Prompted by Barbara Genco’s confession/assertion (see below), I asked the WWreaders from LJ/School Library Journal and Junior Library Guild to discuss a book or writer whom they just didn’t cotton to, despite accolades, awards, peer pressure, LJ/SLJ starred reviews, what have you. As usual, I got good replies; also per usual, I received a few outliers: Amanda wanted to rave about Emma Cline’s debut, The Girls (reader, I let her, being a big fan myself); former LJ Reviews Editor Etta also wanted to discuss her latest pick and the “kid” book she’s reading with her five-year-old. Books you love, books you don’t, books that grow on you; we like them all here in WWRville!
Mahnaz Dar, Assistant Managing Editor, LJS
I always thought I’d be the kind of person who loved Anne Rice books. But Interview with the Vampire was a slog, and the less said about The Vampire Lestat the better. I was a huge horror fan as a teenager (and still am, to some degree). I love vampire movies such as The Lost Boys and Fright Night. And I do have a soft spot for angsty music like the Smiths and the Cure. But Anne Rice’s titles never took.
And on the opposite side, I used to think I wasn’t a Jane Austen kind of gal. I started Emma twice in school, with no luck, and I did push myself through Pride and Prejudice about 12 years ago. Yet recently I decided to pick up Emma once more, and somehow everything just came together. Maybe the secret is that I was reading it when I should have been immersing myself in some kid lit for work! Anything I’m not obligated to read tends to become loaded with appeal. In any event, I’m definitely on board the Austen train. Toot toot!
Liz French, Senior Editor, LJ Reviews
My Waterloo is Thomas Pynchon. His books were the pinnacle of cool among my crowd of “hipoisie” friends in college. They got him; I did not. I loved reading Tom Robbins, slogged through Charles Bukowski and William S. Burroughs, grappled with Kathy Acker, really took to Richard Condon. Umberto Eco was cool, too—very meta, ever so semiotic. Pynchon, no. But I’ve now read two works by Pynchon, one required and one voluntary. The required one was a 2013 LJ Best Book: Bleeding Edge (Penguin), which takes Pychonesque aim at post-9/11 New York City. I didn’t hate it. Then a friend whose book choices I trust recommended Inherent Vice (Penguin), which takes Pynchonesque aim at 1960s-sliding-into-1970s Southern California through a haze of marijuana smoke. Some parts were delightful, but I’m not certain I get him even now.
Elizabeth Gavril, Senior Editor, JLG
I’m sure I will offend many people who love Willa Cather’s work (including my mother and a JLG coworker) when I say that I couldn’t get through My Antonia. This was many years ago—I was fresh out of college, living in Boston and reading on the bus on the way to work. I clearly remember having this realization: I didn’t have to finish this book! No one was making me. It wasn’t a requirement. Why was I spending my time plodding through something I wasn’t enjoying when there were so many other books to look forward to? Before then, I felt I owed it to the novel and its author to finish what I started. Despite my epiphany, I still would rather complete a book than not. But these days, for work, sometimes I put aside something before seeing it through to the end. And I often only get halfway into a title I’m reading for my book group—not because I’m not delighted by the work, but because I’ve run out of time before the meeting. Despite my best intentions, I frequently don’t get back to it—there’s always the next book to be read. (On a Cather note: I recently read a biography about her for work, which has made me want to give My Antonia another try.)
Barbara Genco, Special Projects Manager, LJ
“Do I dare to eat a peach?” No. I really mean…do I dare to reveal a book I assertively stopped reading?
I keep a shelf on GoodReads named “Abandoned.” I know this is heretical but I could not make myself finish Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See (Scribner). Yes, know it won the American Library Association’s Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction. And the freaking Pulitzer Prize, too! But to me, this book just seems highly derivative and by the numbers. I once confessed how irritating I found this novel to a librarian friend (whose reviews I admire). She reassured me that I was okay and I that had a right to share my lack of enthusiasm for this acclaimed read. Why do I dislike it so? First, the plot line appears hopelessly contrived. Second, the language and sensibility are far too contemporary (more late 20th or current 21st-century than late 1930s and early 1940s France). Third, I could not believe in these characters. They seemed crowd-sourced, focus-grouped with one eye on the New York Times best seller list. There. I’ve said it.
There is a book that I think is more accomplished and better covers similar ground. I suggest Suite Française (Vintage) by Irène Némirovsky, translated from French by Sandra Smith, as a “read-alike” (or in my case, a “read-instead”). Written in the 1940s by an already renowned French writer, this novel chronicles the experiences of desperate Jews struggling for their lives after the fall of France. Némirovsky was arrested, deported, and sent to Auschwitz, where she died. This essentially unedited manuscript was hidden for almost 65 years. When it was published in 2006 it received international recognition. I found it moving, gripping, and unforgettable.
Amanda Mastrull, Assistant Editor, LJ Reviews
This week, I’m reading Emma Cline’s amazing debut, The Girls (Random). The novel, primarily composed of the narrator’s recollections of the summer of 1969, is an adult title, but Cline nails the voice of 14-year-old Evie, who grapples with growing up and life changes and is drawn into a cult. I keep telling others about it (often with the caps-lock exuberance of “it’s not out until June, BUT IT’S SO GOOD”), whether it be in my editorial for the LJ Reviews newsletter last week or in the weekly Ask a Librarian Twitter chat (join us Thursdays at noon Eastern time!) or in a text to a friend. The plot is both what I expected—I knew that the cult would be reminiscent of the Charles Manson Family—and what I didn’t—Evie is captivated much more by Suzanne, one of the followers, rather than the Manson-like leader. Though I should add, too, as my colleague and our WWR columnist Liz French wrote in her write-up last week, that the story is much more than a fictionalization of a true crime. It’s enthralling and incredibly difficult to put down and just so good.
Henrietta Verma, WWR emerita
I’m reading Lisa Scottoline’s Most Wanted (St. Martin’s). I needed something really distracting and this is not fitting the bill well enough for me, sorry to say, not that anything I say is going to hurt its popularity. The main character is a pregnant woman who finds out that the baby she conceived using donor sperm might be the child of a serial killer. The events that unfold are a little too unbelievable. I’ll still finish it as I want to see what happens, but…eh.
More enjoyably, bedtimes for my kindergartner are very goat-filled lately. He can’t get enough (though I can) of Paul Galdone’s version of The Three Billy Goats Gruff (Houghton Harcourt) and a fractured fairy-tale version of the same story, The Three Billy Goats Fluff by Rachael Mortimer (text) and Liz Pichon (illus.). The first book needs no introduction. The second one features sibling goats who cross a bridge and annoy a troll, just like in the original, but in this version, their mom uses her kids’ (get it?!) fluffy wool to knit soft bootees so that they won’t make so much noise crossing and the troll can get some sleep. Turns out all he needs is some shuteye and he turns into a friendly neighbor.