The original topic of this edition of Top Ten Tuesday (as stated on the website that sponsors it) is “Books I Really Liked but Can’t Remember Anything/Much About.” Well, I’m changing this one a bit. I refuse to let my reading memory fail me, my handy dandy moleskine notebook in which I catalog and write down everything makes sure brain erasure never happens. I will, however, change this one to “Books I Hated but Love to Discuss.”
Most of the selections I’m about to list here have been reviewed here at some point as a one star or a no star rating. Reasons for a one star review is obvious, but a no star rating is usually reserved for books I did not finish (DNF) or, in one case, because the subject matter of the book presented itself in such a way that I simply refused to rate it. I do however, think that all the books that I don’t like (and yes, even you don’t like) are open to discussion. It’s the American way, right?
Anywho…in no particular order:
- Tampa, Alissa Nutting. This is a controversial book about a female middle school teacher who teaches for no other reason than to seek young male students to fulfill her sexual desires. The author goes deep into her mind, with long (long!) passages that describe her deviant ways. While I didn’t like this book (reading it requires bathing in Dettol afterward), it raises an important point about how society views a female sexual predator vs. a male.
- Peach, Emma Glass. Very short novel about the aftermath of a young girl’s sexual assault. Written in a very experimental style, so weird and trippy that I can’t even tell you what the hell happened in the last 50 pages. I’d love to get some other people’s perspectives here. Hmm.
- Today Will Be Different, Maria Semple. Page 7 tells me why I hated this book and didn’t finish it (“one normal day of white people problems”). Other than that, just some rich lady bitching about her life for 250 pages. No thanks.
- Mexico: Stories, Josh Barkan. A book of short stories all about violent, narco-criminal Mexicans who kidnap and kill Americans. Entitled “Mexico” but these are not the stories of Mexico or Mexicans, these are the fears of privileged white Americans who watch too much Fox News.
- A Beautiful, Terrible Thing, Jen Waite. Pretty bartender meets another bartender, marries him, and has a kid. He cheats on her and suddenly she becomes an expert on psychopathic relationships. Not sure why this story warranted 200 pages, or even a memoir at all. We’ve all been cheated on, ma’am, move to the back and take a number…
- Inside the Criminal Mind, Dr. Stanton Samenow. Leave it to Dr. Samenow, people who smoke marijuana on the weekend are in the same category of deviance as Jeffrey Dahmer. He also disregards addiction as disease pathology, when about 40 years of research into the topic will tell him differently. Dummy.
- Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked, James Lasdun. Was he being stalked by his student or not? Beats the hell out of me. What I’m mad about is that out of 250 pages, only about 50 deal directly with this story. The rest is a paper wash. Jesus.
- Universal Harvester, John Darnielle. Another trippy book. I wish I could tell you what it was about. Hmm.
- The Incest Diary, Anonymous. A recent review on a subject that is so disturbing that I had to include it here. Some people actually do like this book, I’d love to talk to them about why they feel that way.
- Exit, Pursued by a Bear, by E.K. Johnston. A YA book about the aftermath of a sexual assault. It’s a brave book, but also one that I found grossly unrealistic in how it deals with the subject. I’d love to hear more opinions on how other people viewed this one.
Ok, lemme get back to work. Yeah, I’m actually blogging at work. Go me!
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