Almost

I’ve been reading a lot lately. Well, I always read a lot. I doubt you’ll find many writers out there that don’t. We we were all readers first and are still readers foremost. Since I’m reading for school now, I don’t always have total say over what I’m reading and if I don’t like something, I can’t just shut the book and return it to the library. I have to stick with it.

As a result, I’ve read quite a few things lately that I ALMOST like. I’m often reading a particular book for a reason. There’s something in the way it’s written or its subject matter (please let me have done the it’s/its thing right in that sentence) that my mentor thought would be instructive for me and my current WIP.

For instance, both The Basic Eight (Daniel Handler) and Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl) start out telling the reader that someone has been killed. The Basic Eight tells who was murdered and by whom as well. You would think that would kill the suspense. You’d be wrong. Both were masterful examples of how the “why” of a mystery is so much more interesting than the who or the how or the when.

Neither thrilled me completely, though. It’s hard to talk about The Basic Eight without spoilers, but let me just say that the ending really did not hold up for me and there were some gaps in the story that I didn’t buy (WHERE WERE HER PARENTS???!!!!). There were no gaps that I could see in Special Topics. The plotting of that was nothing short of magnificent. The style of the writing is incredible. The lives of the characters were so fully imagined that it was stunning. I didn’t think I needed to know all of it, though. It was impressive, but by the middle of the book I felt bogged down by it and if I hadn’t needed to finish it, I wouldn’t have.

So when you almost like a book, do you still recommend it to people? Or do you put it on your DNR list?