Hiphopsideproject

This week I finished off a couple of books, one’s been hanging around for MONTHS because it was just appaulingly bad. The other, however, was finished within a few days, and was amazingly great. Read on for reccomendations & warnings.

I’ll start with the good book. I’d wanted this for a while, and got a copy as a gift for Christmas. I’m not really one for hyped up books, I always find they can disappoint and really don’t live up to expectations… This was different, though. It was a hyped book in a favourite genre of mine… hard to resist. The Time Travellers Wife, as the title suggests, is about a time traveller. It’s a very grown up account of the subject, and very much a ‘real life’ book. The story is told from the perspectives of Henry (the time traveller) and Clare (his wife), jumping from one to the other throughout the book. This writing style sits fabulously well with the subject matter, allowing you to understand the two characters deeply by the end of the book. The story isn’t very linear, well… it is and it isn’t, which must have been super hard to write, but when reading the story (apart from sometimes having to flip back a couple of pages to see what date it is, and check on ages) things are constantly falling into place. Audrey Niffenegger’s exploration of the two key characters is rather fascinating, she develops their roles (and multiple roles in the case of Henry) in their relationship throughout the book, building on things that haven’t even happened yet (for you, the reader). There are of course some faults with this book, some very… flat?.. dialogue moments, aspects of character building that went just a little too far and were left floating in the area of pointless, several character traits are a little strange too (can’t help thinking that Niffenegger modelled the characters on people she knew? otherwise some of the things that she felt needed writing into the story just seem a little pointless).

Not to put anyone off, but this is pretty much a love story. For such a hyped ’3-for-2′ book, it really is a pretty good read, although I think it’s a book that you’ll either love or hate… try it though, you might be a lover.

Oh, man. You’ve really gotta take the rough with the smooth…

I love The Devil Wears Prada, it’s one of my guiltiest girlie pleasures. I devoured that book within a few hours, hell, I was probably spooning through a tub of haagen dazs at the same time (it’s that girlie). So cut to me last summer in WH Smith’s looking at a ‘holiday pack’ of books with the other two Lauren Weisberger books in (Chasing Harry Winston and this one, Everyone Worth Knowing) for the bargainous price of £7. I bought it there and then, ready to waste a few gleeful hours reading the book counterparts of Sex and the City. Oh, reader, it was not to be. Chasing Harry Winston was … ok, no Devil wears prada, but there was still some promise there. I liked it, at least, not as a great work of fiction, but as a happy little tale to distract me from real life. Then I started reading Everyone Worth Knowing.

…

It’s been on my bedside for around 4 months. I can read most books in a week, two perhaps. Dear me, this book reeked of name dropping, stereotypes, misuse of (what I assume were meant to be) story telling devices… need I go on? In some ways the story was very much a rehashing of Devil wears prada, without character likeability or fashion magazines. I’ve actually had to force myself to finish this book, it’s been a bloody challenge I can tell you! Basically the book is about Bette (or Bettina), who has these hippy parents, and a gay journalist Uncle. She quits her job at the Bank and starts working for a party planning PR agency, for some reason or other she gets caught up in a fake relationship thing with a famous Brit (Oh, yeh, do we all address each other with ‘Love’?). Around 100 pages of inane nonsense later, Bette falls in love with the Dashing Bouncer of bunalow 8 (who, it just so happens, is like fucking Iron Chef and reads novels). Yada Yada Yada, everyone gets what the want, The End. The ending’s really odd too, I turned a page thinking there would be another chapter, but nada… Odd. Don’t bother with this!