I rarely do this, so I thought it blog-worthy: I actually gave up on a book. I'd skimmed a few reviews of Meg Wolitzer's The Ten Year Nap but hadn't really paid much attention. But when I saw the book in the "New Books" section of the library, I picked it up along with a few other titles that caught my eye (none of which were on my TBR list).
And as soon as I finished Briar Rose (whoops--haven't reviewed that one yet), I chose this Wolitzer book to start next.
Bad choice.
The conflict in the book is the internal and apparently eternal struggle of women who choose to leave the workforce and stay home with their kids. So the moms begin examining their choices once their kids hit grade school, wondering if the grass is greener and all that.
So the thing is: I didn't care about one single person in the 75 pages I read. You know that old Far Side cartoon about what the dog hears as the person speaks ("Blah, blah, blah, Ginger. Blah, blah, blah.")? That's how I felt. "Waa, waa, waa," says one SAHM to another. "Money, money, money," says one WAHM to a SAHM.
Boring. Nobody cares. Yawn.
Perhaps part of the whole apathy-for-characters thing is that this all happens in NYC, which is a different world from the one in which we non-urbanites live. We plebians don't do Exclusive Boys' Schools and Luncheon Dates/manicures. We don't have botox parties and nannies. I find it tedious to even read about such things, except perhaps for in The Nanny Diaries.
So, there's my non-review. I'll add this to the very short list of books upon which I gave up.
Love that FarSide!
ReplyDelete~Luke
That is too bad. :-( I still plan to give this book a try, but I can understand why you wouldn't be drawn into it for the reasons you stated. It's not high up on my TBR list so it'll be awhile before I do get to it.
ReplyDeleteLife is too short and there are too many wonderful books to spend time with a book you clearly didn't enjoy.
ReplyDeleteGOod for you and thanks for the review.
And there are soooo many books that just blah, blah, blah $$$.
ReplyDeleteReading books can be just as large of a time waster AND harder on the eyes that wasting them on TV and movies so one does need to discard the old.
My wife is reading a book right now about the Virgin of Fatima. I read the first few pages, and then, blah, blah, blah....zzzzz
Really, so many books are that way, just like so much (most) of the muzak that's around: Spears, Faith Hill, 90% of country?? (is it country), all of opera?, on and on....
i meant discard the BAD. IOW, drop books that just blah, blah, early on. Now, the danger can be in dropping a book that is at a higher level because it is harder to read and is not "exciting". Some books by CS LEWIS and Charles Williams may start off extremely mundane, day-to-day and almost (but not really) boring and then become the most exciting books possible such as The Place of the Lion by Williams or The Hideous Strength by Lewis.
ReplyDeleteSo, OTOH, one must not drop books too fast.