Category Archives: Worst Books

December 21, 2014 · 10:46 pm

The Magicians: Or, When Smug Authors Are Obviously Smug

I suppose Lev Grossman thought he was being very clever in The Magicians when he has his magician protagonist mock Harry Potter. And ever more sly when his magician characters yearn to journey to a barely disguised Narnia which has taken all the over-the-top Christian symbols of Narnia and replaced them with hedonistic moments and cursing. As if in the coy wink we all share at the expense of Narnia (and feeling so very clever for having pieced together *as if this was some kind of challenge* the parallel). Suffice it to say I don’t think it’s particularly commendable to simply mock popular (young adult) fantasy or fairy tales just because. Sure, please mock it if you have something properly interesting or provocative to say – make it a dialogue between novels and we’d have something worth discussing. I mean, look at Daughter of the Forest if you want a thoughtful (if problematic) remaking of earlier fantasy/fairy tales. Or all of Angela Carter.

Alas, The Magicians has only smug takedowns for the sake of being like “look at me, I’m smugly taking down Narnia.” I admit to enjoying the first 50 pages in its world-building and descriptions of boarding school (true life confessions: I often wish I could attend a boarding school, but then so does everyone else when that boarding school is made of magic, everyone is witty and good-looking and genius is a prerequisite). But other than that? I continued reading just so I could be sure there wasn’t some momentous turn-around so that when I wrote this review I could feel justified in saying: don’t waste your time the way I wasted mine.

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August 20, 2014 · 5:18 pm

Birdman: Gross

                                                       I watch crime procedurals to be soothed by the familiarity of the introduction, the red herring, the twist, the conclusion. I read mystery novels knowing that (the good ones) are intentionally playing with the genre, the expectations, the mode and pattern of discovery and twist. So on the recommendation of A. I started reading Mo Hayder’s *Birdman* with the expectation of formal/genre play. On that count the book delivered – much to my chagrin (and secret pleasure) I didn’t see the plot twists coming. 

So what’s my problem? I suppose I wasn’t expecting the graphic violence, the victimization of women (both literally and metaphorically), the pleasure the narrative derives in long passages of brutality. My patience for this sort of normalized violence against women is wearing thin. Throughout this book I felt escalating frustration with the heroic rescue of women in distress, the small and large indignities visited on women’s bodies and identities and the supposed pleasure the reader is meant to take from encountering such descriptions. I did finish the book, but I’ll be taking a long break from Mo Hayder. And suggesting you only read this if you’re looking for examples of the ways in which representations of violence against women are made simultaneously normal and glamorous.  Examples that you can then declare gross and reprehensible. And never read again.

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May 9, 2014 · 8:34 pm

The Luminaries: When do you quit reading?

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So I sort of didn’t like (at all) Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries. Sure, sure, it won the 2013 Booker Prize. As if a prize committee has never been wrong.

I tried. I really did. 350 pages worth of trying (it’s a 700 odd page book – actually not odd, hold that thought) and I quit. Sure, my quitting this book is indicative of larger patterns in my life (I haven’t yet found a hobby I won’t quit after six months of being totally enraptured: rock climbing! quilting! karate!), but in this instance the book deserved to be quit. I’ll illuminate (ha! get it?) the problems, but first I want to think about why we read books we aren’t enjoying or don’t find meritorious/worthy of reading. Is it masochism? Some sense that because it won a Booker I have to be an idiot for not enjoying it (let’s not discount this as a possibility)? The expectation that maybe it will get better? The feeling that you’ve already committed so much that it would be a waste to stop now? <– this definitely applies to marathon running

So what was my problem? Why wasn’t I the kind of reader who swooned for this piece of historical fiction? There was too much. Too much writing, too much plot, too many characters, too many threads, too many Ideas (like the page counts of chapters should mirror the phases of the moon?). Too little to care about – what was this book about if not solving three weird coincidences? I’m not all that interested in coincidences. Or why they happen. Or for 700 pages. Winding, weaving, blerg. Just… too much (and not like it was thematically interested in ideas of “excess” so I could appreciate the form/content blend – just… too much.)

I should end by saying I didn’t hate all of it. Having played “Industry: The New Zealand Game” on the instance of N. I was familiar with the history of the gold rush and so I enjoyed feeling like a reader-in-the-know (clearly I should have been familiar with this history as a Person Living in the World, but my sense of world history and geography is patchy and for this I am sorry). I enjoyed the mood of the book – I was persuaded by the ill-omens and the murky murk that nothing good was going to happen.

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November 25, 2013 · 8:40 pm

Lost Girls: Ice Cold

Rating: If you’re so inclined, or you shouldn’t

I love thrillers and police procedurals. So much. Law and Order is a staple in my life – feeling anxious? watch the predictable unfolding of 44 minutes. With Andrew Pyper’s *Lost Girls” (see a few posts ago for his Demonologist) I wanted to be swept up and riveted by the book. The back cover made me hopeful. The early chapters even more so. But, like the Demonologist, the premise and the opening salvo left so much to be desired.

In reading the acknowledgements (aside: I *love* the acknowledgements in novels. I wish they were longer – see Dave Eggers’ acknowledgements in AHWOSG for a good model – just kidding, but not really) I noticed that Pyper had previously published sections of the novel in journals. I suspect (because the book makes me a detective?) that the few chapters at the beginning – briefly returned later in the novel – focused on the young kids at the lake was a brilliantly written and published short story. But the rest of the novel that tries to take this exceptional opening premise and extend it is just… not good. 

The suspense isn’t suspenseful. I don’t care about our protagonist. I don’t believe his fear. Even if I did, I don’t care whether he’s scared. The unbelievable elements – ghost woman at the lake who steals children – is introduced as a ghost story within the narrative, not as something compelling or real in her own right. As a result the story-within-a-story that lacks the thematic depth that you might expect from a story-within-a-story and instead serves a simple plot purpose: to introduce the complicating “ghostly” element of the murder mystery. It’s a weak way to introduce this element and that the rest of the plot is premised on this weak element means that well… the rest of the plot is similarly shoddy.

So no, I won’t read anymore Andrew Pyper. Even if all the Canadian presses keep telling me he’s all that. I get it. He’s got some great components, and I’m guessing he’s a brilliant short story writer. But going 0-2 makes me less willing to climb on board again.

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