Empress Theresa (book)

Empress Theresa is an indie published book written by Norman Boutin about a young girl who, after bonding with an alien force, begins to exhibit great powers. After an attempted assassination by the US president, she goes on to use those powers to resolve several world problems.

The book has been universally panned in internet reviews, and the antics of its author - including his numerous responses towards critics as well as his irrational behavior - have made him a model of "what not to do" for authors.

Background

Norman claims to have spent 19 years working on Empress Theresa (on his Amazon profile, he says it was "over a twenty year period"), and that the idea "came entirely out of [his] head." He's explained that the book was meant to answer the question: "What would a good girl, Catholic or something else, do with limitless power?"

Synopsis

WIP

Release

Norman finished the first draft of Empress Theresa in January of 2010, with the initial word count being 142,000 words long. In November of 2011, Norman publicly announced that he had written the story, and was looking for a literary agent.

However, Empress Theresa was published on Kindle in April of 2013, with the final draft being around 96,000 words. Although Norman intended to go to a printing house, he went to Kindle first "to protect the copyright," and because he "didn't want some hack writer stealing the basic idea to throw together some word processor travesty in a month."

The first edition of the print version was published on March 14, 2014, through Amazon's CreateSpace, and was 418 pages.

Reception

Empress Theresa received negative reviews from readers and internet critics alike. Many said that they couldn't even finish the book. The main criticisms focused on the many typos and spelling errors, the unlikable characters, Theresa's annoying personality, the focus on Theresa's body, unrealistic scenarios, and the dull, uneven pace of the narration.

Sample Amazon Reviews

"I'll be reviewing my own manuscripts much more carefully from now on to insure I don't become delusional about my abilities as a storyteller."

"Theresa spends an inordinate amount of time admiring her own body and showing it off. She admires herself in the mirror quite a bit. She talks constantly about her great mane of hair, and preens and shows off for television crews and the swooning populace. The author constantly writes about Theresa's perky breasts, cleavage, and rear end as they fill out her clothes; verbiage that, again, comes across as creepy and stalker-ish.

The main character is described as a good girl. But this good girl cusses constantly – a common phrase is 'what the hell' – and decides to marry at 18 because she can't imagine 'not doing it' while she is finishing college. While the cussing is mild, it's not something I want to promote to my students. There is a sneering bit of class snobbery when Theresa meets her college boyfriend's other girlfriend. Theresa's thought 'How would I feel if I had been the poor waitress back home hoping I could keep a college educated man…' is a jarring statement, again leading to the impression that this is not an admirable character. (This scene is even more confusing with the typos, disjointed dialog, and Theresa's manipulative character; not at all representative of creative and concise writing.)"

"I barely made it thru the first chapter. Spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, choppy sentences, wrong verb use to name a few. With just spelling mistakes it shows to this reader the author did not care enough to run spell check, with grammar mistakes, wrong verb use and choppy sentences this readers sees the author did not have the book edited."

"Don't waste your time with this. If you have to, check out his sample chapters. They tell you everything you need to know about this 'novel.' I really don't think I've ever read anything that was so horribly written. I questioned if English was the authors first language or not, as the author does not seem to have any grasp of the English language.

This 'novel' should be used as an example of what not to do when writing. Grammar, punctuation, spelling, everything is wrong with it. Even the cover is what not to do with your cover.

Covers are meant to attract attention, not make a potential buyer laugh.

Just terrible all around."

"This 'book' contains numerous grammar and spelling errors. Typos galore. Some sentences are completely incomprehensible. The writing is just as bad. It varies between laughably bad and incoherent."

"This is (purportedly) an adult man attempting to write in the voice of a young girl. It reads like an adult man trying to write in the voice of a young girl. Evidently he thinks ten year old girls speak in short, choppy, awkward, irritating sentences. Nothing about this first person narration rings true."

"You'll note that I said 'she' above, and that's not a typographical error. Given the unnatural focus on dress, the constant 'I'm not a hip girl' whining, and the occasional creepy focus on the anatomy of Theresa's bust, I'd bet good money that this book was written by a woman of the 'Mary Sue fanfic' persuasion. In fact, this story could easily have begun life as a fan-fic before Search and Replace (along the lines of 'Fifty Shades') took over. If I'm right, we can at least sympathize with the author, who clearly will let nothing stand in the way of her precious creation: Empress Theresa Mary Sue Bella Hermione Katniss Sparkle Celestria. (There's even a line where Theresa explicitly compares herself to the heroine of 'The Hunger Games', if you needed more proof.) If I'm wrong, and the book was truly written by a man, I only have one word: 'creepy'."

"Do not buy this book. I downloaded the sample, and I am very thankful I didn't waste any money on this. It is such a mess. Not only is the writing awful, the formatting is messed up, and the book is full of grammar and spelling mistakes. I think Amazon should pull this book. It does not meet a reasonable expectation of what one can expect for a published novel. It is more like someone's deranged home writing project. The publisher should fire whoever bought this book and the editor. Read the sample before you decide to buy this book."

Sample Goodreads Reviews

"...while I do love perfect grammar and spelling, if it's a self-published book, I am a little more lenient. Empress Theresa, however, has not one or two little mistakes, but possibly hundreds. The author does not have a decent grasp of the English language, and this "novel" definitely needs an editor. Possibly several."

"The actual first sentence is this: 'I’m Theresa, the only child of Edward and Elizabeth Sullivan, and I hope it’s not bragging to say I was cute as heck at age ten.' And? This doesn't pull me in. Theresa means nothing to me yet. Her parents don't mean anything. And since the story is about her when she is a young woman, it's irrelevant what she looked like aged ten. There's no sense of anything happening. It's just useless.

The only thing it's good for is demonstrating how unprofessional the rest of the novel will be. Nothing actually happens for twelve paragraphs, and the first bit of action we get is a fox walking towards Theresa. No. Start off slightly bigger than that. This book still hasn't actually dragged the reader in yet, because it's just Theresa rambling. There's a time and a place for that in a novel, and the opening really isn't it."

"Lots of spelling/grammar errors. Short choppy sentences and looking at all the covers for this book the author has a strange obsession with female breast."

Sample Internet Critic Reviews

"Look… this is, quite frankly, one of the worst pieces of published fiction I have ever laid eyes upon. For some reason, the author thought that he could project his world domination fantasies onto a populace in the form of a young girl, fixing all of the worlds problems without considering that the basis of human nature is to fight against being controlled. This is not a book for kids (unless you want them to hate reading), and I wouldn’t even say this is for adults (adults, hopefully, know when a book is so bad that nothing can save it). This is nothing more than idiopathic projection in literary form."

What genre is it?

There has been some confusion as to what genre of fiction Empress Theresa belongs. In some places, Norman Boutin has called it "a Young Adult novel," even saying that he was inspired to make Empress Theresa a Young Adult novel after reading The Hunger Games. However, in other places he has flatly denied this:

So is Empress Theresa a 'Young Adult' novel? Not really. Theresa doesn't deal with the problems of a teenager's life. She deals with problems that involve all humanity. It should be called an 'Old Adult' novel because old people like me having seen everything will see its meaning.

Some critics have pointed out that the book fits more in the Science Fiction genre, but Norman has denied this as well, saying on his website: "Science fiction talks about impossibilities such as time travel, or some future or alien world. I explain what HAL is and how he operates. While HAL's existence is highly unlikely, nobody can say he's absolutely impossible." This, however, shows Norman's ignorance of the Sci-Fi genre; the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction defines science fiction in this manner:

...the label sf normally designates a text whose story is explicitly or implicitly extrapolated from scientific or historical premises. In other words, whether or not an sf story is plausible it can at least be argued.

By Norman's own words, this would put Empress Theresa well within the range of science fiction.