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Over-hyped recommendations...
Jan. 13th, 2019 12:20 pmI'm currently doing something I've never done before - writing reviews while still in the middle of a reading retreat. But I feel very distracted this weekend, and the two books I've read so far (really behind compared to previous retreats, too) have got me thinking a lot.
They were both recommended to me very enthusiastically by multiple people over quite a long period, and I had been very much looking forward to reading both. And I didn't hate either of them, not remotely. But neither of them really engaged me, and certainly not to the degree I had been expecting. It's probably partly to do with my own state of mind - I've definitely been less focused on my reading this weekend - but not entirely, I'm sure.
Anyway, the first book was The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which is extremely well-renowned and very much respected. And it was very good. The opening was immediately arresting, there is amazing imagery and exquisite prose throughout, and I loved the point of view, which was both alien and affecting. I have a little notebook where I copy out particularly good quotes from the books I'm reading and I wanted to put pretty much the whole of The Book Thief in there. But as it is set in Germany in the Second World War and is nearly 600 pages long, I was expecting it to be dense and heavy, and it's actually mostly pretty light. And it didn't engage my emotions the way I though it would. I liked all the characters, and the way the story builds up is very effective. I did love the painting of the pages of Mein Kampf to provide a blank canvas for a book of subversive cartoons and fables. But, up until the end, I felt like I was just skimming over the surface of the story, rather than really delving into its depths. And then the ending was really brutal, in a way that felt out of keeping with the rest of the book. So, I mostly enjoyed it and it's beautifully written in a very clever way - it just wasn't as immersive or overwhelming as I'd been led to believe.
All The Birds In The Sky by Charlie Jane Anders has also been raved about to me by more than one person. I went into it knowing very little about it and initially found it quite off-putting as it seemed to be aimed at a much younger audience than I had been expecting. The two protagonists start out at the age of six and the narrative seems pitched to fit that age group. But after 50 pages, it jumps to them being thirteen and it's suddenly incredibly teenage in tone and theme. But, 150 pages in, it jumps again to them being 23 and the narrative is abruptly adult, including a fair amount of swearing and some very explicit sex. On top of that, it veers wildly between farcical, violent, ridiculous, traumatic, comic and action-tastic in a very uneven and unsettling way. The central premise of a global conflict between nature magic and futuristic science is really interesting, and I got to like the two protagonists by the end. And some of the writing is excellent (I copied out several quotes into my notebook), but there are also several phrases that are jarringly offensive, as well as some glaringly tokenistic diversity (one very minor character is described as gender neutral and another as identifying as asexual, but neither characteristic is really featured and both characters are barely in it). It gets quite exciting toward the end, but then one character summarises the whole plot in one page (which made me wonder why I'd bothered reading the previous 400 pages) and then there's a literal deus ex machina moment that sorts everything out in a wildly simplistic and much too easy fashion. So, yeah. It wasn't terrible, but I don't think I can claim it was an overall positive reading experience.
Hey ho. I suppose you can't always expect to love the books that other people you know love. And I do think overly high expectations can be damaging to your appreciation of something. Maybe I should stop enthusing quite so much about my favourite books...
They were both recommended to me very enthusiastically by multiple people over quite a long period, and I had been very much looking forward to reading both. And I didn't hate either of them, not remotely. But neither of them really engaged me, and certainly not to the degree I had been expecting. It's probably partly to do with my own state of mind - I've definitely been less focused on my reading this weekend - but not entirely, I'm sure.
Anyway, the first book was The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which is extremely well-renowned and very much respected. And it was very good. The opening was immediately arresting, there is amazing imagery and exquisite prose throughout, and I loved the point of view, which was both alien and affecting. I have a little notebook where I copy out particularly good quotes from the books I'm reading and I wanted to put pretty much the whole of The Book Thief in there. But as it is set in Germany in the Second World War and is nearly 600 pages long, I was expecting it to be dense and heavy, and it's actually mostly pretty light. And it didn't engage my emotions the way I though it would. I liked all the characters, and the way the story builds up is very effective. I did love the painting of the pages of Mein Kampf to provide a blank canvas for a book of subversive cartoons and fables. But, up until the end, I felt like I was just skimming over the surface of the story, rather than really delving into its depths. And then the ending was really brutal, in a way that felt out of keeping with the rest of the book. So, I mostly enjoyed it and it's beautifully written in a very clever way - it just wasn't as immersive or overwhelming as I'd been led to believe.
All The Birds In The Sky by Charlie Jane Anders has also been raved about to me by more than one person. I went into it knowing very little about it and initially found it quite off-putting as it seemed to be aimed at a much younger audience than I had been expecting. The two protagonists start out at the age of six and the narrative seems pitched to fit that age group. But after 50 pages, it jumps to them being thirteen and it's suddenly incredibly teenage in tone and theme. But, 150 pages in, it jumps again to them being 23 and the narrative is abruptly adult, including a fair amount of swearing and some very explicit sex. On top of that, it veers wildly between farcical, violent, ridiculous, traumatic, comic and action-tastic in a very uneven and unsettling way. The central premise of a global conflict between nature magic and futuristic science is really interesting, and I got to like the two protagonists by the end. And some of the writing is excellent (I copied out several quotes into my notebook), but there are also several phrases that are jarringly offensive, as well as some glaringly tokenistic diversity (one very minor character is described as gender neutral and another as identifying as asexual, but neither characteristic is really featured and both characters are barely in it). It gets quite exciting toward the end, but then one character summarises the whole plot in one page (which made me wonder why I'd bothered reading the previous 400 pages) and then there's a literal deus ex machina moment that sorts everything out in a wildly simplistic and much too easy fashion. So, yeah. It wasn't terrible, but I don't think I can claim it was an overall positive reading experience.
Hey ho. I suppose you can't always expect to love the books that other people you know love. And I do think overly high expectations can be damaging to your appreciation of something. Maybe I should stop enthusing quite so much about my favourite books...
