Auntie Mike has several labels that apply to him – a fact about which he has mixed feelings – "Mid-30s", "Gay", "Vegetarian", "Animal lover", "Avid reader", and "Incredibly boring" among them.
Auntie Mike began writing his long-winded reviews of books on Amazon, and later on Goodreads, after he'd purchased a string of truly horrible e-books. The writing was bad, the dialogue was bad, the plotting was bad, and the editing was atrocious. And there he was, completely baffled, because all of those books had SCORES of GLOWING reviews on Amazon from people who RAVED about these wonderful, well-written stories with exciting plots and colorful settings and amazingly developed characters. "Did I get the wrong book by mistake?" he wondered at first...but no, sadly, that was not the case, and he was left shaking his head and wondering whether those reviews were paid for by the authors or simply written by idiots.
In any case, Auntie Mike felt a moral obligation to inject a little reality into the Interwebz, and over time, he began to enjoy reviewing for reviewing's sake. Not only does it give him an opportunity to thank the many, many good authors for entertaining him, it gives him the chance to call out those authors who don't think they need to pay for an editor, or who try to manipulate their readers with cliffhangers, or who rush to publish as much as possible as quickly as possible, regardless of whether the work being published is of professional quality.
Auntie Mike's most favorite genre is fantasy - particularly epic fantasy - although he's read and enjoyed books of all kinds at one time or another. He considers it a bonus when the fantasies he's reading include boys who smooch on other boys.
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