Summary
Review
I used to be a big fan of Piers Anthony. I lost interest when he wandered too far into lechery, but when I saw this story for free, I thought I’d give him another chance. I wish I hadn’t. I hope you won’t.
I almost gave up on Juliet on page 1, when she started in about her “boobies”. Still, the story’s only 30 pages, so I pressed on. Sadly, it gets worse. It turns out the story is a revision of Shakespeare’s play, except that … Juliet has a magic breast. Seriously – her breast is an analgesic. I can’t make this stuff up, and I wish Anthony hadn’t either.
The story has Anthony’s trademark bright, snappy dialogue, simple prose, and logic-driven approach. Unfortunately, it also has a female protagonist who sees herself as “just a dumb girl”, and [spoiler alert] God himself confirms her essential lack of value. Most of all, though, it encapsulates the late period Anthony – breasts aren’t just nice, they’re magic, and offering them to men is pretty much a female’s purpose in life.
Bad enough, as far as it goes, but it turns out part of the story’s reason for being is to draw attention to another Anthony release – about a female serial rapist. My advice is to pass them both up, and probably skip most Anthony work released this century. I rarely delete even bad ebooks I’ve read, but this one is already gone.
I’ve always seen one star as the bottom of my rating scale, but recognized that there was technically a step beneath that. Now I know what it’s for.
