Red Riding Hoo-what?

I was first intrigued when I saw Red Riding Hood at the bookstore about a couple of weeks ago. They were stacked below an LCD screen that apparently shows the trailer of the movie the book was turned into. I don't know if the book was adapted to the big screen of if this is just a movie novelization. Nevertheless, I immediately looked up reviews on amazon.com to see if I'll buy it. I first saw the rating of two-and-a-half stars and asked why since very rarely I saw a book rated so low. Imagine my surprise (and to some degree, relief) when I saw what the reviews were. They were all blaring two words: RIP-OFF!. I guess I'll leave the explaining to this person:

2.0 out of 5 stars This edition = total rip off!, January 22, 2011

By

Beth Windham "Book Lover" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Riding Hood (Paperback)

This story is genuinely wonderful and well written, HOWEVER, I highly recommend to everyone out there that you save your money and not purchase this edition of the book. The story is incomplete and its pretty much just a rip off. In this edition the ending is not included, even though there is no waning of that on the front. You have to go on the website and read the end AFTER the movie is released because that`s when the ending will be up. The average price of this book anywhere, is around $10. So you pay ten bucks for an incomplete product? Can you say rip-off? You wouldn't buy a book in the used bookstore with the end ripped out, would you? So why buy a full priced book with no ending? This is just a jacked up ploy to get people to buy movie tickets. Yeah sure, if you're thinking of buying this book you could look around on the internet and find out that there was no ending included in this edition, but the average person just going through the bookstore won't know that. There is no warning that the book is incomplete on the front, thus its set up to take advantage of people and suck them in, to where they'll be dying for the ending so bad that they will be most likely to just go to the movies when it comes out. I personally think this is soooooooooo wrong! Not only is this set up where people pay for incomplete merchandise, it also makes it to where if you really want a complete edition of this book to put on your shelf, and already bought this edition, you'll have to buy it twice. If the author/publishing company wanted to do it that way, they should have at least have been honest and have a blurb on the front of the book warning people about this, instead this is set up to be misleading and take advantage of someone who really wants to know the end. They purposely don't warn you of there being no ending because they know that far less people would buy it that way, but if they don't tell people, people wanting the full version will pay twice. I myself returned my copy when I found the page, at the END of the book, where it informed me that I couldn't read the end until AFTER the movie released. I encourage people to also return their copies of this edition. It would be a shame if this sort of thing turned into a trend with books; sucking as much money as they can from consumers just so people will pay twice what they would have so they can know the ending or have a complete book. You wouldn't pay for a pair of socks with the toes cute out, or a wagon with only three wheels, would you? So why should people have to pay good money for incomplete books? Its really unfair, dishonest, and just plain wrong.

Amen to that. Sheesh! Who wants to buy an incomplete book? It's like buying a preview. Lame publicity stunt. Very lame.

P.S. I heard that the movie is good though and I really like Amanda Seyfried (read: Mamma Mia!)

AV