From the Out There Inbox:
Dear Susan,
Ha! I caught you!
You wrote that review yourself didn’t you? It fooled me at first but then I went to look at the other reviews Sue had written. They just screamed, “Alice, cultural critic”.
She reviewed Alice I Think after reading 30 pages. She reviewed another book after reading 90 pages. She even reviewed a book she had not read at all. I thought it was cute that her best ratings were reserved for picture books and an audio tape. I don’t know why there wasn’t a review of the prologue to Lord of the Rings. Maybe you thought that would be too obvious.
When I got to her review of Spellfall, I began to smell a rat. Warning!! she says, she found a swear word 2/3 of the way through the book! Surely that is intended as ironic humour. What is the word for the literary device?? I am sure it was discussed back in English 11. Hyperbole?
The dead give away though was the review of Art Escapes, where she approves the clear chapter headings but finds that the pages “are sort of mushy looking.” That is SO reminiscent of Alice’s squishy feelings. (Though I must say that given the context, I knew exactly what Alice meant by squishy feelings whereas I have no idea what a mushy looking page is.) That being said, only a weird sick person would use adjectives like that.
Response:
Thank you, Carol, for that most entertaining analysis of Ms. Burton’s reviews.
Merry Christmas!