By Pippa Lyons -
I am busy (but not so busy that I didn’t have time to read The Waiting to review it), so I asked ChatGPT to provide a little AI assistance in writing a review. I suppose that was somewhat of a tall order for a robot who has neither read the book, nor could find much useful information on the internet because said book had not, at the time of reading, writing and ChatGPTing, been officially released. Nevertheless, and certainly not one to be stopped by facts or a lack of information, ChatGPT gave it a good crack and came up with the following:
“Honestly, you might spend the first half of the book wondering if the real crime is how long you’ve been waiting for something to happen. It’s called The Waiting, and Connelly wasn’t kidding.”
And so on in that vein for 300 words—jokes about waiting, paint drying, slowly paced, snooze-fest galore.
Readers, let me tell you, this could not be further from the truth. There is no waiting; crime happens on page five of The Waiting and considering that the first two pages of the book are a dedication and chapter opener, crime technically happens on page three. So, I don’t know what ChatGPT thinks waiting is, but it’s not this. Detective Renée Ballard doesn’t have time to wait around when she’s got three cases to solve, including LA’s real number-one-biggest-unsolved-case-of-all-time, within the confines of 403 pages (or technically 401 pages on account of the dedication and chapter opener taking up the first two pages).
Apologies, readers. This is not much of a review of The Waiting but rather of ChatGPT’s ability to write an accurate review of a book that it has not read.
Review: 5 stars! If you like page-turner, plot-driven commercial crime fiction, then you’ll enjoy The Waiting. Why are you even reading a review? It’s Michael Connelly. You know what you’re in for—that’s why you picked it up.
