Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've found a number of inexpensive books and series of heroic fantasy since buying my Kindle. Some were good, a few were great, some were just okay. This was the first one that was really, really bad. Apparently the author has been on a 'review drive' and it conned me. I'll read more reviews before plunking down my cash in the future. What's wrong with A Quest for Heroes? Pretty much everything. The lead character, Thor, is a total Mary Sue. But even that can be overcome with an interesting story and so can the constant fantasy tropes that are thrown at us. What can't be overcome is bad writing. The baddies are all bad, the goodies are all good. The hero meets his love interest and while I could believe he'd fall for her at first sight, it's totally unrealistic that she'd fall for a boy 2 years younger than herself and moon over him like a teen pin-up. All she does is have one look at him and she's moping around the place with a trail of floating hearts - it's enough to make you gag. Thor meets a couple of other boys and within 24 hours, he's thinking of them as his brothers - despite the fact that his real brothers treat him like crap and he'd probably not consider being a 'brother' to be a great thing. He was raised on a farm where he had to do the dirty work and all of a sudden he objects to having to shovel animal poop? The author also chooses to have a gay villain. Normally, I don't care about the sexuality of a character one way or the other, in this case, his gayness almost seems to be part of his villainy. He and his foppish comrade 'cry like girls' when things go wrong and basically prance around like sissies while they work on their dastardly plot. There's even a cottage in the woods where a witch resides! Not to mention what is basically the sword in the stone. The thing is, the author actually had a couple of interesting ideas with this kingdom encircled in a ring and might have been able to do a few fun things with it, but she's simply not up to the task. If I thought the sequels would get better, I might peruse them, but I just can't imagine going any further into this train wreck. I could probably write a better ending myself. Probably turn Thor gay and have him wind up with one of his two new 'brothers' and then start a war to overthrow the 'rightful' heir. At least that would be a twist!