I recently forced myself to finish reading This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz. It’s supposed to be this generation’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower but I disagree. How can a book so critically acclaimed also suck so badly?
First of all, why is a shorter book, only 150~ pages, cost the same as a longer book? I hate paying $15 (or was a $12?) for something that takes me only three hour-long baths to finish reading. And no, I’m not a fast reader, but this book isn’t exactly cerebral.
It’s about this guy whose name is Yunior or at least that’s what people call him. He’s Dominican and apparently a sleazeball when it comes to women. However, he seemed less sleazy than his brother or a few of his friends. So basically there’s a lot of cheating going on in this book, or at least that’s what you’re led to believe. It skips around a lot and tells some random stories about some random people right in the middle that left me feeling a bit confused. The book doesn’t really have any sequence to it and I was pretty far into it before the author even mentions that it’s set in the 1960s and not in present day. While the year isn’t a character in this book, it’s still nice in terms of context and visualization to know WHEN the book takes place. It would have read a bit differently from the get-go and looked different in my head. Oh well. I’m not going to go back and read it again.
So his girlfriend finds a journal of his where he documents his sexual encounters but when he retells them to us, it doesn’t sound like any of them actually overlap with him dating her like I assume it’s supposed to.
The story was so-so and perhaps if I were male I would have enjoyed it more (or at all).
So there you go, Dad, a book review per your request.
I’m currently re-reading the Harry Potter series to help me fall asleep. It isn’t boring enough to make me doze off, but being familiar with the story allows me to read it a bit more casually this time around. I’m not as focused on it and can therefore drift off rather than stay up all night reading them like I did the first go-round.
“So there you go, Dad, a book review per your request.”
I think I said a good book. I had a literature teacher in high school that said if you are not “into” a book by the end of chapter three, don’t read it. Of course, this doesn’t apply to books that you have to read. Like “Great Expectations” and “Green Mansions”.
Since it was a short book I decided to finish it in case it turned around. Now, when I tried reading Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I bailed 1/3 way through it which means I read 200 pages of it before giving up. I couldn’t get into that book AT ALL. I would like to start reading something new but I’m certain that very soon I won’t have much time to read anything.