Last weekend I asked DS to pick out my next book from my Assignment Shelf. Any book should be a winner, right? These have already been hand-selected by me!
Not like, "Hmm, I'm not in the mood right now, I'll pick it up again later." No, I quit the book. I didn't like any of the characters, I couldn't bear hearing her describe baby hands as "stars" or "starfish" one more stinkin' time, and I couldn't get past the fact that there was a church memorial service for the "dead" baby, and supposedly a grave, but no death certificate? No one inquired after the baby's body?
And this is a BIG DEAL because I consider a novel to be all-of-a-piece, like a painting. Remember Cameron staring at A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte ? He gets so close that all he can see is dots. A novel, to me, is like those thousands and thousands of dots in a Pointilist painting. You have to stand back and consider the whole thing.
So I did it, I broke my own rule.
I know Memory Keeper's Daughter was a bestseller, but I don't follow the crowd on reading all that much anyway (yes, I read Twilight Book 1, and no, I didn't like it). I know from my GoodReads friend list that more than a couple of people who read this blog really loved this book. Bring on the say-it-ain't-so....
Sigh. I'm just not a "chick lit" kind of girl. A while back I read Sue Monk Kidd's second novel, The Mermaid Chair, and LOATHED it (I kept reading that one because I was on a trip and it was the only book I had brought with me). The Secret Life of Bees is also on The Shelf. Wonder how I'll do. More to come.