For a number of months now I've been a member of a book club that a friend runs. So far there have been 2 books I could have done without (not worth mentioning), 2 I liked (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and A Long Way Gone), and 2 that I loved (The Glass Castle, Water for Elephants (my choice)).
Said friend also lent me a book from her self-expressed favorite series - Confessions of a Shopaholic. I'd seen these books while browsing the chick-lit shelves in search of a beach read and they looked harmless enough, so I opted to give it a try. Being a female who really likes to shop, I figured we'd be compatible.
I can't say that I've ever been more disgusted with the "heroine" of a novel. This chick is shallow, stupid, dishonest, and a golddigger. Even the shopping was a letdown - I couldn't suspend my disbelief long enough to buy that a marginally employed 25-year-old can have a wardrobe sprinkled with Jimmy Choo and Dolce & Gabbana. The only redeeming quaility that I could find in the book was that the predicaments this idiot managed to get herself in were pretty funny.
So this friend is hosting next month and has selected another book by the same author. This book is sitting in my house because she left it here last month, and yet I still refuse to read it. I think I'm going to tell her that I'll be out of town for work. I realize I'm being obstinate and not entirely reasonable, but I just can't bring myself to pick the thing up.
So am I a total snoot?
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
The rantings of a should-be-budding-but-actually-lazy novelist who LOVES her dogs and her spousal unit.
Email the kerpupples!
7 comments:
No. I'll admit that I enjoyed The Devil Wears Prada and The Nanny Diaries but those aren't the books that I usually gravitate toward and I wouldn't suggest them if I were a member of a book club. I'm not saying I'd only want to read the classics and the high-brow lit but there has got to be a middle-ground.
Right now I'm reading The Time Traveler's Wife and I like it so far even though I'm not entirely sure I love the characters yet.
Chelene, thank you! I am a diehard Bridget Jones fan but typically I only read chick lit when I'm on vacation.
And I read The Time Traveler's Wife last year. I'm not really sure I ever liked Claire all that much either, she seemed a bit too spoiled, but I did enjoy the book.
I say you soldier on and read her suggestion, and then get your revenge by forcing her to read something you know she would hate when it's your turn. Passive aggression is always the safest option, especially when it's petty.
Amanda, there are a couple of problems with that approach. I'm inherently not passive aggressive - my aggression is always very overt. Second, it wouldn't work anyway because the chick-lit lovers would just not finish the book that I've chosen.
I say you call in a bomb threat to her house the night of the meeting If that seems a little too drastic and dramatic, go with your first plan to "be out of town".
There is decent chick lit to be had, but the Shopaholic series isn't it. That broad gets herself in all these financial woes yet still keeps spending and we're supposed to sympathize with her until her Prince Charming comes to pay off all her debt? I read only the first one because I was so disgusted.
Gizmo, well said.
Post a Comment