Esquire sends their critic to look at some sure fire “summer reading” hits, and he delivers a painfully honest review in the form of a critically bookended list of what he learned from reading a pile of crap.

This is the point where I’m supposed to find something positive to say about these books. That’s how it works. You’re supposed to get all counterintuitive and say that Sarah Palin is so freakishly stupid, she’s actually some kind of genius. Here’s what I can say: The Coben is not quite as bad as the Baldacci, which is not as god-awful as the Koontz.

It seems it’s widely considered bad form to call stupid things stupid. But that’s mostly what these books are. They’ll cost you $25 a pop, waste a half day of your life, and leave you neither smarter nor happier, just kind of bored and a little depressed.