Here's a book (or two) to skip...

Ever find yourself reading something and you can't quite put your finger on it, but before too long you notice that you don't actually care about the characters? I like to think that I am very careful with the books I read, that I can sense terrible books before I even accidentally pick them up. 

Well. I used to think that. 

I kinda messed up and found myself 133 pages into The Decent Proposal by Kemper Donovan. It wasn't until one morning in late July as I was drinking my coffee that I realized I didn't really care about the story. It was an easy read, as far as I was concerned. But it was the content that didn't really make sense to me. If I can say this without being mobbed, the secondary characters (Mike's dad and Orpheus) felt more well rounded and richer than our two main characters, who felt rather like cardboard cut outs of stereotypical Hollywood producer and lawyer. 

I was tempted to turn to the end just to see what happens. I mean, I can tell you that Richard and Elizabeth probably fall in love after having a gigantic fight (probably about Richard's best female friend OR over a book/movie they disagree about) and everything just "clicks." 
If I cared about this book any more, I would probably go on a rant here about how Elizabeth's colleagues call her "La Máquina" because she is 1) a Latina so her nickname obviously has to reflect that and 2) she logs the most hours of billable time at the law firm. If she was a man, people would congratulate and generally be jealous, but still be cordial. In this novel, she doesn't seem to have any friends and the fact that she excels at her job is a teaseable offense at the office. But I'm not really going to talk about that.
I was very excited to read this book, I promise. But I just can't and won't waste reading time on a book that hasn't captured my interest and feels like a cliche at every turn.  

The other disappointment this summer was Welcome to Night Vale. I am a HUGE fan of this podcast. Seriously, ya'll. If you aren't listening to it, go find it and start. I was in love part way through the very first episode.  I love listening to the dulcet tones of Cecil, Night Vale Radio host, talking about the dog park (which is decidedly not for dogs), the many press conferences of Mayor Pamela Winchell, and the agricultural news from John Peters, you know, the farmer. 
I was thrilled that they were making a physical thing that could be read (since I love to read) but honestly, I was disappointed. Much of the charm of the podcast lies in Cecil Baldwin's exquisite comedic and dramatic timing, painting you pictures that look a certain way (but probably not the way you JUST imagined) and fit in this glorious desert town. I'm strangely proud and excited for the creative team behind this podcast and book. It takes a lot of work to 1) create and 2) create a new thing out of a pre-exisiting thing. I just wished I loved the book as much as the podcast. 

I might have skipped other books this summer. In fact, I'm sure I have. These were the ones I tried the hardest on, though. And honestly, ever since, I've had a hard time finding good books to read. 
Help a girl out?
What are some of your favorite go-to authors? Summer reads? Any time reads? 
(And as a note, we've got 4 more months left in the year! How's your reading challenge coming?)  

More like a little match

I've been a slight fan of Dan Brown since the whole Da Vinci Code nonsense back in the day. Loved Angels & Demons, Digital Fortress & Deception Point. I loved that his novels all took place in a 24 hour period (as unbelievable as that was at some points) because it created a sense of immediacy to the story. There was no time for getting things wrong or falling in love (both invariably happening) because there was a mystery to solve and the world to save!

I wasn't overly thrilled with his last book,The Lost Symbol. (Plus, those of you who read it, that part near the end? That wasn't even creative storytelling! PLEASE!) But when Inferno came out I thought, "Well, I didn't really care about the Masons or the Illuminati, but Dante is a little bit more in my area of interest. It can't be too bad, right?"

Ahem.

Okay, it wasn't THAT bad…but it also wasn't great. Remember that sense of immediacy? Yeah, totally missing. I cared for a little bit and then things got confusing. Don't think I can't handle a complicated plot. I am reading Game of Thrones. I read Lord of the Rings. (AND I can keep the movie information separate from the book information!) I can do complicated.
Maybe this story wasn't complicated; maybe the storytelling was just lazy. A couple of characters were double and triple crossing loyalty lines and again, Dan Brown, that wasn't a "plot twist" or a slight surprise. That part felt like lazy story telling.

Robert Langdon wakes up in a hospital in Italy with absolutely no memory of how he got there. Sienna Brooks, a doctor at the hospital, tries to help him make sense of what has happened to him. A woman storms into the hospital and shoots the other doctor who was assisting with Langdon's care. Sienna tries to carry a half sedated Langdon out of the hospital to safety. And honestly for the rest of the book, you feel half sedated.

The initial plot is interesting: one man thinks that the world will soon be overpopulated and will drain the world of all natural resources. In order to prevent that from happening, he takes a page out of the history books for the best way to fix overpopulation: plague. I mean what other way can you appropriately cull a portion of the world?
(By the way, even Brown's solution to overpopulation feels like a cheat. I am running out of different ways of expressing how disappointing this book was.)

At this point in his life, Langdon (world class symbolist from Harvard) just sounds like a pretentious prat. "Well, I DID write the definitive work on Christian symbols in the Islamic world." Nice. Through this book, it's more like, "In my lecture series that was sold out, I spoke about ALL the things we need to know to solve this mystery! Let me flash back to that series to remember that information..." And I'm not even kidding about the flash backs. I mean, come on.

I hesitate to finish this post because I realize that there is no way I could write a 400 page novel laced with historical references and visual descriptions of iconic vistas with any kind of ease. That isn't my skill. So I do pause before I seriously rip into someone who seems to have a gift. Or, at very least, has gotten a publisher to get the manuscript past the slush pile. But I was not thrilled with this book. Like I said, I liked some of his older stuff but the new stuff…I don't know. He's missing something. Maybe he is trying to weave too many things into one plot. Maybe he feels locked into the 24 hour things and is finding it more and more difficult to execute the idea properly. I don't know. I can say with almost 100% certainty that this will be my last NEW Dan Brown book. Sorry buddy. Two duds in a row and I'm out.

(That is, of course, until he comes out with some kind of thriller about Shakespeare. I'll be all over that one.)

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

I had seen The Paris Wife advertised all over the place last month and after a year of saying, "I really want to read that!" I decided to give it a go. 
Now I'm not going to say it was as bad a Juliette, but I will not be recommending this book to anyone. Ever. 
I was excited to read this book because it is about the first wife of Ernest Hemingway. Even if most of the story is fiction, I like reading about the lives of writers. No matter how much you read in biographies, or even autobiographies, there is something really fascinating in seeing another writer put the famous person in question into real life situations. I am a huge C. S. Lewis fan and have read his autobiography many times. There is still something, possibly magical, about seeing Anthony Hopkins portray Jack on screen that makes me all giddy inside.

I am not huge into  Hemingway history. I've read a bit of his work for school and after watching In Love and War, I read A Farewell to Arms. Well, I started reading A Farewell to Arms. (Though after Pat's reaction to the book in Silver Linings Playbook, maybe it's good that I didn't finish it.) I can't say that I'm an expert on his life. Maybe if I was more of one, I would have found this book more interesting. 
I found it intriguing at all because it's about the woman behind the man. Well, the first woman behind the man. Also, it's Paris in the 20s.Talk abut the golden age of writing! (And as another side note, I watched Midnight in Paris shortly after finishing this book. So good! I loved it! Part of it really resonated because of what I had read about other writers of the time. Also, Tom Hiddleston was F.Scott Fitzgerald. So. Yeah...)
Hadley Richardson is twenty eight and practically an old spinster by the time she meets Ernest Hemingway. They fall deeply in love and are married less than a year after they meet. Their relationship is tempestuous; Hemingway is a man who is first married to his work and married to Hadley second. Or, as time goes by, maybe not even to her. 

Like I said, it was interesting. But...it was a difficult read. It wasn't really about Hemingway; it was about Hadley. It was how she dealt with things, her emotions and her interpretation of their relationship. And as silly as this is, it was hard to follow because they used so many nicknames. Nicknames for Ernest and Hadley changed all the time and at one point they use the same nickname for each other! It is really difficult for me to keep track of the characters. There wasn't a whole lot of dialogue in this book. It was an interesting concept, but not a terribly compelling read. 

My go to book about authors & romance is, you guessed it, Possession by A. S. Byatt. I'll keep my eye out for other fictionalized accounts of real life authors, though. Do you have a favorite almost-true novel?
 

Seating Arrangments by Maggie Shipstead

I know I know. I read this book in January and I STILL haven't got a review up for it!
This was another Goodreads find and honestly, I wasn't thrilled with it. Not everyone on Goodreads is thrilled with it either. One commenter recommend picking up The Paris Wife instead, which I would not recommend, however. 
It is called a satire in the publisher's description, but I'm not sure that is a good enough excuse for how vapid and selfish the characters in this story behaved. The story is about a family, led by the tiresome Winn Van Mete (who seems to care more about his own social standing than supporting and loving his family.) on the verge of a wedding. Winn's eldest and very pregnant daughter is marrying up in the world (much to the joy of her father) and their socialite wedding is take place at the family's vacation home on a pristine island in New England. Being surrounded by his daughter's beautiful friends, Winn can't seem to keep it in his pants, but discovers his self control at a very odd moment. While the wedding planning is wrapping up, his youngest daughter is making some rash and unwise choices to make her recent break up (she is a bit of a social climber too) not hurt so badly.
What some people praised as detailed and rich descriptions, in my mind were tiresome and stiff sentences. Like the author was trying to hard to be "great."
I know this is a bit of an odd review for me, but I just didn't like the book. I finished it. That is probably the best thing I can say about the book. 

Have you read it? Am I way off here?