What's Going On Here?

There are SO MANY wonderful book review blogs out there and I can't compete with them, that is for sure. So this is not a book review blog. This is just a way for me to organize what I have read so that I can be better at matching the right book to the right person. The blog title comes from the brilliant mind of the most talented woman who ever lived, Ms. Judy Garland. The full quote is, "Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of someone else." That is what I hope to do here and in ever aspect of my life.

Friday, May 4, 2012

Oh my gosh...

The Beautiful Between is 180 pages but it feels like 1800.  I wish it had been 300 pages because I would have stopped reading it, but after wasting time reading 25 awful pages, I couldn't bring myself not to struggle to the end of a measly 180 pages.  What's 180 pages, right?
An eternity when it's 180 pages of this unbelievable wreck.
Nothing makes sense.  Not the analogy that Connie makes, seeing her life as a fairy tale.  Not the fact that it's set in 2010 and no one seems to have heard of Google or text messaging.  There isn't one likable character here.  It's like Margaret Simon's class, all grown up.  Boring, obnoxious, selfish stereotypical characters you want to forget.  Well the dying girl, Kate, she is really cool but she is so flat, we don't get to know her very well.  
It would have made more sense for the author to set this book in the 80s and then it could have been more realistic, especially with its approach to Connie's embarrassment of not having a dad when she was in third grade.  If the girl is 16 in 2010, that means she was 8 in 2002.  In that year the US divorce rate was something like 40%.  When I was in third grade a MILLION years ago, in a class of 25 or so I KNOW that 10 or so didn't have dads living with them.  This book just made so sense at all.  I am so glad that this is over.

1 comment:

  1. Oh good...finally one you read that I don't have to worry about reading!! But kudos to you for sticking with it until the bitter end!!

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