased online from Amazon at the link below:

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

The review, for some reason, is not on my desktop computer when I call up the Amazon page, but it on my mobile device.

Amazon is so big that they can't use conventional database technology, instead they have to generally use techniques that achieve "eventual consistency". For example, rather than there being a single copy of all reviews for all their items, there are many copies, and when a review is created, modified, or deleted it's "published" and eventually copied to all the systems that then are used to display them to us. This approach works for just about everything they do, but it does cause behavior that seems odd to those of us used to conventional approaches that don't scale to Amazon size.

Anonymous said...

I reviewed the review: THIS IS DRIVEL AT ITS BEST. CAN'T WAIT TO READ IT....

Anonymous said...

I just got my copy. I'm looking forward to reading it.
I read "No Child Left Alive" and liked it. I don't think it needed the sex stuff, but it was especially fun to read as someone who could picture the characters and places because I was there when many of the things actually happened.
If you haven't read something, should you really review it?

Anonymous said...

Garbage, just like any of the other rambling swill you write. Very unimpressed with this blog as it looks as if its written by an eighth grader. There are so many run on sentences and misspellings that it makes me cringe.

Randy said...

And yet you continue to read it.

Anonymous said...

The grammar errors in the bogus "review" remind me of Anson's writing and Mr. Huff's self-aggrandizing letter of recommendation. But, I appreciate the reminder. I just placed my order.

Anonymous said...

12:02: should say grammatical, not grammar....but nice attempt. Go back to school...lol!

Anonymous said...

I'm not very far in, only page to 85, but have already figured out something interesting. On page 24, after detailing how Besendorfer was in the process of getting fired from her Reeds Springs Superintendent job for witness intimidation with regards to disciplinary problems with her husband, a coach in the district (!), as well as the usual stuff:

Joplin had an assistant superintendent position open and though some of the people he contacted when checking out Besendorfer warned him about her, she was the one Superintendent Jim Simpson wanted. "She knows her stuff," Simpson told a concerned board member. "I can keep her under control."

And he did, for one year, until he took a new position. I'll add that I perceive that Besendorfer has a degree of competence that's sorely lacking in Huff and the sycophants he hired and promoted. If you doubt that, note that she got out of Reeds Springs before being fired, and out of Joplin before the chickens started coming home to roost.

Now, imagine that hadn't happened, imagine a district where the most competent leader is Huff, and the tornado hits. Remember how things started really coming apart after Besendorfer left, especially Huff trying to get the high school built on time and safely, which is a relatively standard thing, this happens with buildings all the time. Not at all standard and routine was arranging a place for every student and teacher after the devastation, and all the other adjustments that had to be made.

I'm wondering that if not for Simpson's hiring of Besendorfer, the immediate school district aftermath of the tornado would have been awful ... but we would have been rid of Huff a lot sooner.

Anonymous said...

Funny how you are interested but want to blast Mr. Turner. At least he tells the truth unlike anyone with a link to JPC and Bright Futures.

Anonymous said...

A comprehensive audit and investigation should happen soon on the relationship between Joplin Schools and Bright Futures, The Joplin School Foundation or any other "charity" that were set up after the tornado to really understand why it's so important for the Huff faction keep control of the BOE. It smacks of corruption and all of these diversions help put more time and more opportunities to bury the evidence.

Anonymous said...

When I look at book reviews a grouping of poorly written one star reviews (sometimes I wonder if they just plagiarize critical reviews from different books and then cut and paste a few names and phrases) along with well written 4 and 5 star reviews is more convincing than nothing but high reviews. Controversy usually indicates someone cares.

I never buy solely based on reviews, but if these clowns think a few negative reviews will accomplish anything more than get them some high fives from their fapptastic friends, they are probably wrong.

They should please continue. They cause less harm posting these reviews than when they buy the glob to line their birdcages.

Anonymous said...

Disappointed to not be able to read the review mentioned.

Has it been deleted?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous:
12:16:
"Well, 'grammatical' is an adjective meaning 'of or pertaining to grammar', whereas 'grammar' in this case is a classifier indicating the type of 'mistake (or error).' Thus, both ways are correct." - quoted from English Forums.

Have a nice day.

Randy said...

I can still see it on my iPod, but not on my laptop.

Anonymous said...

5:22: I didn't say they weren't words from the English language, just that one sounds better than the other or makes more sense. Constructing coherent sentences in writing isn't as easy as it looks is it?..lol

Anonymous said...

7:45:
Apparently comprehending content is not easy if you are a proponent of Common Core or, wait...is it Read 180? In your "Straw Man" argument you missed the meaning completely. I truly appreciated the reminder to order my copy of the book...lol lol