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Mar 2020
8:01am, 18 Mar 2020
46,263 posts
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Diogenes
I'm nearing the end of Sweet Sorrow. I have to say that it is a depressing read. It's not that sweet or sorrowful, but it's quite bloody miserable, however it ends.
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Mar 2020
9:41am, 18 Mar 2020
4,770 posts
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The Scribbler
Oh I loved the happy sad of Sweet Sorrow but that's kind of my favourite book/music/theatre mood. I'd say stick with it Dio. I thought it rounded off very well.
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Mar 2020
9:44am, 18 Mar 2020
46,266 posts
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Diogenes
I'm 95% through, so almost there. It's a strange book because there are some bits in it that made me laugh out loud or smile wistfully, but overall I'll be bloody glad when I'm done with it. I hated One Day too, but I gave this a chance as I like his TV work, and especially his adaptation of the Patrick Melrose series.
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Mar 2020
9:48am, 18 Mar 2020
118,922 posts
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GregP
Meanwhile, this from The Worlds [sic] Bestselling Author.
He made a noise. It sounded like 'yaaaaaaagh.'
I've given up on The Stolen Bicycle for a while and I'm shutting out the deluge of Covid news with a trashy thriller. Don't judge me.
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Mar 2020
9:49am, 18 Mar 2020
44,007 posts
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McGoohan
Speaking of which, I'm holding off reading the third Patrick Melrose as I might need something a bit more... cheery
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Mar 2020
9:50am, 18 Mar 2020
44,008 posts
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McGoohan
(Xpost)
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Mar 2020
9:51am, 18 Mar 2020
44,009 posts
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McGoohan
Maybe it's more than one world? Although that would be Worlds'
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Mar 2020
9:52am, 18 Mar 2020
118,925 posts
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GregP
James Patterson is the worlds bestselling author and most trusted storyteller.
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Mar 2020
9:52am, 18 Mar 2020
44,010 posts
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McGoohan
One star review from GoodReads
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Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross, #2)
by James Patterson (Goodreads Author)
In the entire history of my mature reading, spanning back to when I picked up Fahrenheit 451 at 15, I don't think I've ever read a single sentence as soul-crushingly, brain-batteringly, rage-inducingly bad as "He made a noise. It sounded like 'yaaaaaaagh.'"
HE MADE. A NOISE. IT SOUNDED. LIKE. "YAAAAAAAGH."
Readers of popular fiction, this is what your favorite authors think of you. They think you're only capable of processing things at a fourth-grade level, that simply having a character shout "YAAAAAAGH" isn't enough; emphasis has to be placed on how the noise sounded like yagh, but didn't necessarily have to be yagh, it could've been something closely related like "yargh" or even "yogh." People who write sentences like that shouldn't be allowed publishing deals, they should be sent back to freshman creative writing class and kept there until they never type a sentence like that again. Of course, it might not be the fault of Patterson, but of his small army of ghost writers...
And don't tell me it's just pulp fiction. Raymond Chandler wouldn't write a sentence like that. If Philip Marlowe was real, he'd probably give Patterson a smack for that one. It's just asinine. There are plenty more sentences like that, and bad sentences aren't even the worst thing about the four chapters of this book I read before I set it down in disgust; the holy-shit italics and flat characterization just might be even more painful. Is this really how low the bar for popular fiction sits? I'll stick to the literary stuff, thanks.
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Mar 2020
9:54am, 18 Mar 2020
46,268 posts
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Diogenes
Isn't James Patterson like some kind of production line with all sorts of people churnng out the latest franchise book?
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