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

Surprise Saturday

I always find it depressing when the books I would like to read are not available here in the Philippines. This is what I hate about my country; there are lots of readers here but we have a dismal record when it comes to, how do I phrase it, updated book stocks. Finding books especially the popular ones and books that were published for some time already can really be a pain. Although you can order book from the bookstore and have them ship the book to the Philippines, the costs can be very staggering. And the LIBRARIES! You will not find a book published in  the last five years in any of the libraries here (okay, at least not on the libraries that I have gone to). If you think I'm exaggerating, try visiting some public libraries. Even the UP Main Library the library at UP-CAL is not updated (I'll not even talk about what is contained (or the lack thereof) at the Quezon City public library). You can certainly find lots of Classics there, but none of the likes of The Hunger Games, books more likely to be read by people. I was surprised that there were Harry Potter books there but they were in the Reserve section and can only be borrowed overnight. Why oh why?

So anyways, imagine the excitement I had when I found out that The Book Depository is now shipping FREE, yes you read it right, FREE SHIPPING WORLDWIDE--though not technically worldwide because sone countries are not included--but THE PHILIPPINES IS INCLUDED! Good-bye I read some blogs about Filipinos using the service and so far, all of them praised the efficiency of the service. It only takes ten to fifteen working days (or up to a month during the holidays) for the books to arrive and that is door-to-door delivery and not the lousy service of the Philippine Post Office (PhilPost). I will surely be checking out their free shipping service to see if it's really efficient. I even made an account on their web page and I'll be using that to buy a hardcover copy of City of Bones since it's cowhere to be found here *heehee*. So I think I'll now say goodbye to Special Orders from Fully Booked. I still haven't received a word or anything about my order of The Brothers Karamazov which I placed last January 4th and the semester's already finished. Thank you so much for not helping, Fully Booked. I'm really disappointed at this.

Now back to writing my five-page essay and studying for my final exams.

P.S. Shoot! I didn't notice that I set the Publish time to March 20th, a day late.

AV