Dr. Phil’s ‘Love Smart’! It’s Got Exclamation Points! Lots of Them! More Than Two Dozen in the First Seven Pages! Enough to Qualify Him for a Delete Key Award? You Tell Me!

“Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?”

Love Smart has lots of exclamation points! More than two dozen in the first seven pages alone! And can that Dr. Phil McGraw ever dish out the clichés! See how many you can find in this line: “Now it seems time to step up and close the deal, get ‘the fish in the boat,’ walk down the aisle, tie the knot … you want to get to the next level.”

Is that enough to earn a Delete Key Award for the year’s worst writing in books? Or just worse than a bad episode of The Bachelorette? How about if I tell you that “America’s therapist” also advises women hold sex “in reserve” until a man has made “the ultimate commitment,” because many men still think: “Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?” Women, tell me HOW YOU LIKE BEING COMPARED TO COWS! Men, tell me HOW YOU WOULD LIKE IT IF WE ALL WENT ON THE KIND OF SEX STRIKE THIS SEEMS TO BE RECOMMENDING! Yes, Dr. Phil uses a lot of BIG FONTS, too, because he seems to think we won’t GET IT if he doesn’t!

HOW CAN I DECIDE WHICH OF THE TEN WORTHY FINALISTS SHOULD WIN A DELETE KEY AWARD? PLEASE HELP ME BY LEAVING A COMMENT BECAUSE I HAVE TO ANNOUNCE THESE BY NOON TOMORROW!

© 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Did We Really Need This Reminder That They Didn’t Have Epidurals in Bethlehem?: Mary’s Labor Pains on a Donkey: Bad Enough to Win a Delete Key Award for Elizabeth Berg?

“I am in agony, and I must ride endlessly on a donkey in search of something we cannot find!”

– What Mary says to Joseph in The Handmaid and the Carpenter

What made Elizabeth Berg decide to fictionalize the courtship of Mary and Joseph in a novel pitched to the 2006 Christmas gift market? In The Handmaid and the Carpenter, Joseph feels “a stirring in his loins” when he looks at the “flirtatious” Mary. And Mary’s labor pains speed up while she and Joseph are looking for a room, causing her to screech at Joseph, “I am in agony, and I must ride endlessly on a donkey in search of something we cannot find!”

Is this bad enough to win a Delete Key Award? Find out tomorrow on One-Minute Book Reviews. A list of finalists appeared on Feb. 28 and is archived with the February posts.

© 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

Where Have All the Commas Gone? Should Terry McMillan Win a Delete Key Award for Sentences Like This?

“We tried you on your cell but you didn’t pick up so we got a little worried since we didn’t know where your appointment was and we tried calling Leon at work but his assistant said he left early to pick up his son at the airport and against our better judgment we tried your house and Hail Mary Full of Grace answered and after she deposed us, I asked if she knew your doctor’s number and she said she had to think for a few minutes and while she was thinking I started thinking who else we could call and that’s when I remembered your GYN’s name was a hotel: Hilton!”

Where have all the commas gone? Yes, this sentence from Terry McMillan’s The Interruption of Everything reads like the winner of a Bad Hemingway Parody Contest. But is it bad enough to win a Delete Key Award? Is it worse than the work of Mitch Albom, Dr. Phil, or Danielle Steel?

You have until the end of the day to comment. The Delete Key Awards will be announced by noon tomorrow on only the blog One-Minute Book Reviews.

(c) 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

‘He Greeted Me in His Briefs’ And More Hot Sex Scenes From the Luv Guv, James McGreevey … They’re Bad, But Are They Bad Enough to Win a Delete Key Award?

“He greeted me in his briefs. ‘Did anybody see you?’ he asked, closing the door quickly.”

James McGreevey put plenty of red, white and purple prose like that in his The Confession, a memoir written with David France. But are those lines bad enough to win a 2007 Delete Key Award for the year’s worst writing in books? How about, “Our first few times burned so fiercely in my mind I could hardly recall them even as we were still lying together …”?

You have until the end of the day today to comment. The Delete Key Awards winner will be announced tomorrow, the March 15, because Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March, and some of the finalists are trying to assasinate the English language. Here’s another question to consider: McGreevey’s editor, Judith Regan, has been ousted from HarperCollins since the publication of this memoir. Should we keep alive the memory of her contributions to the publishing industry by giving an award to one of her books?

For more hot sex from the Luv Guv, read the Jan. 27 post on One-Minute Book Reviews, “Who Writes Better Sex Scenes, Danielle Steel or James McGreevey?” (archived with the January posts). This post lists steamy lines written by both authors and lets you guess who wrote which. Check back later today for other highlights from the short list of the year’s worst writing in books. (Yes, Danielle Steel is a finalist, too.) Or see the 11 posts on Feb. 28, the short list and a separate post on each finalist. See the Feb. 27 post for questions and answers about the Delete Key Awards.

I would appreciate it if you would forward this post or others about the Delete Key Awards to anyone who might like to know about them, especially if you have friends in the media or at major Web sites, because for some reason, The New York Times has not seen fit to cover the Delete Key Awards the way it covers the National Book Awards and the Pulitzer Prizes. Cancel your subscriptions! And bookmark One-Minute Book Reviews to avoid missing the announcement of the winner, which will be posted before noon tomorrow.

(c) 2007 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.