I finished all of my books from my last library visit, which rarely happens. Los Angeles was a different kind of book. Very well done (I guess) but just odd. I got a little annoyed, the same way I did when it was revealed that an entire season of Dallas was one of Bobby Ewing’s dreams. A little ripped off. A little disappointed. A little disillusioned. But then the author pulled it out by planting seeds of reality into the ending. Would I read more by this author? A big maybe. Is he going to trick me every time?
I actually started The Dangerous Husband before I started Los Angeles, and put it down because I didn’t think I was going to like it because it seemed the author used a lot of big (pretentious) words early on when simpler ones would have accomplished the same thing. I’m not stupid (usually) and it wasn’t that I didn’t know what the words she was using meant. I’ve actually been accused of having a big vocabulary. Still all those big words put me off initially.
But after I finished Los Angeles, I went back to The Dangerous Husband and either I got past the part where all the big words were or I didn’t notice them so much. This is another unique (literary, I suppose) book in the way it’s written, even though the subject matter isn’t that unusual. As usual the problem I have with some literary writing is getting into the author’s rhythm. But once I get past that, I’m usually good to go. So I ended up enjoying The Dangerous Husband after all.
All my books were due today, so for the next three weeks, I have the following:
A Nest of Sparrows by Deborah Raney
Forgive Me by Amanda Eyre Ward
The Best Thing That Can Happen to a Croissant by Pablo Tusset
A Good Distance by Sarah Willis
I’m especially looking forward to reading Forgive Me because I loved How to be Lost. I’m not sure I’ll get to all four. In fact I picked up a fourth book ( A Nest of Sparrows) after I’d decided to only get three because I’m already in the middle of Seeing Me Naked by Liza Palmer (which I actually bought) and I’ll want to finish it before I start any of the others. But, you never know. My work schedule may lighten up the next week or two since summer is here and it’s slow and my revisions on FOREVER are going pretty well. In two days I wrote 4000 words on an entirely new scene. Now I need to figure out where to stick it into the manuscript. I’m so close to finishing it. Fingers crossed that my editor likes what I did.
I’m trying to branch out in my reading tastes by getting books written by men. Sorry guys. I don’t know exactly what it is that has turned me off male authors in the past except that sometimes they seem to be so brutal with their characters for no good reason. Maybe I’m too soft.
Not that female authors don’t do this as well, but once I know an author’s “shtick,” after reading two or three of their books and it’s sort of the same thing, it’s like, “okay, got it.” I think every book of theirs will basically be the same, so what’s the point? That’s not a good explanation, I realize. I can’t always pinpoint what may turn me off of an author I enjoyed reading after a few books. (Five points if you can tell me everything that’s wrong with that last sentence!) It just happens. Seems weird, being a romance writer because basically all romances follow a formula. Maybe I just like them better. It’s always the same journey, but the good romance writers send their characters on different routes before they arrive at the HEA. I don’t think I read that much romance per se, anyway. Mostly I’d categorize what I like as women’s fiction. Or general fiction. Literary fiction. Novels. Why do we have to put a label on everything?
Remember my motto: Life’s too short to read lousy books.
