#BookReview: Family Business by Carl Weber & Eric Pete

Look, I have been down with Carl Weber's books since the beginning.  If his last book, The Man in 3B, left a bad taste in my mouth, Family Business scraped the taste buds off my tongue, stepped on them, doused them with sriracha and set them on fire.  It was the most formulaic, predictable, God awful crap I've ever read from him.  It's my fault though.  I didn't do my research on Weber's writing partner.  I'd never read anything from Eric Pete.  Perhaps if I had, I'd have known what to expect, street lit wrapped up in a literary fiction book cover.

Now Carl Weber is nowhere near on the same level as James Patterson, but I felt like he made a Patterson move by partnering with another writer who completely changes his writing style.  If you've read Patterson for years, as I have, you've noticed that his recent books are of a lesser quality than his earlier books.  In an effort to churn out as many books as possible, and pocket as many dollars as possible, Patterson simply outlines books and turns them over to lesser authors to flesh out.  I can't say that that's what Weber did for sure, allow a lesser known author to get the come up by using his name, but no.  It was horrible. It was sucktastic.  It should never be done again (except that part 2 to this nonsense is due out, so apparently he is doing it again).

What was so bad about the book? I'm glad you asked.  It started off with the introduction of family members at a meeting called by the parents to announce their retirement from the family business.  Now the reader is lead to believe the business is a fine car dealership.  And it seems feasible.  The youngest daughter, Paris, is rebellious and rough around the edges, but it's something you come to expect from rich kids who are acting out for attention, right?  Third oldest son, Orlando, is all about the business and set to take over when his father steps down.  Oldest brother, Junior, is content with managing the fleet of automobiles and overseeing their transportation.  Oldest daughter, London, used to work in the business, but when she married her attorney husband, Harrison, she backed out and became a stay at home mother.  All of these things are feasible, right?

This is the point when I decided Weber said he was done and turned everything over to Pete, because 44% into this book, the family business flipped from being a car dealership to a heroin ring.  Girl, WHAT?!?!?! I should have just deleted the book from Kinderella right then and there, but nooooo. I kept reading.  I'm sure in their minds, Weber and Pete thought they were creating some Godfather-like saga when, in reality, this was some old crap.  The finishing school Paris had gone to was actually a training camp for assassins, Orlando had a degree in pharmacy, London was an accountant, and her husband, Harrison, was her father's consigliere.

The characters sucked.  The story lines sucked. Everything sucked.  Just...don't read this.  If you've even thought about picking it up, don't do it.  Run, don't walk, away from this garbage.  If Carl Weber wants to enter the world of street lit, he's welcome to do so, but this is where I bid him adieu.

370pp
Published: February 2012