The trouble with calling your book Schadenfreude is that when something bad happens to you, people who don’t like you will be extra happy about it. (Which kind of proves my point? Except I don’t have a point.)

Anyway, here’s some Fun with Bad Goodreads Reviews (A Recurring FeatureTM), for your Schadenfreude pleasure. (I already owe my brother $100 for reading my own Goodreads reviews, so I might as well milk it.)

The book is patronizing because Schuman presents herself as the only real authority on Middle Europe that you will ever meet. She can tell you what others cannot because she loves Kafka, is a German major, and was able to experience Prague and the former DDR while they still had character. And we should be ever so grateful that she will regal with 250+ pages of her adventures…he more I read the more I thought how little I would enjoy running into Schuman at a bar.

For reference, here are some other bad Goodreads reviews, and the piece-of-shit excuses for books they pillory.

NOT a fan, at all! [The protagonist] is a whiny brat who should try shutting his mouth long enough to actually do something about his situation instead of hovering in an annoying state of indecision and self-doubt! Though I know, logically, that he really is in a pretty awful situation, it’s really hard to feel bad for him when all he does is whine. –One-star review of Hamlet

Although brilliantly written with fantastic dialogue, this is, without doubt, the dullest book I have ever read. –One-star review of Jane Eyre

This book is pointless. Nothing happens in the entire book, the characters just talk, drink, and cheat on each other. I would rather have gotten a root canal then read this book. (It was for class.) Anyway I recommend this book to no one!!! –One-star review of The Great Gatsby

And, of course:

First, a quick summary of this horrible, horrible novel. Some jackass gets arrested, he does things you would not do, sees people you would not see and has thoughts you would not have. After that, a priest and a parable then, mercifully, the end. –One-star review of The Trial

REMINDER: If you’d like a book that isn’t dull or pointless, but probably also won’t try to seduce you at a bar whilst using plenty of small words that don’t make its author look like she has some sort of goddamned doctorate or something, I have a book for you.