Some books catch my attention from the first few words and others--don't. I always wonder how many pages I should give a book before throwing in the towel: 100? 50? 200? If a book has gotten stellar reviews or won prestigious awards, I usually try to give it at least 100 pages. If I don't make it to 100 pages, then I'll keep re-checking out the same title, thinking surely now I'll be in a more receptive mood. But 9 times out of 10, I'm not. It's hard to get excited about a book you rejected the first time around.
And that makes me feel guilty or like there's something wrong with me. For example, the book Chime by Franny Billingsley has gotten 6 starred reviews, is a National Book Award finalist, and has been described as "extraordinary and moving" as well as "exquisite to the final word." I checked it out once, but I didn't get close to 100 pages in. I had trouble with the strange language used and that kept me from enjoying the story or characters or pretty much anything about the book.
Other books I've given up on lately include Invincible by Sherrilyn Kenyon. I didn't realize this was book 2 of a series, but I still don't think I'll try again. It started with a supposedly wise-cracking main character who was getting attacked by some kind of paranormal things and the writing, character, and plot all left me feeling blech.
I gave a longer try to The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson. This had an underachieving, overweight 16-year-old princess named Elisa as the main character. Elisa has never done anything impressive in her life except be born with a special gem in her bellybutton (seriously). This gem shows that Elisa is "chosen" or specially picked by the gods to fulfill a great destiny--if she can find the power within herself. Even though I found Elisa totally wimpy and annoying, I had some hopes for the book because early on she married a hot older king from a neighboring kingdom and after the wedding, their caravan got attacked when they were traveling back to his kingdom. But then the plot slowed down again and Elisa seemed even farther from achieving anything, other than literally contemplating her own very special navel, so I stopped reading after about page 120.
I did actually finish The Future of Us the other day, but it's still not one I can recommend. The premise was cool. It's 1996 and Emma and Josh are high school students, neighbors, and former best friends. Former because Josh tried to kiss Emma one night the previous summer and she pushed him away because she doesn't feel that way about him, so, although they're still friends, things have been awkward ever since. A new school year starts, Emma's divorced dad sends her a new computer, and Josh brings over an AOL disc that lets Emma get on the Internet. Emma logs in and finds a strange site titled "Facebook" that seems to show photos and updates from her future self. Whoa! Emma starts compulsively looking at her future life and then is horrified by it, so she makes changes in her present day life to change her future. Josh, who takes turns with Emma narrating the book, is appalled by Emma's messing with the future, partly because his own future looks awesome--he sees his future self married to the hottest, seemingly unattainable, girl at school. Neat idea, but I thought it dragged on.
Finally, there is one book I did enjoy: The Outcasts, the first entry in John Flanagan's new Brotherband Chronicles. Flanagan wrote The Ranger's Apprentice series (which I love) set in medieval-ish times in the kingdom of Araluen. This new series, set in the same fictional universe, moves the story over to those crazy Skandians, who are brawny, seafaring fighters. Hal, the central character in The Outcasts, lives with his mom, who is actually from Araluen. Hal's father was Skandian, but died in battle before Hal was born. Because he's not 100 percent Skandian, Hal isn't really accepted by most in his town. The book starts when Hal is a teenager, old enough to go to battle training. At the training, the teens are divided into teams and Hal ends up on a team of the misfits. I'll bet you can guess what happens next. The fun is in the details of the training, the characters, and the joy of rooting for the underdog.
0 comments:
Post a Comment