Day 18 – A book that disappointed you

I am a huge Grisham fan, have read everything he’s written in the legal thriller genre, but I did not like this book. There were several that grew on me about halfway through. This one just never got me. The moment I read about  ’the drug’ and ‘the big case that could win us millions’, it immediately reminded me of King of Torts, which I enjoyed, but I definitely wasn’t going to read it again with different characters. Incredibly disappointed in this book.

Still love Grisham though.

Well. There are a couple of books that fit this bill… if you search through my one and two star ratings on GoodReads, you’ll find them. This one in particular was  terrible, and I didn’t understand why it had so many four star reviews!

Medical Error, by Dr Richard Mabry

I try hard not to speak ill of other books, because someday I will publish one and someone will hate it and I would hope that they used some tact in expressing their dislike, and were also specific about what they didn’t like.

I love medical shows on TV (Like Doctor G Medical Examiner and Mystery Diagnosis) so  thought a medical thriller would be a great read. And maybe it would, but this one just did not appeal to me.

It was, first of all, a Christian thriller, which is fine except that it was not marketed as such. If you mention church or Jesus Christ or giving your life to Christ in every chapter, then that is obviously an important part of the story structure and should be mentioned somewhere. Not at any point was the fact that this was a religiously slanted novel come up. I am a Christian, the daughter of a preacher and I felt like I was choking on all of the Bible rammed down my throat. Distaste.

Some plot points were interesting (identity theft, deaths happening due to medical errors as a result) but how they tied together and how the characters reacted to the situations were maddening and unrealistic. This book seemed to be a jumble of events tied together with a thin line of dental floss. The main character’s identity is stolen and her credit card frozen, so she can’t use it. Instead of being alarmed and highly concerned, she goes about life as if ID theft is not a big issue. Except for the fact that she can’t pay for her food at the grocery store, she seems nonplussed. Why, for one, does she shop for food with a credit card? Has she never heard of checks and a debit card?

This author is repped by a reputable agent, however I am positive that this was a self published effort. The book is riddled with typos and grammar gaffes, to the point where it is distracting… seems like the book was hurriedly written and tossed online for $2.99.

Most of what I hated was how people gave it 4 stars. This book made me stop reading reviews ahead of time, because I feel I can’t trust them if authors are going to get everyone they know to offer up  a stellar review to encourage people to read it.

So there you go. A book I didn’t like, and valid reasons that it didn’t make my Best Book Ever List.

I have been a bit absent this week. Mostly because I didn’t have much to say and I’m not one to post just for posting’s sake. And, as Sierra Godfrey mentioned in a great post this week, readers don’t really care what your excuses are for not blogging; nor do they care for silly filler posts. I happen to completely agree, so I don’t do them.

It has been a busy month for me though. Over at the Fan Fiction archive, we have been running a month long challenge. Writers sign up for a specific day and on that day, they post a completed story of 1,000 words or more. Once it is posted, it’s my job as Challenge Master (I just made that name up for myself) to publicize the author and their story all day. Everyday. On top of also running a fansite for a music group, my life outside of writing/ reading is pretty active.

And then there’s that. I’ve not done a whole lot of writing, lately. I wrote two stories for the aforementioned challenge. Both got pretty small reactions, but that they got comments at all is great, I suppose. A friend and I were discussing this phenomenon a few weeks ago, where when I posted stories in the past, I got lots of comments and lately I get very few. I started to worry that I lost my touch, my mojo, my writing fu. We discovered, though, that readers seem to like the chase. They like waiting for an update and slowly allowing themselves to identifywith the characters. When I write a story, however, I finish it and then I post it, in case I want to change/clarify something later. I can’t go back and change something I have already posted. And then I dump it on the archive and people read it all in one sitting, in one fell swoop and don’t feel as close to the characters as they would if I had spaced it out.

What it all comes down to is that I am impatient. I want people to read it all right now. I’m not much of a tease. Working on it, though!

I posted a short piece for the Story Fix Peer Review Page and then sent my friends and followers over there to harass and/or comment on the post. It turned out pretty well and I feel like I got some good advice from the writing community. And a few “wow”s, which… I’m not going to lie, felt really great. REALLY great. The piece wasn’t torn apart and I feel like it was a good representation of my writing.

I have been doing a lot of reading. I’m doing the GoodReads Reading Challenge. I committed to reading 50 books this year. I’m at 30 and I am 2 books behind. I’m really tempted to pick some short novellas and finish them to boost my count, but I feel like that would be cheating, so I am doing my best to stay on top of my TBR pile. My hiatus from the written word hurt me a bit but I am rapid and voracious reader. I was five books behind!  In the last month I have read: 

Snowy Night Seduction- Very short. A little bit of paranormal, which I don’t really mind as long as it’s not vampires. I just can’t deal with vampires. And a hot sex scene as well.  2 of 5 stars*

Silver Sparrow- I finished this at the end of July, actually. Was so good, especially part two. I was sad to see it end– didn’t want to say goodbye to Dana and Chaurisse and their secret family.  I wish we got to see more of them. Can’t wait for the next book from Tayari Jones. 4 of 5 stars

The Lies that Bind- Oh my. SUCH a good book. A quick read, great love scenes, lots of action, a true page turner and has what I love love LOVE. A nice twist at the end. Didn’t see it coming. Can’t wait for DL Sparks next book– I’ve pre-ordered it! 4 of 5 stars

The Sugar Queen- Another Sarah Addison Allen book. I just love reading her in between my gripping, heart breaking dramas. Such a nice break with a great story and a little bit of magic. This one was sweet- pat, but sweet.  Pun intended. 3 of 5 stars

What Looks like Crazy on an Ordinary Day- I had never heard of Pearl Cleage before I started reading Tayari Jones. Ms Cleage is one of her favorite authors, so I figured I’d take a look. I’m just getting started on her collection and this was the first. It was not what I expected it to be- a love story between an ex con and a woman who is HIV positive. I really enjoyed the story and the writing. The epilogue was not my cup of tea– it could have been a few more chapters of story, in my opinion. I guess I am just greedy, but don’t sweep over things in your epilogue that only tie your story up in a big red bow.  Just my personal opinion. I think I am reading “I Wish I Had a Red Dress” or “Seen It All..” next.  Not Sure. 4 of 5 stars

The Accident: A Novel - This was one of the best books I have read in a long, long time. I love a story that has twists and turns and multiple stories that all tie in together. This book does that really well, with so many levels of story and story lines you didn’t even think were connected, end up swirling around one another. I’ve already purchased other books Linwood Barclay has written. Can’t wait to dig into them. 4 of 5 stars

The End of Everything: A Novel - This was… interesting. I almost gave up on it, actually. I just couldn’t get into it. Then I hopped onto Goodreads and read some reviews. My left eyebrow went up at hints of what happens later in the story, so I kept reading. Glad I did, but… I hate when I read a book and I still have questions that are not answered. There is so much inference as to what happened. I don’t have a clear understanding of everything because she never really said, ‘this is what happened’. I feel like I read it in a fog. I had a hard time with her writing style as well, but that was just a personal thing. It was hard to muddle through until the story got good. Not one I’ll read over and over, likely. 3 of 5 stars

*A note on my star rating. I rarely, if ever give 5 stars. I have to pretty much fall onto the ground, weeping and wailing and gnashing my teeth because the book is over. 4 stars is a really, really good book for me. 5 stars is perfection. I have given very few 5 star ratings. 

As for writing… I have a story idea. It is fan fiction. It could possibly be written during NaNoWriMo. Not sure, though. It is a psychological thriller. I have some research and story planning to do but I don’t want to talk about it much or I’ll talk myself out of writing it. I haven’t written anything at all on the book I am supposed to be writing. I think about it now and then but I don’t really have a complete story arc and I am not motivated to work on it. It’s going nowhere pretty rapidly. I can’t seem to get a grasp on writing original fiction. I just don’t care about the characters like I care about my fanfic characters and I haven’t found a way to remedy that.

I am off for a day of reading and planning a series of blog posts for next week. Have a wonderful day!

Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen – Sad to say, I’m not enjoying this book. Actually I’m not enjoying the audio book. I have the physical book and I’ll probably switch to that. The audio-book is always a matter of a compelling story that I can get lost in and an excellent narrator. I DO NOT like the narrator for this book and I find I just don’t care about the main character quite yet. I’ll pick up the eBook version this week where I left off.

Damage, by John Lescroart- Another new book I started but have only read a page, so far. I LOVE Lescroart so I’m not worried about this book at all. Hoping to spend most of my weekend buried in this one.

Roseflower Creek, by Jackie Lee Miles -I got this book as a freebie from Amazon/B&N. Just started it, seems interesting and a good read, but I’m not far enough into it to say what I like, don’t like. It’s set in the 1950′s south (so you know I’m all over it) . This book begins, “The morning I died it rained. Poured down so hard it washed the blood off my face.” I’m hooked.

Stif , by Mary Roach- Still chugging away at this book. I really want to enjoy it, it’s just sort of boring. I am going to try to get it out of the way this weekend so I can stop looking at it on my Currently Reading list.

The Help,  by Katherine Stockett- I’m listening to this audio book in the car. I read the book back in 2009, thoroughly enjoyed it and am happy to be revisiting it. Since it’s an old book, I’m not counting it toward my 2011 goal.

I have a few irons in the fire, as always:

The Kitchen House - I’m “reading” this via audio book. It was a slow start, but I’m becoming completely hooked by it, to the point where I will get home from work and sit in the car for another 10 minutes to get to the end of a chapter. This story is told by 2 narrators– Lavinia, who is an Irish orphan turned indentured servant, and Belle, the biracial daughter of the plantation owner. There is… so much drama in this book and I know I could read it faster than I’m listening to it, but I’m MUCH enjoying the distraction from traffic. Even if I’m just going across the street to St@rbucks, I make sure I bring the iPhone, so I can listen to a few minutes. I love historical fiction and this totally fits the bill.

Glorious- I don’t know what’s with this book. I read McFadden’s Sugar, and the follow up This Bitter Earth.  I couldn’t get into the Black Magic theme of This Bitter Earth, but it was still written leaps and bounds better than Glorious. It seems to me like this book was spat out and published, unedited, beta-ed, read for clarity…I’m reading it because  I want to know what happens in the story, but I’m disappointed in the book itself.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers- I’m a weirdo, and I watch a lot of shows on forensic science, investigation, things like that. CSI in its early years was a staple on my TiVO, until the stories became more about drama, less about science, and even then it was more science fiction. I watch a lot of Forensic Files, The Investigators, Dr G, Medical Examiner, simply because I am intrigued by such things. I thought I would really dig into this book and it was initially really interesting, talking about how much had changed in how doctors performed surgeries,  and then later changes in autopsy and burial. At the point I’ve reached, Roach is droning on and on about the cadavers and human lives and feelings and I find I just don’t care about who the cadavers used to be. Tell me about what the cadavers are doing now, and why, and HOW. Ugh. I’m pushing through, but slowly. I’ll give it a few more chapters before I hang it up.

What are YOU reading? Tell me (us) about it, tweet it and don’t forget to add the hashtag #FridayReads!

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Let me just start by saying…this book was FANTASTIC. A real page turner, a mystery like none other with a great human interest and race relations undercurrent. I guess I have to admit that these are my favorite kinds of books, ones that detail the struggle between choosing what you’ve always been taught and forging your own ideas about things and going your own way.

After the disappointment of the last book I read, I was craving something gripping, not the same old story told in the same old way. I picked this book out off of some list and from Page 1 it had me.

In the late 1970s, Larry Ott and Silas “32″ Jones were boyhood pals. Their worlds were as different as night and day: Larry, the child of lower-middle-class white parents, and Silas, the son of a poor, single black mother. Yet for a few months the boys stepped outside of their circumstances and shared a special bond. But then tragedy struck: Larry took a girl on a date to a drive-in movie, and she was never heard from again. She was never found and Larry never confessed, but all eyes rested on him as the culprit. The incident shook the county—and perhaps Silas most of all. His friendship with Larry was broken, and then Silas left town.

More than twenty years have passed. Larry, a mechanic, lives a solitary existence, never able to rise above the whispers of suspicion. Silas has returned as a constable. He and Larry have no reason to cross paths until another girl disappears and Larry is blamed again. And now the two men who once called each other friend are forced to confront the past they’ve buried and ignored for decades.

As you can imagine, I thoroughly enjoyed getting lost in Mississippi via the imagery painted by the author. I could see the house that Larry and his family lived in, the delapitated cabin that Silas and his mother lived in, the lush forests and dirt roads of the back country and the daily ramblings and small town adventures of Chabot. The cast of characters was sparkling and charming–I don’t think there was one underdeveloped character, not one useless name, not one wasted sentence. Even the stories Carl told served a purpose. Every person played a part in this story from Larry to Voncelle (office clerk) to Angie (medical examiner and Silas’ love interest) I also love when a writer can make me almost hear the dialog in my head, like I’m watching the movie.

I sort of felt sorry for “Scary Larry”. Poor, weird little kid. Toward the climax, there are a few twists that I really enjoyed digging into, namely the connection between Larry and Wallace, and Larry, Silas, Carl and Ina– I suspected this one pretty early on but the author kept me waiting to confirm it. There’s nothing like sitting straight up, eyes wide open, and gasping while you read and then the pages can’t turn fast enough.

Well written, I really enjoyed it. I rarely give a book 5 stars, and I was tempted, but two things kept me from doing so:

a) There is a secret that Larry learns ( a few of them) that should tear him up more than they do. We’re so of left dangling when he should be angry and hurt and lashing out and he doesn’t. He seems sort of ‘alright’ with it and I disagreed that his reaction should be so mild.

b) I decided that things didn’t conclude as messily as I’d imagine they would, had this happened in real life. It was real… “pat”. I dislike pat.

It’s like happy endings… do they really exist?

Other than that, LOVED IT.

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Goodnight.

Oh no. Not goodnight. I finished The Lonely Polygamist. Sort of. I’ll let my goodreads review stand for itself. Suffice it to say…. *two snaps* HAAATED IIIIITTTT…

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This box asks me what I think… well. I think I don’t understand the 4 and 5 star ratings of this book. I liked the story itself. It seemed to be full, however, of winding stories and retrospection, which provides us with back story. I guess I’ll have to think further about the characters and development and writing style. [Adding: Which were fine, I guess. It wasn't impossible to understand].

Right now I just can’t get over the fact that I skipped about 1/3 of this book until it seemed like the story advanced.

I tried my hand at a review… I’ll have to try again another time. Everything I write sounds as boring as I found this book to be. I will say that I did not initially find Golden Richards to be a strong enough man to have 4 wives and that made me hard to respect him as a character. We find out, pretty early on from his skulking around his own house trying to avoid his wives, that he’s not really the head of his house. His children run wild and there is little bond/sisterhood that we hear so much about in polygamist families. Much more apparent is the discordance and dysfunction.

Golden didn’t seem very lonely, to me. Just out of control. The lonely one seemed to be his son, Rusty, who everyone thought was just weird. That story line seemed to be the most interesting of all of them and unfortunately seemed to get such little attention up until the end.
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I don’t know what I’m reading next, but please let it be good.

So, I’ve been telling myself that I’m going to to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) … and I started a project earlier this year not knowing you couldn’t pick up something you’d already started for NaNo. Booo. Because. I kind of want to dedicate November to that project and try to get it off the ground. I’ve had my head in so much… other stuff… sometimes I just need a break from it. So I may not do the official NaNo thing this year. I don’t have any other ideas, really. I guess if I come up with one, I’m on board!

I blogged last month that I wasn’t doing much reading, and vowed to fix that. So, I bought some books! Let me just say that I bought one that I really regret buying. UGH. I just do not like it. I’m not going to finish it. And I want to banish it from my bookcase. Ech. I DID buy two books I’m kind of into:

Push, by Sapphire– reading this for a book club I joined (yay, me). It’s a really compelling story… because of my own personal history, stories of abuse really intrigue me. Kind of helps me feel less alone. Anyway, Push has been developed into a movie that I kind of can’t wait to see and am kind of dreading seeing. You know that feeling? I just think it’s going to be a very well done, thought provoking film.

The Associate, by John Grisham- anyone who knows me knows I’m a big fan of legal thrillers, specifically Grisham and Lescroart. I’ve pretty much read everything they’ve put out in this genre. I feel like Grisham is, lately in his career, one step up and two steps back. He started off firehot from The Firm, but some of his more recent releases were a little ‘meh’. I mean, I still read them. The Appeal was really hard to get through, for some reason. The Associate seems to be traveling along, fine though. Really suspenseful story line, a bit nail bitingly awesome, really draws you in. It’s a little ‘The Firm’ ish, so I hope the level of suspense stays the same throughout. And then it gets made into a movie, because YES. :-)

*Note to self, you have read ‘An Innocent Man!’ GET ON THAT!*

Okay, since I am blogging at work, I’d better do some! Just saw the site in my bookmarks and thought I should post up a time or two!

I hope everyone is doing a-ok!