Family Book Club - last and next
Mar. 17th, 2018 10:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearMy family’s book club meets once every couple of months, and we take turns nominating a book for discussion. I'm reviewing the last meeting's book, and the next meeting's book, so I'd prefer that book club members not read the review!
My husband, Dave, picked the last one - Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. I’ve read and enjoyed some of his books before, so was looking forward to trying this one, as Dave raved about it. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it more than halfway through. The book throws the reader into a complex and confusing world with very little explanation and expects you to just go with it. Now, normally I don’t have a problem with that, and actually enjoy immersing myself in the setting of a book and working things out as I go. But, for me, Shades of Grey takes this technique way too far. It raises eight or nine questions about how things work and what’s going on in the very first paragraph, and continues in a similar vein on every page, with not a hint of an explanation in sight. As Dave says, it’s a beautifully painted puzzle box of a book - but, to my mind, there’s nothing inside that’s worth the effort of persevering to discover it. You don’t even find out the protagonist’s name until page 23 and, by the halfway point, there has been little to no actual plot. It’s all just overwhelming world-building detail that makes no sense and holds no significance, because there’s nothing underneath it to give it meaning.
The other members of my family did manage to finish the book, and all enjoyed it to varying degrees. We had a lively and interesting discussion about it, involving some fascinating theories, so it was a successful book club choice overall.
The next book we’re doing is my choice - Redshirts by John Scalzi, and I’m really looking forward to the meeting, because it has some oblique links to the Jasper Fforde book. It’s about the crew of a spaceship, who discover there’s a 20th century TV show about them, which affects what happens to them on missions. It’s utterly ridiculous, makes no sense of any kind, and even the characters themselves discuss how insane the situation is at regular intervals. Now, one of my objections to the Jasper Fforde book was that having your characters highlight how little the book makes sense does not mitigate the fact that it makes no sense. On another level, Redshirts also suffered from quite a bit of clumsy writing - too many adverbs, character names that were too similar, over-explanation of dialogue and action.
However, I absolutely loved Redshirts from start to finish. It was enhanced by excellent narration by Wil Wheaton, and it made me laugh out loud in the street on multiple occasions. Now, the difference between the two books, in my view, is that Redshirts has engaging and sympathetic characters, and an action-packed, fast-paced plot, that had me completely emotionally invested in what happened, and made me cry as well as laugh. So, while Shades of Grey may technically be better written and more impressive in its world-building, Redshirts gets my enjoyment vote every time, because it engaged my emotions and made me care. I shall be fascinated to find out if my family agree at the next book club meeting.
My husband, Dave, picked the last one - Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. I’ve read and enjoyed some of his books before, so was looking forward to trying this one, as Dave raved about it. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it more than halfway through. The book throws the reader into a complex and confusing world with very little explanation and expects you to just go with it. Now, normally I don’t have a problem with that, and actually enjoy immersing myself in the setting of a book and working things out as I go. But, for me, Shades of Grey takes this technique way too far. It raises eight or nine questions about how things work and what’s going on in the very first paragraph, and continues in a similar vein on every page, with not a hint of an explanation in sight. As Dave says, it’s a beautifully painted puzzle box of a book - but, to my mind, there’s nothing inside that’s worth the effort of persevering to discover it. You don’t even find out the protagonist’s name until page 23 and, by the halfway point, there has been little to no actual plot. It’s all just overwhelming world-building detail that makes no sense and holds no significance, because there’s nothing underneath it to give it meaning.
The other members of my family did manage to finish the book, and all enjoyed it to varying degrees. We had a lively and interesting discussion about it, involving some fascinating theories, so it was a successful book club choice overall.
The next book we’re doing is my choice - Redshirts by John Scalzi, and I’m really looking forward to the meeting, because it has some oblique links to the Jasper Fforde book. It’s about the crew of a spaceship, who discover there’s a 20th century TV show about them, which affects what happens to them on missions. It’s utterly ridiculous, makes no sense of any kind, and even the characters themselves discuss how insane the situation is at regular intervals. Now, one of my objections to the Jasper Fforde book was that having your characters highlight how little the book makes sense does not mitigate the fact that it makes no sense. On another level, Redshirts also suffered from quite a bit of clumsy writing - too many adverbs, character names that were too similar, over-explanation of dialogue and action.
However, I absolutely loved Redshirts from start to finish. It was enhanced by excellent narration by Wil Wheaton, and it made me laugh out loud in the street on multiple occasions. Now, the difference between the two books, in my view, is that Redshirts has engaging and sympathetic characters, and an action-packed, fast-paced plot, that had me completely emotionally invested in what happened, and made me cry as well as laugh. So, while Shades of Grey may technically be better written and more impressive in its world-building, Redshirts gets my enjoyment vote every time, because it engaged my emotions and made me care. I shall be fascinated to find out if my family agree at the next book club meeting.
