Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
BOOKCLUB PEEPS DON’T READ!
“A third child inspired in me more gratitude for my own circumstances than envy.”
“’If it sounds like I haven’t been in enough therapy, it’s because I’ve chosen Midwestern repression instead.’”
“’The point of life is to find the thing you’re good at and enjoy doing, and to do it for other people.’”
“’Real life is just awkward.’”
Romantic Comedy is about Sally who is a writer for a comedy sketch show. She has been writing sketches for years. She has had varying levels of success and some recurring sketches. On one show they have this musician named Noah Brewster who also acts as the host. He has been singing for years as well. Noah is described as very attractive with a good body. They meet, collaborate on a sketch, and then go to a bar with everyone for an after-party. They talk but that is where they part ways. A couple of years later the pandemic hits and Sally gets an email from Noah. They conversate. Is this real life or a romantic comedy? Will Sally think of herself as worthy? Will a relationship develop? Is Sally worthy of Noah?
Curtis Sittenfeld wrote this book while watching SNL on one screen and a generic romantic comedy on another during the height of Covid, it seems. I mean I don’t know that but that is the way it came across. The first thing I noticed when reading the jacket was the fact that it was an exact copy of SNL. Like couldn’t you move the show date to a Friday or not have the name be three letters? Alter it a little bit. Then the script that was presented as a movie was like a total rip-off of The First Wives Club. I didn’t like Sally as the main character. She was very whiny and insecure. She did some things that I didn’t understand and couldn’t fathom having a reason for. Her ex-husband was an ass. I also didn’t like how the book was arranged. There were like 3 chapters total and 1 was entirely made up of emails. That took up a lot of space without a lot of words. Emailing multiple times a day? Within a few minutes? I was surprisingly thrown when the font changed from the email chapter to the next chapter. It was weird. One thing I did like was the sprinkling in of commentary on the unraveling of our Democracy into Autocracy because of the 2016 election. They were nods to reality and something I felt deeply about and agreed with. “’Remember on election night, when it was like, the worse could happen? And then all of a sudden, it was like, Oh my fucking God, it’s happening. And then it had happened.’” Oh and the author lives in Minneapolis…where I am from! And there was mention of Duluth, MN as well as hot dishes…such a Minnesotan thing! There was also a very sweet moment about Jerry and a guitar. Noah was described as very hot with a great body so maybe a movie version with a hot guy could lift this story? The words that I picked up on when I came across them were vacuous, anodyne, axiomatic, piquant, facile, cloying, epistolary, and obsequiousness. I was not impressed with this book and thought it was generic and bland. It was frustrating and stupid. This is exactly the type of book that an alien could read and understand all romantic comedies ever.
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Tag: writing
Perfect Murder And Breeding Purposes
“Like the small fires we sometimes need in our lives to remind us that we are alive.”
“It’s the only reason the human race isn’t extinct, because people with no purpose breed.”
The Perfect Marriage is about a husband who is accused of killing his mistress and the wife who takes up his defense. Sarah, the wife, is a defense attorney and she is the best around. Adam, the husband, is an author that is struggling. He frequents the vacation house they bought to help with his writing but for a while now he has been involved in an affair. One day the cops show up at his door and aggressively arrest him for the murder of Kelly Summers. Matthew, the gay best friend, and Anne, the assistant/friend, are both side characters that get involved in some capacity. We follow along with the characters trying to determine what happened. There are secrets revealed and the past coming back to mess with the present. Did Adam commit murder? Will the truth come out? How will their lives be changed?
Jeneva Rose wrote a very engaging story. It was a quick read that grabbed your interest and kept it throughout the book. It was not a thought-provoking, deep book but it was entertaining which sometimes is all you need at the time. There were a couple funny moments with Matthew where he talks about breeding and kids. There were also some great descriptions about a town and the dichotomy of the looks and how modernization resembled a virus infecting the town. While reading this book, I actually yelled out loud and talked to myself especially in response to some of the characters. Eleanor was infuriating and should have been slapped multiple times. Adam is so stupid and did so many dumb things that you could not help shaking your head. Scott Summers is a character as well and it made me think of X-Men. There was also a character named after me! Very few parts had some explicit sexual descriptions but it was few and far between. I liked how the ending and result was just so casually referenced. I was just reading and it was so subtle that I was like wait what? That happened? There were no fun or interesting words that stood out to me. The language was pretty simple and straightforward. The author did put in some things that were not too believable and made me think hmm. Could that really happen? This is exactly the type of book that I would read to dissuade me from marrying.
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Locked Room Murder And Past Crimes That Haunt You
Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
“We spend our youth building sandcastles of ambition, then watch as life blows sands of doubt over our carefully crafted turrets of wishes and dreams.”
Daisy Darker is about a very dysfunctional family and the secrets they have kept hidden. It takes place in a seaside house that becomes an island at high tide. This is a locked room mystery in the vein of And Then There Were None. It is told from the point of view of Daisy who is the youngest child of the main family. The story has flashbacks to when the girls were young. There is a storm outside with rain and wind lashing at the house which helps create an atmosphere. It follows the night of the matriarchs 80th birthday where she is found dead then one by one things devolve. Who is a suspect and will it be solved before the tide goes out?
This was the first novel I have read by Alice Feeney and I started out liking how each character was introduced. It seemed like they were walking onto a stage as they were brought in one by one. I did like when the author talked about books and how important they were to several characters. I do love books and reading. Writing was also a key component and I liked how it was interwoven through the family and plot. I had high hopes as I love locked-room mysteries and stories that take place in one location like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and several books by Agatha Christie. This particular story was fine albeit a little contrived. Alice Feeney had some home runs with the writing but then also some strikeouts. Not sure why I resorted to baseball metaphors just now but there were several quotes and ways that Alice phrased things that I did truly love like “Some people drink to drown their sorrows; others drink so they can swim in them.” There were some great life lessons and ways of thinking of things. However, there were times where I think the author went overboard. There were too many platitudes and cliches though and some were forced in which made it sound pretentious for its own sake. I also found only 1 semi-likeable character in the entire book. The family was despicable and had very few redeeming qualities. For most of the book, I was wanting to find out what happened but when I did, I was fully disappointed. There is a twist but it does not pay out. It left a bad taste in my mouth. I had to reflect on the whole story to think about what I missed and things just didn’t add up. I know that it is fiction but this to was just too out there. I felt blindsided and not in a good way. I don’t want to ruin anything but I will say that I don’t like the type of story that it turned out to be. “Doesn’t everyone wonder who they might have been if they weren’t who they were?”
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Interesting Boredom And Destroying The Written Word
The Vanished Library. A Wonder of the Ancient World by Luciano Canfora
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Vanished Library is about ancient libraries, specifically the one located in the famous city of Alexandria as well as one located in the tomb of Ramses II. It also talks about a contemporary, antagonistic library in Pergamum several times. There were many historical figures mentioned including Alexander the Great, Aristotle, and many of the members of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Tons of old writings were also referenced.
This book was not what I thought it was going to be. It touched on many other things and I thought the focus would be on the Library of Alexandria. Luciano Canfora brought in a bunch of additional information that seemed to have a peripheral association with the library. From what I notice, the first use of the phrase “library of Alexandria” was on page 74. The threads of connection were weak in my mind and I was hoping for a deeper focus on the actual place. Instead, we were exposed to other works that mention the library to try to deduce what happened to it. This is a deeply scholarly work. It read like a textbook and it was extremely dense. There were tons of names, places, and events that were divulged. As a result of this I, as a person who likes to google everything that interests me, spent a lot of time getting additional information on a lot of pieces. As a person who loves antiquity and history in general, there were moments of shock and dismay. It is still uncertain what actually happened to the library, but there is a legend that Caliph Omar ordered the destruction of its contents. In this book, there was a supposed letter that stated “proceed, then, and destroy them.” I was just apoplectic at the mention of the destruction of any written word, let alone any historical artifact. I get sad and it just hurts to imagine all that has been lost to history. I recently just finished the show Rome, years after starting, and I love how I could make connections between that and what I just read. There was mention of Caesar, Antony, and Cleopatra as well as battles that I could relate to the show. This is what intrigued me about the book, the history and how things correlate with each other. I ended up learning a ton, more than I ever thought I could ever want. I just wish it was presented in a more cohesive and direct manner.
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Expensive Wine Will Kill You and Avoid Cave Exploration to Save Yourself
The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I was hoping that this book would be different than the first one. Sadly, I still do not like the two main characters at all. The Sentence of Death is another book about Hawthorne, the detective, and Anthony, the writer. This time it follows them as they try to solve the death of a divorce lawyer. Another guy, who knew the lawyer, also died the day previous. It is a typical murder investigation with twists and turns. Red herrings and lies abound. The team of two do what they do to find out how everything links and who did what. There is cave exploration, relationship drama, a book club, scripts, and the writing world. There is also mention of wine which is funny and weird as I just got done reading The Billionaire’s Vinegar which involved the rare wine world. I read the jacket of this one and smiled at the mention of a 1982 Châteu Lafite. I also just started listening to the Currently Reading podcast which brought me to this series in the first place (I won’t blame them) but another book they mentioned was also mentioned here. Just two funny little coincidences. I did think the actual plot of the book was ok. I did guess before they officially revealed the solution but just barely. It was interesting how things connected between people and events. After saying that though, the same things that bothered me about the first book pissed me off here. First off, Hawthorne is a self-centered asshole. He is homophobic and doesn’t care how his actions affect others. The only thing he has going for him is his ability to solve crimes but that still doesn’t mask his unpleasantness. It is funny because the actual author of the book writes “you cannot have a central character who is simply, by his very nature, unpleasant, and although I wouldn’t have used that word to describe Hawthorne, there were moments”. Apparently, you can. Secondly, it is interesting that the author writes himself as a bumbling idiot. He has no self-respect, he cannot say no, and he unconsciously tries to foil the investigation. It is beyond annoying. I despise bullies and this book had a couple. I already mentioned one but then the cops. It just frustrates me beyond belief that people get away doing things without consequences. I also did not like the ending. I did have the rest of the books sitting here from the library, but I don’t think I can continue the series right now. It just aggravates me too much.
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