I don’t have a lot of time for recreational reading. I generally choose short novels that I can finish in two or three hours.

Lately, I’ve found most of my reading material on Amazon. I have a limited book budget, so I shamelessly download freebies. Most of them are the works of Indie authors I’ve never heard of. Others were written by Indie authors whose novels I previously enjoyed reading. And a few of them were written by established novelists who sometimes offer their earlier books free on Amazon.

I’ve been happy with about one third of my freebie finds. Another one third of the books are okay, but I probably won’t read them again. That leaves one third that I don’t particularly like or don’t like at all.

Sometimes I’ll download a novel and lose interest in it after reading a couple of chapters. The freebies I abandon usually have too many confusing points of view. Or they have chapters that seem to go on forever and involve too much “tell,” too little “show,” and a lot of “as you know, Bob” dialogue.

And most of the freebies I’ve enjoyed reading are not, um, great literature. I usually check out the reviews before deciding to download a book. Oddly enough, the majority of them have a few five star reviews (perhaps thanks to friends and relatives). However, they usually also have several negative reviews, e.g., story was all over the place, too many typos, editor should have been fired, this is mindless entertainment.

I confess that I’m not looking for great literature. I’m looking for something to keep me entertained for a while. Because the books are free, I’m rarely swayed by negative reviews. If the story seems interesting, I’ll take a chance and download the freebie. I have nothing to lose, except the time it takes to read the book. And if it turns out to be really bad, I can just press delete.