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Title: A book that is to writing what McDonald's is to food.
Review: It's difficult to know how to read a book like VALENTINE. If you read it as literature, it fails at every point. Clearly, its intention is that it be pure genre, but does genre necessitate badness? From the minute you read the protagonist's name, which is right out of soap operas or romance novels, and follow her mannered, mechanical thoughts, you feel that you're reading about purely manufactured people. Even if the ending is a surprise, there is no suspense, because the story and characters are completely contrived, and the writing has all the style of a High School creative writing contest runner-up. If you like this sort of thing, then the real question isn't whether this book is "good" or not, but are you cheating yourself by allowing the regular ingestion of cardboard?
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