I don't like to slag on books, but I just read something that literally made me want to hurl it against a wall. The book, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, has recieved a fair amount of good press, and I'm not sure if I misunderstood it, or what, but I had no idea I'd be reading Donna Tartt's The Secret History set in high school. Mind you, I didn't dislike Tartt's book, but I DID dislike STiCP (by Marisha Pessl), because I'm freaking sick of books about students that have some mysterious happenstance, such as a death in them. Frankly, I'm sick of reading any book set in high school but written for adults.
It just...wasn't good. It was so promising, too, with the book sort of roughly organized like a syallbus. There's even a final exam at the end of the book, which turned out to be nearly the worst thing about the book. In fact, I can't exactly pinpoint why I hated it so much, except that it vaguely reminded me of Prep, which seemed to me one of the most useless, over-hyped books ever. Why are adults so fascinated with high school? And why do they always get it wrong? There are some writers out there writing high school like it really is, but the only people I can think of doing that are YA authors, and their writing for the people in high school. They'll know fake the minute they see it, which is why YA authors often get it right.
Of course, you can easily make the point that I don't expect reality in all the books I read, and you'd be absolutely right. I love certain paranormal themes, after all. But those books aren't pretending to be real. I feel the same way about romances. It has something to do with the author, I'm sure. Part of the reason I hated Prep (and Sittenfeld herself) was because it took itself so damn seriously. "I'm not chick lit, I swear! This is SERIOUS literature! I swear!" Curtis Sittenfeld practically made that her battle cry. I don't know what Marisha Pessl would have to say for herself, but I suspect that she thinks she's written a brilliant literary work, and it's really just Veronica Mars + conspiracy theory. You know, maybe I'm wrong. But I don't think so.
I suppose I could list the further discontentments, but the truth is that I can list every single element of the book as a reason to not read it: the characters (pale imitations of well-known stereotypes), the plot (mystery! conspiracy! high school popularity!), and even the affectations that seem charming at first but annoy the SHIT out of you by the end of the book, ie the stupid freaking citations from all sorts of books that accompany descriptions of people, situations and places. It was so...contrived by the end, contrived in a way that seemed more annoying than charming. I can't really list anything good about the book, because at the end I found that there was nothing likeable about this book. That's pretty damn annoying, in and of itself. It's pretty rare that you can find NOTHING good to say about a book.
You know what else is annoying? I paid for this book. I wish I could get a refund. From the author.
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