![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Reading isn't all it's cracked up to be.
May. 9th, 2012 09:25 amI've spent the last few days struggling through Letters to Kurt, which I won through Library Thing. Which meant that when I got three or four 'letters' in and realized "holyshit, there's not a word in the English language for how much TMI this is, is there?" I felt obligated to finish the goddamned thing.
I don't have a thing for or against any of the following: Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, Nirvana, or Hole. I figured I'd enter to win said book because if I did win, it'd be interesting to see if the contents held any appeal whatsoever for someone who was mostly "meh" to it all.
Yeah. The damn thing is stream of consciousness and that's just a pain in the ass and not my thing at all. And then I feel bad because I've lucked out and while I've had plenty of miserable friends, I've managed to not lose any of them, so I don't want to piss on someone else's grieving process, y'know?
But you don't name-check someone in the title of your book and then tap dance around mentioning them at all, really. Or you do, but you do it better than this? I'm not sure, honestly. This is pretty much how the reading progressed:
Two or three letters in: UGH. WHAT THE HELL. ALL CAPS RAGE. I give! I'll finish this chapter and then I am DONE.
I find an oddly beautiful phrase or sentiment or the next letter starts in a place that isn't flat out TMI and leads to something really good. I think for a moment that perhaps you've just got to work for the good stuff.
Four chapters of crap pass and I want to pull my fucking hair out and slap some goddamned sense into someone.
Pretty phrase or something heartbreakingly simple. I forgive and continue reading.
Three chapters of WTF, NO.
SVH reference.
Repeat the cycle.
I... I don't even know how you rate something like this. It's like there was an interesting idea in there, somewhere, but it was immediately buried under the execution, and that was immediately set ablaze by copious amounts of TMI. I'm not sure even the best editor in the world could have saved this from the mess it was destined to be, but I think they could have whipped it into something better. Or, perhaps, kept it from the masses at all, because I shouldn't walk away feeling that the only reason this was written was not to exorcise the demons in your head but to get the bank off your back. That said, I actually quite liked the letter to the bank because yes, been watching that happen from the sidelines and it's pretty spot on. Oh, and the book kind of made me want to jump off a building as well. I'm thinking, for a book that ends with various just say no to suicide messages, this is not the right feeling to take away from the book?
I had such hopes and I wanted so much to like it, but I don't even think I can give it to the boy for fear he'll walk away with the same feeling I had, only he's unafraid of heights.
I don't have a thing for or against any of the following: Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, Nirvana, or Hole. I figured I'd enter to win said book because if I did win, it'd be interesting to see if the contents held any appeal whatsoever for someone who was mostly "meh" to it all.
Yeah. The damn thing is stream of consciousness and that's just a pain in the ass and not my thing at all. And then I feel bad because I've lucked out and while I've had plenty of miserable friends, I've managed to not lose any of them, so I don't want to piss on someone else's grieving process, y'know?
But you don't name-check someone in the title of your book and then tap dance around mentioning them at all, really. Or you do, but you do it better than this? I'm not sure, honestly. This is pretty much how the reading progressed:
Two or three letters in: UGH. WHAT THE HELL. ALL CAPS RAGE. I give! I'll finish this chapter and then I am DONE.
I find an oddly beautiful phrase or sentiment or the next letter starts in a place that isn't flat out TMI and leads to something really good. I think for a moment that perhaps you've just got to work for the good stuff.
Four chapters of crap pass and I want to pull my fucking hair out and slap some goddamned sense into someone.
Pretty phrase or something heartbreakingly simple. I forgive and continue reading.
Three chapters of WTF, NO.
SVH reference.
Repeat the cycle.
I... I don't even know how you rate something like this. It's like there was an interesting idea in there, somewhere, but it was immediately buried under the execution, and that was immediately set ablaze by copious amounts of TMI. I'm not sure even the best editor in the world could have saved this from the mess it was destined to be, but I think they could have whipped it into something better. Or, perhaps, kept it from the masses at all, because I shouldn't walk away feeling that the only reason this was written was not to exorcise the demons in your head but to get the bank off your back. That said, I actually quite liked the letter to the bank because yes, been watching that happen from the sidelines and it's pretty spot on. Oh, and the book kind of made me want to jump off a building as well. I'm thinking, for a book that ends with various just say no to suicide messages, this is not the right feeling to take away from the book?
I had such hopes and I wanted so much to like it, but I don't even think I can give it to the boy for fear he'll walk away with the same feeling I had, only he's unafraid of heights.