The One-Star Review

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but your one-star review touches my soul. Handle with care.

PART I - The Pull Quotes

“A bonkers story of penile horror. Keep going until you finish.” - Amazon User

“Creative and engaging. I couldn’t stop listening.” - YouTube User

“Started out so good and hilarious that I told my husband to read it.” - Amazon User

“Never has a “Monster Cock” sounded so good to me!” - YouTube User

“A ridiculous, gory, horrifying romp with a very satisfying end.” - Amazon User

“A political rant on toxic masculinity.” - Amazon User

“Can’t wait for the movie!” - YouTube User

“Amazon better call, or I will!” - YouTube User

“Trust me when I say that you've never read anything like it.” - Amazon User

PART II - When Someone Else Says It

From star ratings on Amazon and an anonymous thumbs-up on YouTube to deep-dive critical analysis of film and TV, online review culture has become homogenized, routine, and sometimes (most of the time?) even toxic. Despite all this, reviews still contain precious, life-affirming nuggets of gold.

This is especially true if you are an artist -- any kind of artist -- because art without an audience, well, it’s basically just masturbation. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s still better when there’s more than one participant.

(Emphasis on participant ... the willing kind, specifically. I’m not talking about a Louis CK type of situation here.)

For an author -- self-published or otherwise -- reviews are more than just a recommendation to other readers. Reviews, simply put, are a validation of a kind of creative expression that requires an artist’s soul to be laboriously extracted and painted in prose across countless pages.

And, let me tell you ... validation is absolutely everything.

Validation is oxygen.

Validation is motivation.

Validation is fucking vindication that this dumb idea you labored over for months or even years wasn’t a total waste of time, and there’s at least one other person in this big, stupid world that sees you, that gets you.

When we watch film and TV or read those mass-marketed New-York-Times-bestseller-list Oprah Book Club novels, it’s easy to lose sight of the artist behind the work. We’ll sum up an opinion, a star rating, or a thumb up or down based on a personal reaction to the art, not necessarily considering the human who birthed it.

And ... that’s perfectly fair. Especially when considering the mass-market component. The worst of these entertainment are profit factories for shareholders, and actual souls aren’t required for the process.

And that’s pretty fucking sad because it’s been training our society to respond in the same common-denominator fashion, whether we’re talking about a big-budget Marvel flop or a 20-second seizure prompt on TikTok.

It’s all content. And all content deserves is a thumb and a swipe.

Sticks and stones.

Thumb and a swipe.

But words? An audience expressing a personal opinion?

I am a self-published author and creator, many times over, and like I said at the start: with every comment and review my audience shares, they take my soul in their hands.

Handle with care.

Please.

PART III - The One-Star Review

All those pull quotes at the top of this post? Those are from my novel, “Don’t Be A Monster, Dick!”

To quote the Amazon product page, the novel is about:

a guy whose penis falls off, turns into a monster, and then terrorizes the city. There's a military defense contractor, so there's a lot of toxic phallic imagery. Speaking of phallic, there's also a wannabe governor campaigning on state's rights to WMDs. Also, the eponymous monster dick may or may not jump across multiple bodies, regardless of gender.

A dude plays the flute. Another dude beatboxes. There's a restaurant called "Nips & Sips." Toxic masculinity meets the symbiotic power of creative expression ... but with lots of dick.

As of this writing, the book is free on both Amazon and Apple, and the audiobook is ad-supported on YouTube.

Yes, I’m basically giving this book away because I’m far more interested in people being able to experience my art than I am in making a few bucks -- I could write a whole other article about how difficult it is to convince a person to read a book, much less a book from someone they’ve never heard of.

Again, art isn’t much without an audience.

Now, despite its low-low price tag of free, “Monster, Dick!” hasn’t exactly taken the world by storm. Which is fine -- the point of this article isn’t about popularity or fame or a desire for such things.

As you can tell, the feedback that I have received on this novel has been more than enough to roll a very sexy series of pull quotes. What you probably can’t tell is that hidden among those quotes was a one-star review.

And that is what this article is about: a one-star review that scooped up my soul, rattled it around for about a second, and then proceeded to give me a metaphorical reach around.

If you’re confused ... well ... so was I.

Here’s the review in its entirety, from Amazon user “Hunter”:

1.0 out of 5 stars.

A political rant on Toxic Masculinity and more

What a let down. This started out so good and hilarious that I told my husband to read it to. However it soon went downhill with all the idealogical views of one side of the spectrum and became annoyng and probably insulting to many more than entertaining. The authors should warn people in the description when their books are like this.

PART IV - The Author Reviews Your Review

Do you remember everything I said earlier about being mindful of the human on the other side of the review? ---

For an author -- self-published or otherwise -- reviews are more than just a recommendation to other readers. Reviews, simply put, are a validation of a kind of creative expression that requires an artist’s soul to be laboriously extracted and painted in prose across countless pages.

Yeah, I’m about to break my own rule because this Hunter character is a fucking moron. And I don’t say that lightly. An epidemic of stupidity is running rampant through our culture, and, like it or not, the pandemic is amplifying it. Stupid people get sick, the virus makes them stupider, and then they repeat the cycle until they die.

If that sounds harsh, get vaxxed and put a fucking mask on, you inveterate sickos.

Because, let’s be honest, there’s a hell of a lot of good in that one-star review.

“A political rant on toxic masculinity.”

(Yes, exactly. I wrote the damn thing, and I couldn’t have summed it up in a single, cleaner line myself.)

“Started out so good and hilarious that I told my husband to read it.”

(Oh, my god. Recommendations to friends and family? That’s the motherfucking lifeblood of a self-published author!)

Obviously, Hunter downloaded the book in the first place based on the objectively brilliant cover art and description. But somehow, this idiot -- and I’m using that pejorative as a clinical, if not a technical term -- downloaded a book about a giant monster penis -- as illustrated by said cover art -- and then proceeded to bitch about ideological views concerning toxic masculinity.

Again, the description clearly states the book is about ... toxic masculinity. See? It’s right there.

Also -- spoiler alert -- the novel’s opening sequence is about a scum-of-the-earth father having his penis removed because he stuck it where it 100 percent absolutely did not belong before moving to an opening monologue about how the aforementioned Nips & Sips restaurant requires its waitresses to wear erect, prosthetic rubber nipples. You know, per the one-star review, that whole part that “started out so good and hilarious.”

In other words, I have made absolutely ZERO EFFORT to misrepresent what this novel is about. Whether it is “Monster, Dick!” or my other novel, “Punched, Drunk, and All Out of Fucks” ... I have made no mystery of my politics, my values, and where I stand, in general.

It’s right there on the cover, in the descriptions, and literally everywhere else you look in my creative world.

I am proudly progressive and aggressive as fuck.

Deal with it.

But this Amazon Reviewer takes issue with my political rant against toxic masculinity. (Which in the novel, in all fairness, resolves in a rant against both toxic masculinity and toxic femininity. I try to be an equal-opportunity offender, although toxic masculinity does carry the bulk of the novel.)

I say all of that simply to say this:

Dear Hunter of Amazon: You liked the cover, you liked the premise and the pitch, you liked the opening act, and you told your husband to read it. But I guess you’re too, um, in favor of toxic masculinity to enjoy the rest of the story?

Because you’re ... pro ... toxic ... masculinity?

That’s one hell of a hottake if ever there was one.

You giant fucking twat.

PART V - A Positive Note

If you made it this far ... thank you. Thank you for reading, and thank you for allowing me to express myself and vent. My bubble is small, my audience smaller, and your words -- your feedback, support, comments, and ratings -- are my oxygen and validation.

And yes ... that includes the one-stars.

Because literally, everything else about that review was so fucking perfect!

Thank you, Hunter!

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