Friday, November 28, 2014

Best Book Of November

I’ve hit another streak of truly terrible books, so there was only one I liked this month. The review is mine. The summary and cover come from Goodreads.


I Know This Much Is True – Wally Lamb

On the afternoon of October 12, 1990, my twin brother, Thomas, entered the Three Rivers, Connecticut, public library, retreated to one of the rear study carrels, and prayed to God the sacrifice he was about to commit would be deemed acceptable. . . . 
One of the most acclaimed novels of our time, Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True is a story of alienation and connection, devastation and renewal, at once joyous, heartbreaking, poignant, mystical, and powerfully, profoundly human.
I usually avoid family saga books because they're often

A. 1000 pages long
B. Plotless
C. Insufferably boring
D. All of the above

Because of my bias against these books, this one sat on my shelf for nearly a year before I picked it up. I shouldn't have waited so long to read it. I actually liked it a lot. Up until the last 300 pages, it was probably the most interesting family saga I've ever read. I know that a book is good when I start neglecting things in my life in order to spend more time reading
Review: I usually avoid family saga books because they're often

A. 1000 pages long
B. Plotless
C. Insufferably boring
D. All of the above

Because of my bias against these books, this one sat on my shelf for nearly a year before I picked it up. I shouldn't have waited so long to read it. I actually liked it a lot. Up until the last 300 pages, it was probably the most interesting family saga I've ever read. I know that a book is good when I start neglecting things in my life in order to spend more time reading it. I neglected a lot of stuff while reading this book. And, when I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about it.

I Know This Much Is True tells the story of Dominick and his struggle to free his schizophrenic twin brother from a mental institution.

All of the characters are amazingly well-developed and realistic. Dominick was the most intriguing for me. He's an ass, and I disliked him. For most of the story, he's an angry, homophobic bully. But, the weird thing is that I felt like I completely understood him. I think almost everyone who has siblings can relate to Dominick's love/hate relationship with his twin. It takes a very talented author to create characters this complex. I didn't know that I could stand reading a 900 page book about a character who I didn't like.

If you don't enjoy depressing books, then you should avoid this one. I'm pretty sure that every bad thing that can happen to a human happens to someone in this story. There's murder, suicide, baby death, illness, rape, racism, homophobia, war, job loss, child abuse, animal abuse, spousal abuse, bullying, accidents, divorce, adultery, drug addiction, incest, poverty, sibling rivalry, abandonment, evil magic, curses, and probably some other things that I'm forgetting. There's so much trauma that I kind of became numb to it by the end. I just expected the worst to happen. (And the worst almost always did happen.)

Even though it was depressing, I loved the gritty realism until I got to the last 300ish pages. Then the author lost me. The ending is slow and seems to drag on forever. I understood the point of Dominick reading his grandfather's history, but the history itself is boring. I was very tempted to skip over it. Finally, I thought the ending was wrapped up too neatly. I was grateful that the book had a happy ending, but everything worked out a little too conveniently.

Even with all of my complaints, this is one of the best books that I've read in a long time. I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in complex, unlikeable characters.



~*~
All The Things = 15 Books
I’m Currently Reading Cults: Faith, Healing, and Coercion by Marc Galanter
 

Friday, November 21, 2014

A Massive Headache And An Inbox Full Of Rejection


One day last week, I got a massive headache and decided to go to bed early. But, before I went, I thought it would be a good idea to check an email account that I don’t look at every day. You know what I found in my inbox? Rejection letters. Lots of them.

I’ve been writing for years, and getting rejected still hurts. I’ve sent enough rejection letters to know that the rejection is just one editor’s subjective opinion, but that doesn’t change how rejection feels. It feels like someone is confirming that I really do suck as much as I believe I suck. It makes me feel like I’m wasting my life on something futile. It shakes the microscopic amount of confidence that I have in myself as a writer.

However, as I deleted my latest batch of rejection, I realized that I wasn’t as devastated by these letters as I have been by past rejections. When I got rejections as a teenager, I would get so angry at myself that I wouldn’t write for weeks. I’ve matured a lot since then, but I think the biggest difference is in the number of projects that I’m doing. I have a lot going on, and I’m super excited about some of it. The rejections didn’t hurt as much this time because I could easily shift my focus to the other projects. I didn’t have time to dwell on the sucky-ness of rejection.

So, I think the moral of the story is to write more after rejections, not less. It’s hard to be upset about one rejected project when you have a dozen other projects going on.      

Friday, November 7, 2014

NaNoWriMo 2014



If you’re participating in NaNoWriMo this year, you should have written at least 11,669 words by the end of today. No pressure or anything.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, check out my post about last year’s NaNoWriMo.

I’m not participating this year because I have too many other projects, but I just wanted to say “Good luck” to all the crazy people who are trying to write a novel in a month.


Now, go write.