Complete List of 2010 Delete Key Awards Finalists

The finalists for the 2010 Delete Key Awards for bad writing in books are:

THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES (Doubleday) by Ben Mezrich.

BIG MAN (Grand Central) by Clarence Clemons and Don Reo.

FINGER LICKIN’ FIFTEEN (St. Martin’s) by Janet Evanovich.

GOING ROGUE (Harper) by Sarah Palin.

IT SUCKED AND THEN I CRIED (Simon Spotlight) by Heather Armstrong.

THE LOST SYMBOL (Doubleday) by Dan Brown. 

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES (Quirk) by Seth Grahame-Smith.

PYGMY (Doubleday) by Chuck Palahniuk.

STORIES FROM CANDYLAND (St. Martin’s) by Candy Spelling, and MOMMYWOOD (Simon Spotlight) by Tori Spelling (tie).

THE WHOLE TRUTH (Vision/Hachette) by David Baldacci.

Honorable Mention: MENNONITE IN A LITTLE BLACK DRESS (Holt) by Rhoda Janzen.

You can read the shortlisted passage from  a book by clicking on the title on the list above. The Delete Key Awards winner and runners-up will be announced on March 15. If you would like to try to lobby for or against a title, please leave a comment on this post or any of the posts linked to on the shortlist.

2010 Delete Key Awards Finalist #1 – ‘Pygmy’ by Chuck Palahniuk

From Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Pygmy (Doubleday):
“Succulent barrier much thrusting mammary glands shield operative me, swinging lady buttocks further thwart attacks.”

“Tongue of operative me lick, licking, touching back tooth on bottom, molar where planted inside forms cyanide hollow, touching not biting.”

“In greater afraid … within thinking machine operative me, this agent ponder if entire being operative me pitted for destroy American, annihilate homosexual, crackpot Methodist religion, Lutheran and Baptist cult, extinguish all decadent bourgeoisie – subsequent successful total such destruction: Render this agent obsolete? Of no worth?”

Yes, all 241 pages of Pygmy are this dorky. The novel reads as though Palahniuk had cut up a dictionary, put the pieces in a food processor, and pushed, “Spin.”

Read the full review of Pygmy.

You can also read about the Delete Key Awards on Janice Harayda’s page on Twitter. The 10 Delete Key Awards are being named in random order, beginning with No. 10, but numbered for convenience. This is finalist No. 1. The winner and runners-up will be announced March 15 on One-Minute Book Reviews and on Twitter.

© 2010 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

2010 Delete Key Awards Finalist No. 2 — ‘It Sucked and Then I Cried’ by Heather B. Armstrong

From Heather Armstrong’s It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita (Simon Spotlight):

“Leta knew how to poop, she knew how to eat, SHE HAD TO KNOW WHAT TIME IT WAS, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.”

“‘HA! ANOTHER BABY? The logistics of more than one TOTALLY BOGGLED MY MIND.”

“But this time we couldn’t park in the special parking space because I was no longer pregnant (THANK THE LORD GOD JESUS!) and we had to park in the non-pregnant parking space and walk an extra twenty feet to the door. We found this inconvenience totally unacceptable as we were living in America and shouldn’t have to walk an extra twenty feet for anything. AM I RIGHT? AM I RIGHT? This is the best country on Earth! WE DON’T WALK NOWHERE FOR NUTHING. Damn straight.”

Armstrong knows how to type, she knows how to blog, SHE HAS TO KNOW HOW ANNOYING IT IS TO READ SO MANY CAPITAL LETTERS, EXCLAMATION POINTS, AND MISPUNCTUATED SENTENCES, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Especially when she SAYS MEAN THINGS about old people like her stepfather, such as: “Maybe if you SCREAMED A LITTLE LOUDER THE WINDOWS WOULD EXPLODE.”

Read the full review of It Sucked and Then I Cried.

The Delete Key Awards finalists are being named in random order, beginning with No. 10, but numbered for convenience. This is finalist No. 2. You can also read about the Delete Key Awards on Janice Harayda’s page (@janiceharayda) on Twitter. The winner and runners-up will be announced on March 15 on One-Minute Book Reviews and on Twitter.

© 2010 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

2010 Delete Key Awards Finalist #3 — Clarence Clemons and Don Reo’s ‘Big Man’

From Clarence Clemons and Don Reo’s Big Man: Real Life & Tall Tales (Grand Central):

“Clarence thought about a girl he knew in high school, then about a song he used to play, then about the house he grew up in back in Virginia, then about a street in Paris, then about a room he stayed in once in San Francisco, then about a painting of a child and a dog sitting on a pier, then about a bottle of wine he especially enjoyed at a restaurant in New York or maybe Boston with its gardens and grown-up houses ad tress along the river and pizza in the North End and a car, his first car, a ’62 Chevy, a burgundy convertible; and he thought about all the people who died and he thought about death itself and how his was coming someday and how scared he would be to stop living and lose it all and slip into that great blackness and would it hurt and for how long; and he thought about the endless rush of time and color and sound as he moved down the corridor like at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, where that guy is in the room where you’re young and you’re old and you’re young and you’re old again; and he thought about his mother and his father and his children of God and about Heaven and who would be there and would there be awkward moments like when Jackie O runs into Marilyn, and he wondered why ghosts are always wearing clothes and did that mean that shirts and pants existed after death, too; and he thought about all the things he didn’t do that he said he would, the broken promises, the broken hears, the fragments of regret scattered around all his rooms, all his days; and he thought about the rain, the soft, steady kind, the deep, soaking rain that strangely brought him comfort on the days that said that the sun would never come out again, and the rain would wash him clean if he stood in it and opened his arms to it and turned his face to the dark, weeping sky and allowed it to soak into his soul and make him one with the rain, part of it, lost in it where there was no pain and no memory and no regret, a place of peace and quiet, a place beyond hope, beyond redemption, beyond death.”

The E Street Band might still be playing in Asbury Park dives if the group had given the world the musical equivalent of this 397-word jawbreaker from its popular saxophonist and sideman for Bruce Springsteen. “Long” doesn’t equal “profound.”

Read the New York Times review of Big Man. 

The Delete Key Awards are being announced in random order but numbered for convenience. This is finalist No. 3. You can also read about the Delete Key Awards on Janice Harayda’s page (@janiceharayda) on Twitter. The winner and runners up will be announced March 15 on One-Minute Book Reviews and on Janice Harayda’s page (@janiceharayda) on Twitter.

© 2010 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

2010 Delete Key Awards Finalist #4 – ‘The Whole Truth’ by David Baldacci

From David Baldacci’s The Whole Truth (Hachette/Vision):
“To say that this hit the earth like a molten-lava tsunami would have been the grossest of understatements.”
A “molten-lava tsunami”? Is FEMA prepared for one of those?

Read the full review of The Whole Truth.

The Delete Key Awards finalists are being announced in random order, beginning with No. 10, but numbered for convenience. This is finalist No. 4. You can also read about the Delete Key Awards on Twitter at @janiceharayda.com. The winner and runners-up will be announced on One-Minute Book Reviews and Twitter on March 15.

2010 Delete Key Awards Finalist No. 5 – ‘Finger Lickin’ Fifteen’ by Janet Evanovich

From Janet Evanovich’s novel Finger Lickin’ Fifteen (St. Martin’s):

“ ‘Nobody calls me pecker head and lives,’ Pecker said.”
Evanovich’s popular series about the bounty-hunter Stephanie Plum goes further south in Finger Lickin’ Fifteen, which abounds with jokes about body parts or functions described as “number two,” “cooter,” “pecker,” “wanger” or “winkie.” Another example appears below.

“‘Yep,’ Grandma said. ‘He’s got a big one. All them Turleys is hung like horses. … I tell you, for a little guy, he had a real good-sized wanger’.”

Read the full review of Finger Lickin’ Fifteen.

The Delete Key Awards finalists are being announced in random order, beginning with No. 10, but numbered for convenience. This is finalist No. 5. You can also read about the awards on Janice Harayda’s page (@janiceharayda) on Twitter. The winner and runners-up will be announced on March 15 on One-Minute Book Reviews and Twitter.

© 2010 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

 

2010 Delete Key Awards Finalist #6 — ‘The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook’ by Ben Mezrich

Update, Feb. 6, 2011: The screenplay for movie The Social Network was adapted from The Accidental Billionaires.

From Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal (Doubleday)

“His hands roamed under her open white shirt, tracing the soft material of her red bra, his fingers lingering over her perky, round breasts, touching the silky texture of her perfect caramel skin. She gasped, her lips closing against the side of his neck, her tongue leaping out, tasting him. His entire body started to quiver, and he rocked forward, pushing her harder against the stall, feeling her writhe into him. His lips found her ear and she gasped again –”
Has any other author written such purple prose about the Harvard students who put Facebook in the black?

Also from The Accidental Billionaires:

“the end was really a foregone conclusion.”

“Eduardo had spent many evenings in the stacks of Widener – poring through the works of economic theorists such as Adam Smith, John Mills [sic], even Galbraith.”

“Maybe feeding the chicken chicken was a mistake; how was he supposed to know what chickens ate? The thing hadn’t come with a manual. Eduardo had gone to a Jewish prep school in Miami. What the hell did Jews know about chickens, other than the fact that they made good soup?”

Read the full review of The Accidental Billionaires.

The 10 Delete Key Awards finalists are being named in random order, beginning with No. 10, but numbered for convenience. This is finalist No. 6. Janice Harayda also writes about the awards on her Twitter page (@janiceharayda) at www.twitter.com/janiceharayda. The Delete Key Awards winner and runners up will be announced on One-Minute Book Reviews and on Twitter on March 15.

© 2010 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
www.janiceharayda.com

2010 Delete Key Awards Finalist #7B ‘Mommywood’ by Tori Spelling with Hilary Liftin

From Tori Spelling’s Mommywood (Simon Spotlight), written with Hilary Liftin, in which Spelling writes of a day when her son had an accident at a pool:

“Either you know this already or it’s too much information, but swim diapers aren’t rigged quite the same way as normal diapers are. Swim diapers have a tough job. They have to keep in whatever comes out. Without them, babies would put the ‘poo’ in ‘pool.’ So they don’t have convenient Velcro openings. You can’t just untape, wipe, and be done with it. Instead they’re like little pants. The load is kind of trapped in there. Good news for the other swimmers, but once I had Liam in my arms, I had no idea how to get that swim diaper off while adequately containing its contents. That is to say, I feared the poop. …


“I laid Liam down on his towel. I pulled off the swim diaper. Again, either you know this already or it’s too much information, but when poo is exposed to that environment (pool water, a sopping swim diaper, a hyper child – the trifecta), it loses its structural integrity. There was no … cohesion. Just crumbles of poo everywhere. A horror show. I went in for the kill, but a few swipes later I was out of wipes and still facing an insurmountable mess. I swear, there was actually more there than when I started.”
You’re right, Tori: Way too much information.

Read the full review of Mommywood. Tori’s mother, Candy Spelling, is also a 2010 Delete Key Awards finalist. This is the first time two members of a family have made the shortlist in the same year.

The Delete Key Awards are being named in random order, beginning with No. 10, but numbered for convenience. This is finalist No. 7B, which tied with No. 7A, Tori Spelling’s Mommywood, for this spot. The winner and runners-up will be announced on March 15 on One-Minute Book Reviews and Janice Harayda’s Twitter page (@janiceharayda) at www.twitter.com/janiceharayda.

© 2010 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.

2010 Delete Key Awards Finalist #7A (tie) – ‘Stories From Candyland’ by Candy Spelling

Candy Spelling’s Stories From Candyland tied with Tori Spelling’s Mommywood for this spot on the shortlist.

From Candy Spelling’s Stories From Candyland (St. Martin’s), a memoir of her life with Dynasty producer Aaron Spelling:

“There’s a big celebrity culture that you’d have to be here in L.A. to truly understand.”
Unless your supermarket sells the National Enquirer.

“Celebrities get way too much attention and credit, but they certainly sell movies, music, products, and entertainment.”
The way to fix that is by writing a memoir about your famous family and your celebrity friends?

“Being a celebrity, knowing celebrities, working with celebrities, writing about celebrities, feeding celebrities, repairing celebrity cars, and photographing celebrities – these are just some of the elements of our local economy. There is no end to the public’s fascinating with all things (and people) celebrity.”
Enough word-repetition for an early reader called Dick and Jane Go to Hollywood.

Read the full review of Stories From Candyland.

The 10 Delete Key Awards finalists are being named in random order, beginning with No. 10, but numbered for convenience. This is finalist No. 7A, which tied with finalist No. 7B, Tori Spelling’s Mommywood, for this spot. You can also read about the Delete Key Awards on Janice Harayda’s page (@janiceharayda) on Twitter. The grand prize winner and runners-up will be announced on March 15 on One-Minute Book Reviews and on Twitter. 

© 2010 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
www.janiceharayda.com

 

2010 Delete Key Awards Finalist #8 — ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’ by Seth Grahame-Smith

From Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Quirk):

“‘What can be da meaning of dis?’ howled Charlotte, as soon as he was gone. ‘Mah dear Ewiza, he muss be love you, aw he never wuh have called in dis famiwiar way.’”
Charlotte Lucas turns into a Regency zombie and appears to channel the words of Mammy in Gone With the Wind. Jane Austen weeps.

Read the full review of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. 

You can also read about the Delete Key Awards on Twitter at @janiceharayda. The 10 finalists are being announced in random order, beginning with No. 10, but numbered for convenience. This is finalist No. 8. The winner and runners up will be announced on March 15 on One-Minute Book Reviews and on Twitter.

© 2010 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.