In My Opinion

Everyone has their favorite authors. I mean authors that you can count on to deliver a good story every time. I have several of those. Lately though, I have picked up books by some of my favorite authors to read, but have had to stop short and toss them aside. They have not been suitable to continue reading. Why? Well, I'll tell you why, although I can't do full reviews of these books, since I haven't read them all the way through.

First on my list is Rococo by Adriana Trigiani. I have tried probably three different times to read this book. I just can't get into it at all. I've enjoyed all of the other books by this author (the Big Stone Gap series, Queen of the Big Time, Lucia, Lucia ), so you would think that I'd like this one. It is just too much for me. It is very stylized and overdone. I can't get to the story with all of the fluff.

Next is a Michael Crichton book called State of Fear. I picked this one up because I was in the mood for something fast-paced and suspenseful. I'm sorry to say that I only got a few pages into it before I knew I really couldn't read any more. I got hung up on the bad language. I don't know if I hadn't let this bother me in some of the others of his that I've read (Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Sphere, Timeline, Congo ), or if I just ignored it then.

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri, I'm sad to say is another one that I really couldn't continue reading. I wanted to keep reading her short stories that are in this book, I absolutely love her writing. I think her writing is frank, unfettered, but sensitive and intuitive. The problem is that I ran into a sex scene in the third story. I'd rather not have to run into another one, so that's the end of that.

Oh well. Life is too short to waste my time on books that aren't worth reading.