[Editorial note: The following citations come from one-star Amazon reviews Elena Ferrante’s novel My Brilliant Friend. I’ve preserved the reviewers’ original punctuation and spelling. I love Ferrante’s novel, by the way. More one-star Amazon reviews].
ugh
Odd book
too wordy
so violent
so bummed
Depressing
It’s a series
stupid critics
Maybe terrific
I was so board
Did outline it all
I loved this book
It simply ended!!
So many characters
Too many characters
Not so Good this time
like Twitter on steroids
angst-filled adolescence
I’m an uncultured swine
Everyone in our book club
reading it for my book club
the ending was a dirty trick
there are over 40 characters
Riddled with punctuation errors
Chick lit with no plot or substance
This book is an exercise in despair
I was looking forward to this trilogy
by far the worst book I have every read
Of course it’s a matter of personal taste
the characters were not very nice people
I consider family sagas my favorite genre
endless clusters of names, names, names
Italian names that are difficult to remember
the characters are unlikable (and confusing)
we finished it only because it was Book Club
I damned near tore out what’s left of my hair
too many characters none of whom are likable
a story of domestic violence and male dominance
This book could not have been written by a woman
the main characters are interdependent in a very sick way
Boring and couldn’t Finnish it despite raves from others.?
Just couldn’t get past the violence and disrespect of people
found myself having to look back to figure out who was who
the two central characters may have been intended to be complex and interesting (and may be across the series) they were boorish and flat
the narrator was dryly describing events, as opposed to us being shown what happens through her interaction with characters and the world around her
the struggle of two smart intelligent girls to escape their poor brutal neighborhood in vain
basically a long list of long Italian names and stereotypes
one of my favorite books is The Brothers Karamazov
Just one self-absorbed observation after another
This book could not have been written by a man
WAY too many characters to keep track of
One of the best books I have ever read!
discussing it at my book club this week
an indulgent description of characters
the words did not flow in an easy way
If there were a zero stars rating
I read a lot in a variety if genres
her prose is dry and impersonal
meandering, fancy Chick Lit
it is the first part of a series
I am an English teacher
the characters are dark
what a very long book
choppy and uneven
too many charactors
more of a YA book
tooooo long !!!’n
laborious at best
like a soap opera
wonderful book
my book club
dix no finish
pure drivel
Pure trash
Biblioklept 
The ‘too wordy’ makes me want to read it.
The ‘more of a YA book’ makes me want to trust the one star ratings.
Is there a strict mathematical method on the selection of the highlights?
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There is very little method for my selection, mathematical or otherwise :)
But the book isn’t YA at all, in my estimation.
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I saw a one star review on a great book by a famous author and it was due to the fact that the book was damaged when it was shipped.
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