One problem with a lot of books aiming for popularity is that what they're really aiming for is a movie adaptation, so a lot of the work is shunted off to the hypothetical filmmaker and crew. The novelist's only job is to put the plot through its paces. Character, atmosphere, the things that make the book something to experience, are simply not the author's job.
This book had a lot of blurbs on the jacket, though. All the reviews I saw online were glowing, too. Maybe critics just get trained not to expect much of certain books.
2 comments:
Whereas you've likely given up on reading particular books in the past this is the first time I can recall that you've written about doing so. Having read your thoughts about this one I can well understand your reasoning and your disappointment. I looked at the reviews on Good Reads where it only received a measly 3.3 star rating (an excellent review site since the reviewers actually enjoy reading and nobody ever mentions the cover was bent as their logic in giving a one star review). I noticed several readers there had come to similar conclusions as you did - especially the movie script thing.
I've passed on a number of books myself, usually I'll allow fifty pages for a shorter book (<300 pages) and one hundred pages for long ones. There's no sense in wasting good reading time on a book that doesn't capture my interest.
Oh, I just remembered the matter of the getting to school thing that apparently I hadn't made clear. The possibility of teachers driving the students was only in relation to getting some of them to the field day in the park. I imagine that many of the students who don't live close enough to the high school to walk the distance actually travel by public transport. Halifax has a decent bus service.
I think there was one other time I blogged about giving up on a book, but it was nonfiction. I'd taken it out because I thought it was mainly about ethology (animal behavior) when it was really an overly long PETA pamphlet. In general I'm not interested in reading pure advocacy, and certainly not in book length. As for Goodreads I really should join and keep telling myself I'm going to. It does mean something that the reviewers there are reading for the pure joy of it and don't really have any other dog in the fight.
The fifty-one hundred test seems like a good standard. It allows for the possibility that the author couldn't find the right beginning but has some good material later on. I try to challenge both myself and the book sometimes.
Ah, I see. Yeah, the field day would be a different circumstance. I guess the rules on that vary from district to district. Good to hear about the bus service.
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