DON'T READ THIS - I

Trying something new here.  Thanks to suggestions from my friend Jen and a helpful push by the blog of  Book Riot I am going to attempt to publish a smattering of the books that I hated.  Books that I couldn't get through, hated at the end, or just plain wasted my time.

I know that book reading and stories are very personal.  I respect and understand that authors go through a LOT to get their works published.  But we all know there are those books that you just want to throw across the room- and not in a good way.

Today I will start with Isabella Allende's new release Ripper

While I only got 100 pages into the book I want to vent on the use of false advertisement on the part of the marketing team that wrote the dust jacket (or in my case the online ARC description).   If you are going to tell me what the story is about (and please do, I mean what is more annoying than new books that come out with just a bunch of other authors saying how Fabulous it is, but not telling me Anything about the story!) then tell me.  Don't pull out one little thread that the author gets to eventually at 300 pages in gets to and is a bit piece of the story- this is how I came to Ripper.   I thought it was about a group of people in an online community who starts solving crimes in a S. Holmes fashion.  I thought this because this is what was told to me by the Lying marketing team.  Instead I am reading 100+ pages about the main characters mom, who is a hippy doesn't fit in with the family, and am getting a showcase of the three men that she either had slept with, is sleeping with or who want to sleep with her.  I don't care.  Beyond the first few pages that briefly describes the major crime of the book, and a short list of the characters whom I thought the story was about.

If this was a Dickens, Dostoyevsky,  Pynchon, or Tolstoy I would say alright lets wade through this it will be important later- the writer has 800 more pages to go.  This is not.  Allende's book is less than 500 pages and I just spent almost 100 on the main characters mother?  

I am saddened that this is the first Allende book that I tried.  I have heard good things about her, and I always love to read things by women authors who are not American (Allende is from Chile).  Looking at reviews on Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon I am not alone.  Many of her long time fans are disappointed- calling it too character detailed, and long winded. 

If you want to write a character study about a group of people and a crime is being solved in the background, fine.  Just tell me that.  Don't let me read that the book is a "Fast-pased mystery".  Just tell me!! I have wasted so much time reading books that might have been great, but I was so annoyed, and confused because they had nothing, or very little, to do with what I was assured by the cover that they were going to be about that  I could not understand the story and kept waiting for the author to get to the story line, or character that I had been promised.  I fully understand that most authors  do not have control of this.  I don't really blame the author.  I blame the publishers.  But either way I am left frustrated.  

I can move quickly on from a false cover, but a false description is just a LIE!!

Please don't lie to me publishers.

Little by Little

There are some books that I am ashamed to admit that I have never read.  I think that we all (well all of the book-loving-nerd-reading-types) do it. "Of course I have read A Scarlet Letter! It has been a while, but of course!" 

Well I am going to admit it.  I spent the last couple of days reading To Kill A Mockingbird (TKAM).  It was my first time and I have done it. 

I think that this is an interesting book to review as a big book person.  As someone who has read quite a bit (if I don't say so and purger myself) on the south, racism, and Civil Rights, in fiction.  Mudbound by Hilary Jordan and the Help by Kathryn Sockett are some resent amazing books that help me draw a time period that I know, but do not KNOW, having not lived through it. The difference between these types of books and TKAM  is all in the narration.  Narration is an aspect of books that even though I find it vastly important is something that I commonly look over when I am reviewing a book- mostly I go for three things when giving a review:  Was it written well?  Where the characters believable? Was the book enjoyable/integrating? But really the narration is one of those things that can make or break a book for me.  I am not saying that this is what happened for me during TKAM, but when compared to other books that I have read that take place in the area and time relative to this, I find that I have a greater understanding with Skeeter than with Scout. While I vastly enjoyed reading TKAM I often find reading children characters a challenge, no matter the context.

Let me say that I vastly appreciate not only the history of the book, and Ms Harper Lee, I also thought her writing to be engaging, and accessible, while still holding a story line that was interesting, with mystery and foreshadowing unparalleled to first time writers. This is why this book is a classic.  But coming to the novel as an adult, I did not find it as meaningful, or as substantial as I think I would have if I had read it when I was young- as a teen or sooner.

This brings me to an idea that I have had for a while.  I think there is a time period for some books.  Now I fully concede that I might be wrong, that there are certain books that will just never stick with some people, but I originally thought this years ago when I tackled one of my best friends favorite book series- The Chronicles of Narnia.  I was only able to get through three (short) stories of the series, but found them dry, predictable, and downright boring.  I often afterwards wondered, if I had read them as a child, if I had found them before I found, say, Harry Potter, would I have enjoyed them?  They do not have the complexities of plot lines- which TKAM had far and away a great plot line, and development- and characters, but if I had not known better, would they have become a favorite for me also?

Just a question that I am pondering.

Either way my reading list is a little less embarrassing, I can hold my head a bit higher in the bookstore, knowing that I have actually read one of the books weighing on my conscience!