Wanting

[ladysprite]

I have realized that I want something that does not, as far as I know, exist.

I want, at least right now, a web page like Television Without Pity or Rotten Tomatoes, but for books. So that when I find a new author while I'm browsing randomly at Barnes & Noble, and I'm debating whether or not I want to pay hardcover prices for an unknown writer, or whether it's worth my time to try reading what looks like another mediocre Mary Sue urban fantasy about a tattooed vampire sorceress were-puma investigative reporter and her hot demon boyfriend but just *might* be actually witter than the rest, I can look at what other genre junkies have to say.

Or so that I can have a place to go and share my incoherent handwaving glee over the potential awesome that is the movie of 'The Time Traveler's Wife,' or debate the relative accuracy of the depiction of postapocalyptic reconstruction in 'World War Z' versus 'Dies the Fire.' I know I can do this with my friends, but somehow I always wind up finding the books that no one else I know has read - and I know that Amazon has reviews, but most of the ones I've seen have been more or less useless.

So. Literature Without Pity. Who's going to make it for me?

(Incidentally, it probably says more about me than I want to admit that my three favorite novels of all time are 'The Time Traveler's Wife,' 'World War Z,' and 'Gone With the Wind.' Not sure exactly what it says, but it's clearly something, because that's a hell of an absurd grouping when you take them together....)

Comments

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

With long, involved topics like, "Nevil Shute's On the Beach: Bad book, or the worst book? Discuss."

[denimskater.livejournal.com]

I find it hard to believe it could compete with Eragon. I only handle that one with gloves in dim lighting (to avoid the small but nonzero chance I might be exposed to more of it), and I won't let it touch my other books.

Realizing I didn't have to finish reading it caused a physical feeling of relief, much as lancing an abscess does.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you could introduce it to my friend "The Number of the Beast" by a certain Mr. Heinlein, one of the few books I have, once started, not finished reading, and the only book I have thrown across the room in disgust.

I agree with that feeling of relief. It was enough to get me past the guilt at not having finished it (in case, you know, it had managed to get good somehow between chapter 3 and the end. There were a lot of pages-- it was not unthinkable. It was, however, unlikely.)

[ianargent.livejournal.com]

Late Heinlein is an acquired taste, to be sure. I would advise staying away from 'To Sail Beyond The Sunset', then.

[denimskater.livejournal.com]

Other than thinking it was one of his more formulaic books, I had no trouble with that one.... certainly nothing of the same order as Eragon. To date, I have only voluntarily stopped reading three books (four if you count one that I will eventually read but that someone with knowledge suggested would be a bad idea given what I'd just been through.) ... and I read several books a week, typically.

Eragon is beyond awful.