Comparing Books I’ve Been Reading

Comparison is cruel, isn’t it? And yet, I’m going to do it anyway. If you know me at all by now, you know I read any type of literature, high or low. I have what’s known medically as a reading addiction. Yes, I made that up, but being that almost every personality quirk can become a diagnosis, I wouldn’t be surprised if that were a thing. We only really hear about these diagnoses when they become trendy or reach wide swaths of the population. For example, Asperger’s and ADD are still quite trendy, though I believe they reached a peak around five or ten years ago. Anxiety isn’t trendy, but it has consumed so much of the population that we read and hear about it all the time. While I tend to be skeptical of the frequency of Asperger’s and ADD diagnoses, especially for adults, I don’t doubt that people suffer from anxiety. And, to be honest, it doesn’t sound like much fun. I am rarely anxious, but like any human, I have my bouts…and they are physically painful. Anxiety hurts way down in the gut.

Bad literature, on the other hand, hurts in the head. Every book I’ve read lately I would mark as bad literature, even though I’ve liked at least two of the authors in the past. Without further ado, I will tell you about the last three books I’ve read.

1. Marc Levy’s Hope. Genre: sci fi light. Marc Levy is a French author, whose works are translated into English. Normally, this doesn’t cause me any problems. I like his style because he is light, whimsical, and good at characterization. Also, he always incorporates some manner of sci fi or supernatural elements. His first book, If Only It Were True, was made into a film I loved for all the reasons I listed above. The book Hope was just a slog to get through, despite its fascinating premise of a supercomputer capturing human consciousness. Of course, that’s been done before, but I thought Marc Levy would bring a new spin on it. Did he? Sure. But it was so infernally slow, and I usually don’t mind slow, ponderous books. I also felt the translation was awkward, which didn’t help.
2. Harlan Coben’s The Boy From the Woods. Genre: mystery/suspense. I’ve raved in the past about Harlan Coben’s ability to be suspenseful, fast-paced, and yet not throw characterization and setting ambience by the wayside. This book was all right, as far as all that goes. I read it in a few hours — not all at one time, mind you, as I normally only read before bed. But I blew through it, unlike the book above, which took me over a month to read. But it was entirely unsatisfying. It felt phoned-in, and that’s not even touching on the Mary Sue nature of the elderly female protagonist. She was far too perfect and intelligent in every way. I wanted to like her; I really did. The male protagonist was a stereotype, too, a version of Reed from Criminal Minds. Not that he was a copy of Reed, per se. More to the point, the Reed-like character is plucked out for use in mysteries far too often, and that actor just happens to have a physically impeccable embodiment of the personality. Oh, and there were a couple of pages that were probably from an unedited version of the book. I usually only see that in self-published novels because the authors are trying to do too much and can often only afford one editing pass. I don’t know how it got through the editor at his publisher, but alas, nobody’s perfect.
3. Victoria Aveyard’s The Red Queen. Genre: YA fantasy/sci fi. I’m calling this fantasy/sci fi because it ultimately comes down to characters controlling elements of the earth in a very magical way that would, um, normally kill humans. In this case, the people have been altered by evolutionary necessity after the fall of modern civilizations, hence the “sci fi”. It’s not a bad book. It’s enjoyable and mostly fast-paced, but it doesn’t feel unique at all. I can’t make that same claim of Levy above — all his books have an air of uniqueness, even the slog. And Aveyard’s the writing is mediocre to bad. There are some grammar errors that drive my mind down an OCD correction loop (no, I don’t have that trendy diagnosis either). It wouldn’t have been difficult or awkward to fix these errors; somebody either didn’t know enough to fix them or didn’t care. I doubt I will read any more books by this author. I mean, she looks young. There is hope for her, I guess. I just want something more!! I’m in desperate need for the kind of book that surprises me or makes me stare at the ceiling after the last page because I can’t move until I process the perfect ending, the lingering satisfaction a little while longer.

That’s it — the three books I’ve read in the past couple of months. The first book pushed it to that lengthy time. I’d like to cleanse the palate a little with an amazing book before the New Year. I don’t know what that might be, though. If you have any suggestions, please put them below. I might just go back to Chesterton’s nonfiction wit. He’s a sure bet. Or Emily Organ. She’s a modern author that tweaks my funny bone in the way P.G. Wodehouse always has. Perhaps it’s not great literature, but that remains to be seen. P.G. Wodehouse’s books have stood the test of time, even if a good many follow the same formula and are entirely predictable. It’s the humor whose steady light will never die.