Book Club, Anyone?

Hey there!

How are you?

Well, here we are in February, January disappearing in a wintery blur. Although, it was quite disconcerting to see the buds of Magnolia in the middle of last month. I found myself praying for plants – ‘It’s too soon! The blossom will all get blown away by a returning cold snap in February!’

Thankfully, the buds are still buds and I have hope of enjoying the beautiful blossom in the actual Spring.

After Christmas, we did our usual trip to the big Waterstones at Piccadilly Circus, the whole family fortunate enough to have gotten vouchers for presents (It’s great when people just get you, isn’t it?). So I’ve had a whole stack of books that I’ve been slowly working my way through.

My eldest got me to download Goodreads and I have to say I’m a little bit hooked. From seeing the percentage increase each time I enter the page I’m up to, to reading the bitchy comments made about books – it has taken my reading passion up several notches (Yes, I’m easily pleased. Don’t judge me).

I’ve just read This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub – well, I say read but I actually skimmed it because I found it extremely boring. It’s annoying as it was the first book I added to my ‘To Read’ list when I got the Goodreads app. The blurb sounded exactly like the book I would read and I’ve been looking forward to it. So you can imagine how disappointed I felt when each chapter read like wading through waist deep mud with a 50lb load strapped to my back.

I feel bad as a writer for saying anything negative about another writer’s work. I mean, I know the slog involved, the time, the effort. And I know all you want to hear is that someone thinks what you’ve done is good – great, even. And there are plenty of gushing remarks so I’m sure Ms Straub isn’t losing any sleep over the few (in comparison) one and two star reviews for her book. Personally, it’s just interesting to find someone who’s on the same page as me; someone willing to say ‘I didn’t like it.’ Which of course, is fine. But some of the comments are particularly harsh, such as:

• ‘In my opinion, this book isn’t even worth the money it took to print it, let alone publish it!!’ (Ouch!)
• ‘DNF. Boring, boring. Read to 30% and skipped to the end. I kept thinking it would turn around. It did not.’
• And, my personal favourite: ‘Blah blah load of crap blah. The one star is for myself for getting through it.’

These types of comments are good for a chuckle but the serious comments talk about writing style, lack of depth and no connection to the characters – which I completely agree with.

It makes me wonder about the reviews I will get (because obviously I’m going to be published one day and you can say you ‘knew’ me in my early blog days)? And how easy will it be to brush off the bad comments because let’s face it, everyone’s a critic – even me!

I guess I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it – I’ll also have to be mindful of not using clichés…

So, over to you – what are you reading at the moment? Or do you have any suggestions for my ever expanding ‘to Read’ list? Comment below!

Speak soon x