Read a book by John Irving

[Stina]

The two I own are The Hotel New Hampshire and A Prayer for Owen Meany. Neither one actually sounds at all interesting to me, and they're really long, but everybody keeps talking about how great they are. Maybe this will be the year I decide for myself.

[Stina]

Stina wrote: "The two I own are The Hotel New Hampshire and A Prayer for Owen Meany. Neither one actually sounds at all interesting to me, and they're really long, but everybody keeps t..."

Well, I decided on The Hotel New Hampshire. I DNFed it pretty quickly. I didn't have the spoons to even attempt Owen Meany or Irving's wrestling memoir, and I almost went with something by another guy named John Irving, just out of spite. But then I found The Cider House Rules: A Screenplay. I watched the movie first, and it was...fine. The casting of Tobey Maguire was a horrible decision, but there were some good performances and the story was...fine. The script, however, was not. It was nearly twice as long as it should have been, and I noticed right away that much of it got edited out of the final product. And for good reason. Good gravy, I don't know how anybody slogs through 600 pages of this stuff.

[Cheryl]

Good call on Owen Meany! I read 4/5 of that and finally I couldn't take it any more. That was back in the day when I felt like I was obligated to finish the book. I refuse to read anything else by him.