Liane Moriarty books are supposed to be delightful page turners of silly mysteries. Apples Never Fall tries to be the same – the wife/mother disappears in the first pages and we go back and forth in time trying to understand how and why – but it’s just boring. Not enough at stake, or who cares, or is there really a mystery here or did she just get fed up and drive off. Anyway, if you are looking for a follow-up to Big Little Lies or State of Terror this is Not The One. Move on.
Category Archives: Worst Books
The Guest List: As Silly As You’d Guess
Today I unintentionally dressed myself and the small human in matching outfits. We’re at that point. Also the point at which I read trashy airport novels unironically and enjoy them enough to finish. Lucy Foley’s The Guest List is extremely silly. Told from the perspectives of the bridal party (and a few guests) at an exclusive wedding held on a remote island, it’s a murder mystery that is as easy to solve as it is hilarious in its dun-dun-dun finish to every. single. chapter. It is not at all good unless your basic criteria is a book that does not require any thought and is magical in its anticipation of its movie adaptation. Which, tbh, is a pretty compelling set of reasons for reading it in These Times. I am likely mere days away from putting flowered bows on the small human’s very bald head. Send help.
Filed under Fiction, Mystery, Worst Books
The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls: Abandon.
Anissa Gray’s first novel (only novel?) The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls was not for me. It bored me. The characters bored me, the plot bored me, the whole thing – so I stopped reading halfway through it. Maybe if I committed more time it would get better, but there is too much to read. Continue reading
Filed under Book I'll Forget I Read, Fiction, Worst Books
What is Left the Daughter: In which I only realize I read the book before after writing this review and the two reviews are… not the same.
BIG NEWS. First time ever, but I wrote this review and when I was typing in the ‘tags’ realized that I READ IT BEFORE. And REVIEWED IT BEFORE. And I had NO MEMORY AT ALL that I’d ever encountered the book before! AH! My brain! Anyway, When I read this (in 2011) I was ambivalent. Almost ten years later (let’s grant that the intervening decade may be why I don’t recall it At. All.?) I am less easily swayed. If you want to read the earlier review you can find it here. I will say that 2011 Erin was far more impressed by detail. And actually thought this was a book I’d ‘keep thinking about’ LOL.
And now… the review I wrote before I realized I’d reviewed it before!
It shouldn’t be so boring. What is Left the Daughter opens with a dramatic love triangle that renders protagonist Wyatt Hillier an orphan. It has the drama of U-boats and the war and murder! But then it also has tedious descriptions of scones and gramophone recordings and definitions of words.
Ostensibly told as a series of letters from father to daughter (though what letter would ever include Such Outrageous Detail I don’t know) the novel follows the life of Wyatt as he comes to Middle Economy, Nova Scotia, and becomes a… wait. Try to imagine the most boring job you can imagine. Did you guess toboggan and sled maker? You’re right – that falls outside the scope of imagination for most boring, but there it is, all true. He falls in love, but the woman of his affection loves another man. A *gasp* German man amid WWII Nova Scotia. Drama-drama, family-drama. Except… no real drama. Just agonizing mundane exhaustion.
So yeah. I would have stopped reading this one, but I kept thinking it was going to get better. It doesn’t. Don’t. Bother.
Literary Vice 