Beautiful You seems to be Chuck Palahniuk’'s response to and commentary on the popularity of 50 Shades of Grey series and the proliferation of commercial erotica born from that series. But Beautiful You never rises to the deep social analysis that Palahniuk’s early stuff does. Beautiful You remains simply clever and superficial, becoming more a book belonging to the commercial erotica genre rather than a commentary on it. But still, it's a damn fun read.
Tag Archives fiction
It’s been a while since I’ve done a book review. It feels weird, like I’m returning to an abandoned lover, hoping for a warm reception. Please, viewer, take me back! This time I’m looking at The Colony by Jillian Weise, a novel about a science collective/get-away for people with genetic abnormalities. But this book is less The X-Men and more if Gilmore Girls had predispositions to suicide and strange abilities to grow missing appendages. Trust me, it makes sense. Should you be interested in reading The Colony, I’d appreciate you purchase using the link below (I get a very small percentage): Paperback: http://amzn.to/10eJb1J Kindle: http://amzn.to/Udf7nN
Why does fiction work? It’s all about a little thing called Theory of mind. Theory of Mind is quite simply mind reading. We, as readers, utilize our understanding of the world to impart meaning upon the fictional worlds and characters in books. Without that frame of reference, without what we can understand as basic human truths—sadness, jealously, happiness, anger—we cannot understand the actions of the characters. Mentioned: The Collector Collector by Tibor Fischer Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and The Novel by Lisa Zunshine
Cloud Atlas is heavy on concept and light on satisfaction. I appreciate the lengths David Mitchell went to play with story structure in a way that’s rarely been done, but in the end, the artifice came off, well, artificial. Maybe just watch the movie starring Tom Hanks and Halle Berry. I haven’t seen it, so I can’t compare the two story forms. But, it will save you quite a bit of time to just go the movie route.
Legion by Brandon Sanderson is a quick, fun, enjoyable read. The problem for me may be that it’s ONLY a quick, fun, enjoyable read. But that’s my personal crap, I understand. I generally like a different kind of book, one that forces me to think a bit more. But again, that my personal, elitist crap. Why shouldn’t I be able to simply enjoy a book rather than deconstruct it? It makes no sense. In fact, I should read more stories like Legion by Brandon Sanderson. I’m not being snide here; I really should.
It takes a lot for me to abandon a book once I've started reading it, and that struggle becomes more and more serious the further I progress through said book. So, perhaps this is why I was able to drop Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detective after reading just over 1/3 of the book (though, 1/3 is often too far for me to abandon a book; I suppose this speaks to what a true waste of time I felt The Savage Detectives to be). First, to address any of the friends who suggested I read this book: my faith in your taste is not diminished in the least. I believe my grip is mostly a matter of personal disinterest in the subject matter. I mean, no matter how good a book about baseball is written, I wouldn't be excited to read it. The Savage Detectives is about teenagers without responsibility who worship poetry, yet refuse…
No book review from me this time. Judging by my recent history, it’d be a wise guess to say I do little more than read and review books. But such a guess would also be wrong. I also lounge in hotel chairs and talk about the problem of not writing as I—get this—don’t write. Are you a writer who sometimes has trouble…performing? Then this pill…uh, video… is for you. Don’t kick yourself for letting your partner down. Lack of writing happens to everyone. Really. It does. Even me. I hope my courage can be your courage. Also, did you know Jim Lehrer writes fiction? Yep. A lot of it.