Well, here we go. A new year, a new snark-fest. I’ll try not to disappoint.
Except, disappoint I will, because… well… I got nothin. I mean, really, nothin. This book was okay. There wasn’t much to it. It was sort of interesting, sort of boring, and sort of…long.
I don’t actually know exactly how long it was. It was a couple weeks worth of walks with the dog, as I was listening to it on my iPod instead of reading it on the page. Usually I find listening to books quite stimulating while I’m walking. Often I’ll walk an extra round around the block just because I want to know what’s going to happen next. But this time… meh…
I’m not going to deny it was an okay story. The book documented a couple generations of lives in a coal mining town in
So here’s the thing that I can’t figure out about authors. They write these long epic tales about these horrible little towns that everybody in their right mind would try to escape because they’re, well, horrible. So authors, my question is: if everybody in your books is trying to leave your rotten little town, what makes you think WE want to go there? Why do we really want to spend days, weeks, whatever, investing our time in all these people that just waste away? October Sky, I get. Good job, Homer, you made your mark. But this- hey, dad dropped dead of black lung and older son skipped out and married a leech and younger son gave up altogether and daughters alternately had to take care of the family remnants, went crazy, and became a nurse that took care of more old men dropping dead of black lung. Grandson became a Hell’s Angel and then married dad’s long-lost love’s daughter, and oh, did I forget to mention mom went blind because she ate too much sugar? I mean… it’s just sort of depressing.
So why did I read it? Well…nothing better to do. Authors may be too lazy to write an original book, but I’m too lazy to go to the library and try to fish out one.
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