Bad Books, Bad Books

This time of year, I normally like to write a review of the best or worst books I have read and encourage you to pick them up to enjoy or throw them across the room in disgust.  I usually reserve one sentence for my complete disdain of Little Bee even though it’s been five or six years since I actually read it and can’t remember why it is I spew vitriol at it again each year.  But tradition is tradition, right?  Even though it has been a disappointing year for books, I will still share what I’ve found and I will malign Little Bee.

It has been a tough year for me and books. I have started more books than I have finished.  I figure by this time in my life and with the multitude of books out there, if an author can’t grab my undivided attention by the third chapter, I am moving on.  I want to fall into a book. I want to lose all sense of time and purpose as I flip pages. I want to be wowed or moved or flipping frantically to see what happens next.  I have not found a lot of this out there this year.  I also incredibly impatient with YA because they are all trilogies and that is two books too many.

Probably way better than most of what I read.

As I grew tired of being disappointed by the banal selection of fiction I came across, I moved on to read more non-fiction books this year than in my whole life.  I read one about a guy who retraces the Oregon Trail in an actual covered wagon.  It wasn’t the best book, but I did learn a lot about mules and the history of mules in America.  This was not at all fascinating or interesting, but it was something.  I also read Missoula by John Krakauer and strongly feel it should be mandatory high school reading.  Boys and girls need to be aware of what consent is: what it looks like, what it sounds like and how to stop in a situation where it is not given.  Girls need to learn to never leave their girls and boys need to learn stop and all of them need to learn what a dangerous situation can look like before it becomes dangerous.  I felt fired up after I read this book and disgusted and alarmed, so it was probably one of the best ones I read this year.  I also tried to read The New Jim Crow, but I borrowed it from a teacher at school and found I was more interested in what she annotated on the side than the actual book, so I will try again once she finishes the book herself and annotates the rest of the chapters for me.

Disappointing new books led me digging around the classics in hopes that older is better.  The Awakening reminded me a lot of Madame Bovary and I could see where it was headed so I opted out.  I did discuss it with someone who had read it and she confirmed and elaborated on the doom I had sensed coming.  Confederacy of Dunces was amusing in its preposterousness and reminded me a lot of Candide.  And is it wrong to admit I enjoyed Lolita?  Seriously, the main character, Humbert Humbert, is such a creepy perv and the books centers on pedophilia but the writing and story-telling were spectacular. 

Looking through my paltry list of books read I see that I did give four books more than one star.  I guess I do have some books to recommend after all!    I’ll Give You the Sun was amazing and a YA book that is not part of a trilogy.  I also enjoyed The Truth According to Us.  Historical, witty and voiced a little in letters it caught my attention and held it.  If you liked Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, you will like this one too.  I stumbled across American Housewife Stories and giggled and guffawed through it.  Written by Helen Ellis, I had to keep reminding myself it wasn’t written by David Sedaris.  I know you Santaland Diary haters won’t be picking this one up, but I picked it up, I passed it on and I highly recommend it.  The best book I read in this year of blah books was A God in Ruins.  This is Kate Atkinson’s follow up to Life After Life and it is just as good.  It is full of captivating characters, excellent writing and an ending that is more philosophical than conclusive.  Read it and tell me what you think of the ending.  I had a lovely discussion with a coworker as to what we thought it all meant.  I thought the ending was daring and thought-provoking and dare I say provocative?  I dare!  It was provocative!

I wonder if because people skip proofreaders and editors and self-publish we are flooded by a tsunami of poorly written fiction as a result.  Or is it because everyone gets a trophy and thinks that they can sing or dance or do whatever that they also think they can write? I realize that these are bold words for a woman who writes without an editor and usually publishes her work with some sort of grammatical error.  However, you don’t see me publishing a book, so I feel confident in maligning others.  Maybe I am just tired at night and would rather stare at the TV and watch crazy people in Alaska fight for their survival.  Or perhaps I have read so many good books in my life that I deserved a year of ho-hum books.  I am not really sure what this whole year of bad reading was about, but whatever it is, I hope this was just an off year in a lifetime of good reading.  Well, minus that time I suffered through Little Bee.