Thursday 2 July 2009

Legs Talk

Legs Talk

A hilarious illustrated account of a love/hate relationship. Legs Talk is a whimsical tale starring a witty pair of female legs. Chatty legs are depicted with attitude and swagger. Straight-shooting and in your face, these legs sure can kick. Take this play-ful ride on the bumpy road of romance. You'll be glad you did.



Remember how I don't review picture-books here? Well, this is a picture-book.

Legs Talk: A Modern Girl's Dating Tale should have delighted me: I love quirky, small-format books which take a new angle, as this one definitely does: but when a book has so little text there is no excuse for the clunkiness that is apparent here. The punctuation errors show up even more clearly; and there has to be a strong plot-line, which this book simply doesn't have.

It is unforgivable for so many of the photos (on which the whole book depends) to be out of focus.

This book is attempting to achieve what the delightful Love, Loss and What I Wore did: only it doesn't come close, and while it's attractive at first viewing it fails quite spectacularly to live up to its first impression. Because of its short length I read it to the end, but still cannot recommend it.

6 comments:

Barb said...

I was hopeful when I saw the cover art. Alas, it was not to be.

Maggie Dana said...

Me too, Barb. The cover is brilliant. What a pity the insides aren't.

Daniel Blythe said...

It looks like the kind of book I'd hate even if it were good, if you know what I mean, but that still has to be the best cover I've seen on a self-published book. My fellow Who writer friend David Bishop would appreciate it - he blogged about the use of legs on covers last year and I sent him the Adele Parks covers to add to his collection!

[word ver: rouniz n. - Fr. origin - footballers of diminutive stature and belligerent attitude]

Jane Smith said...

Dan, do you have a link to David's blog? I shall take a look.

One point in the book's favour is that at least the legs are "real" legs, and not impossibly skinny long model-legs. But that's not enough, really.

pussreboots said...

I've passed Legs Talk around my local book club and it has been very popular. Flawed or not, it's getting good reviews among my friends.

Jane Smith said...

I'm glad that some people are enjoying it, Puss: that implies that the author didn't completely waste his time. The problem is that it's not good enough to compete on a commercial scale, which is how books are judged here.