You Can't Judge a Book by its Ratings

It's been a little bit since I've had a chance to post but I have an extra day off this week for vacation and, being between books at the moment, I thought this might be a great time to catch up on here as well!

I had a couple missteps with two books I'd hoped would be much better than they were (hence this post's title...as they both had great ratings online!) First was Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly. It's a WWII story that follows the lives of three women-a New York socialite, a Polish teenager involved in the underground resistance, and a young German doctor--it really had fantastic potential to be a truly great book but only turned out to be a truly great disappointment. The writing and characters are so weak, it reads like a young reader Holocaust chapter book, and I just had to put it down. I couldn't make myself finish it, the writing was just that bad.

 

The next one I had high hopes for was a recommendation I'd found in Stephen King's On Writing, where he has two extensive lists of some of his favorite reads. Being a huge Stephen King nerd/fan, I'd added both lists to my own To Read list, though I've scratched quite a few off after looking at some of the ratings on Goodreads. But one that made my cut--from the ratings at least, was Robert Bolano's 2666.

 

Unfortunately, over a hundred pages in, I was struggling to care about the characters although the writing was good--I was completely disinterested in the story plot and decided to give up the ghost and move on to something better.

In between these two sad reads, I did enjoy a few great winners! First was A Mercy by Toni Morrison. One of my all time favorite books is Toni's Beloved, so when I came across A Mercy at a used book sale, I snapped it right up. I love her voice and her characters always draw you in and steal you away to another era in history.

After that I zipped through Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland--a super quick trip back to a childhood favorite. I couldn't seem to get Tim Burton's movie version out of my head the entire time and especially enjoyed 'hearing' Alan Rickman's voice for Absolem, the caterpillar, Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, and Helena Botham Carter shouting "Off with her head!!" So, so good!

Following Alice came an ARC of Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley which completely swept me away--in a flood of tears, but in such a good way. For anyone who has ever loved a dog, this story will steal your heart. It's funny and heart wrenching, imaginative and emotionally devastating--I think it's my favorite of the year so far. I couldn't put it down from the minute I picked it up--I highly recommend this to be added to any animal lover's To Read List!

 

An endearing story of love between Lily the Daschund and her devoted owner, Ted.

Before picking up my next book, Alex Haley's Queen (a final tribute to Black History Month and a perfect fit for my Q title in my A-Z Reading Challenge for the year...),

 

I took a side step into Stephen King's Everything's Eventual--another collection of his short stories that I picked up at the same book sale where I'd found A Mercy. I wanted a little 'shake-me-up' other than the in-between's from 50 Great Short Stories (some of them aren't all that great...) and Mr. King, as always, delivers. Fun, crazy, heart racing--never a dull moment in any of his books!

Good, creepy fun!

I've also found myself wanting to play more lately and I've been drawn to several creativity books. I mentioned Adam Kurtz's 1 Page at a Time in my last post (definitely a fun launching point) and then I came across Jenny Doh's Craft-a-Doodle in the clearance books at work! I flipped through quick-quick and instantly knew I needed to have it (and half off! Why not?!) Which in turn led me to buying a couple sets of Windsor Newton pigment markers this morning--and also grabbing the No Excuses Art Journaling book at the library before I picked up my reserved Queen. A first glance it looks like it has a slew of creative journaling prompts and exercises--so looking forward to playing with that one as well.

And that's where I'm at as we approach the last week of February. It's hard to let go of a book once started but sometimes you just need to know it's okay, let it go and move on--there are far too many books out there to waste time on those that will only disappoint. How are your reading challenges coming along so far for the year? Have there been any losers among your winners?