Issues with recent books...
Apr. 20th, 2019 08:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI've definitely had some issues with my reading lately. I think it's partly that my mental state is over-tired and scattered, which always makes it difficult for me to concentrate on reading. But there have also been some off-putting aspects of various books I've tried to read over the last few weeks. Here are the ones I haven't finished:
The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker:
This started out quite appealing, with a writer protagonist I could sympathise with and an intriguing mystery. But the protagonist quickly turned out to be pretty unpleasant, I lost interest in what was going on, and the female characters were all dreadful - either pathetic and drippy with no real reason for being interested in Harry, or varyingly awful mothers.
The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton:
An interesting idea - a young woman taking the job of travelling between villages in Africa, providing a lending library service. But it felt as if the protagonist was very much a white saviour, bringing enlightenment to the poor, downtrodden and inferior natives. I'm not sure if this would have continued to be the case throughout the book, but I found the opening sections difficult to reconcile.
The Badass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer:
This again started out with an interesting premise, of people trying to obtain and protect ancient texts in sub-Saharan Africa. And I don't think it was the fault of the book that I gave up this time. It felt as if it suddenly got very dry and technical, but I think I just wasn't in the mood for non-fiction.
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman:
Another one I found very engaging to begin with - the story of Irene, who works as an agent for the mysterious Library, travelling between realities to recover important texts (lots of stuff about books in my recent choices!). It was exciting at the start and I liked Irene as a character. But it seemed to get bogged down in a lot of talking and theorising and random battles without much in the way of interesting cohesion. I'm afraid I lost interest in the last third and found myself skimming whilst not really caring what happened, so I gave it up.
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon:
This is a book set on a generation ship, where the social strata have divided to create a huge disparity between certain classes of travelers. The whole of the first chapter described an inexperienced and under-supplied surgeon amputating a child's foot, which was quite unpleasant. When the next chapter opened with the heading "On the Subject of Amputations", I decided I didn't want to continue.
Here's hoping that some sleep, some perspective and some better choices enable me to get back into reading properly and actually finish some books soon!
The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker:
This started out quite appealing, with a writer protagonist I could sympathise with and an intriguing mystery. But the protagonist quickly turned out to be pretty unpleasant, I lost interest in what was going on, and the female characters were all dreadful - either pathetic and drippy with no real reason for being interested in Harry, or varyingly awful mothers.
The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton:
An interesting idea - a young woman taking the job of travelling between villages in Africa, providing a lending library service. But it felt as if the protagonist was very much a white saviour, bringing enlightenment to the poor, downtrodden and inferior natives. I'm not sure if this would have continued to be the case throughout the book, but I found the opening sections difficult to reconcile.
The Badass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer:
This again started out with an interesting premise, of people trying to obtain and protect ancient texts in sub-Saharan Africa. And I don't think it was the fault of the book that I gave up this time. It felt as if it suddenly got very dry and technical, but I think I just wasn't in the mood for non-fiction.
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman:
Another one I found very engaging to begin with - the story of Irene, who works as an agent for the mysterious Library, travelling between realities to recover important texts (lots of stuff about books in my recent choices!). It was exciting at the start and I liked Irene as a character. But it seemed to get bogged down in a lot of talking and theorising and random battles without much in the way of interesting cohesion. I'm afraid I lost interest in the last third and found myself skimming whilst not really caring what happened, so I gave it up.
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon:
This is a book set on a generation ship, where the social strata have divided to create a huge disparity between certain classes of travelers. The whole of the first chapter described an inexperienced and under-supplied surgeon amputating a child's foot, which was quite unpleasant. When the next chapter opened with the heading "On the Subject of Amputations", I decided I didn't want to continue.
Here's hoping that some sleep, some perspective and some better choices enable me to get back into reading properly and actually finish some books soon!
