So, I started reading a book after work this evening. It's not a big surprise, my reading slump is coming to an end.
But I just can't bring myself to finish this book. I read 52 of 304 pages, so approximately 1/6 of the book, and that's enough for me. I put it down, and tomorrow I'll return it to the library so someone who might enjoy it can read it.
What's the book you ask? It's The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold. I'm almost surprised that I don't like it, but not quite. I mean, I loved The Lovely Bones, but as most people would be, I was depressed as hell by it. And there was one chapter in that book that made me tilt my head to the side and ask everyone I know who had read it, "what the fuck was THAT about?" That particular scene really marred the whole experience of the book for me.
Anyway, The Almost Moon, like The Lovely Bones was just beautifully written. The author can certainly string words together to paint a picture, a vivid one. Just not a picture that I want to look at. I didn't like the protagonist, and the plot was one that I can't relate to at all.
I do hate when this happens, when I work myself all up over a book, or a movie, and then it just sucks. Or maybe doesn't suck, but it's not for me. But I do know that life's too short to finish a book that you're not enjoying just because you started it.
I'm going to go back to my massive In Death re-read-a-thon and just enjoy that. I'm working on Reunion In Death right now (it's been my bedtime book for a couple of days), and as always, these books please me greatly.
2 comments:
This just happened to me with Stephen King's Duma Key. I borrowed it from a friend and made it half-way through before setting it aside for awhile. I tried to read The Almost Moon too but could never get into it.
In November I will have been trying to read "The Corrections" for a whole year.
It's just as you described. A book really well written just not about people or a plot that I dig.
But I'll be damned if I don't find out how it ends.
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