Critic

My favorite kind of book is fiction in which there are characters in a believable situation. I like immersing myself in someone else's 'life' and connecting with the characters. I like people with flaws and weird relationships. I am very dedicated about finishing a book I have started. I always figure the author has something to say and I'm curious about how things will resolve. That being said, The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud, is a book I won't be finishing. I gave it a shot. I read until page 113 out of 479. I really hadn't connected with the characters, yet, and usually I would have stuck it out, hoping things would get better. But. I just couldn't get past her writing style. It drove me crazy!

For example: "When, in the wake of his geisha maneuver in the Neon, Julius heard David suggesting, blithely, almost as if without thinking, that Julius should probably sublet his studio as he was never there anyway, and frankly move his things into David's apartment - there was, after all, an entire empty closet in the second bedroom - he could hide his delight only with as strenuous an effort as earlier he had hidden his irritation."

Seriously people. WTF? I read the sentence 3 times and still wasn't sure what it said. By the time I got to the end of the sentence, I couldn't remember what had happened at the beginning. Didn't her 7th grade English instructor teach about run-on sentences? The whole book is written this way. That is why I won't be finishing it. Life is too short to be reading each sentence 3 times.

On a more positive point, I just finished reading Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris, which I enjoyed. It was very funny and reminded me of strange and wonderful human interactions in the office where I used to work. I am currently reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell on the recommendation of my husband. It is not my usual genre but is very interesting and I am truly enjoying it.