Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and books on tape. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
I really don’t like to talk about the books that I feel burned me because other readers love those books so much and I may just be a wimp or a curmudgeon. On the other hand, it has happened that I have really tried to read or kept on reading a clunker and I need to own up to what it was that bothered me so much.
The question in the title is a parody of comedians where the audience shouts out, “How bad WAS it?”
Popular answers would be something like:
It was so bad that I laughed in the wrong places
It was so bad that my jaw dropped to the floor
It was so bad that I wall-banged it
It was so bad that my brain needs bleach
Or, to be honest, it was not THAT bad, it just didn’t fit my needs.
I have noticed that when a book just misses being wonderful, I am more upset than if the book is terrible.
I get more upset if I like the author and feel that somehow the book just went off track too far with violence or the ending was not fair. For example, a new book that I read recently had red herrings that could have been good choices and logical ones for the villain, but the author chose to go with someone who was barely mentioned in the book and was not even a surprise. I felt cheated. I wondered if he chickened out. It was disappointing because the violence was a lot and it is only worth it if the payoff is brilliant, otherwise it is just gore for no reason. In fact, in one place in italics, the narrator says that the police never even considered it could be a woman and that was chilling, but it came to nothing. Not good to mention that for no reason.
I am ashamed that I finished one violent book, but I did care enough about the characters to see what happened. It does not appease my conscience much, though, for spending time with it. I don’t know what to do with the book. I don’t want to give it to the library or my sister or anyone else.
Sometimes, there are only ugly characters with no relief in sight as you read the book. No one in the story is humane, there is nothing that is inspiring, and the characters are treading water and filled with bitterness. I just don’t need that in my mind. As Doctor RJ said last week, people are often better in bad situations than books make them out to be. I appreciated his comment very much.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Some books that other people love just make me shudder and I am sure they feel the same about some stories that I praise. That is fine. We are all different in our likes and dislikes and sometimes the discussion can get quite heated.
I was disappointed with a favorite author last week, too. I am thinking that I will try one more book and if it is too bland for me, I will bail on the series. It happens. Authors do run out of ideas or get tired of their characters.
There have been times in a favorite series when I felt the author was just phoning it in because they know I am hooked. Luckily, the next book is usually back on track. In one recent story, some questions were asked that I had been wondering about and the book solved a problem. I can relax until the next one comes out. But just to prove that I can be silly, I have to say, that I don’t see where the story is going next. There was no clue that anything awful was still on the horizon. I am sure it is, and usually I don’t like a huge cliff hanger, so why am I complaining? I am just too hard to please, maybe.
I feel as if I am going out on a limb and sawing it off behind me, but people have previously asked me to name names so for the sake of discussion and knowing that some of you will really and loudly disagree with me, I will mention some books that did not appeal to me. Some of these are older books and some of them are just out.
I do apologize to some of you who wrote great and loving reviews of these stories… sorry! I also like many other books by several of these authors so I feel bad singling out one of theirs, but…
Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan
House of Secrets by Chris Columbus and Ned Vizzini
Dust by Martha Grimes
Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen
Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland
Elsewhere by Will Shetterly
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (stopped on pg. 58)
Eifelheim by Michael Flynn
Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick (did not finish it)
Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley
Don’t Look Back by Karin Fossum (This one was just too disturbing though I did finish it. I really don’t want to try any more of her books).
Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje (I like his other books…it just seemed as if someone made him cut a huge chunk out of the middle or something).
Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (I just didn’t like it despite the great library scenes).
Death by Chocolate by G A McKevett
Ides of April (a Flavia Albia story) by Lindsey Davis (I love all of her Falco stories so this was a huge disappointment).
Existence by David Brin (I loved his Uplift series so this was a major disappointment)
Brick Lane by Monica Ali (only read one half)
The Highway by C J Box, not a Joe Pickett story
The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian
American Bloomsbury by Susan Cheever
Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas
Photograph by Penelope Lively
The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee
The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter (read one half and quit)
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire
Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg (couldn’t finish it)
Safe House by Chris Ewan
Turn of Light by Julie Czerneda
Body Work by Sara Paretsky
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (got to page 159 and quit)
Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett
Love of my Youth by Mary Gordon (The premise was so great and the setting so cool…and it was sooooo boring…what a shame!)
Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
You can talk about all kinds of books not just the ones that you disliked.
Diaries of the Week:
Write On! thinking about audience and market
by SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/...
AIDS Walk Austin - it would be Magnificent to get matched donations
by anotherdemocrat
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Robert Fuller says:
The Rowan Tree: Chapter 25 is up:
http://www.rowantreenovel.com/...
This week's update moves on to Book II
NOTE:
plf515 has book talk on
Wednesday mornings early