First, I want to thank you for your thoughtful and interesting response. Also my sympathies on the loss of your info. I've had that happen - not a pleasant experience. It has taught me to back-up important work or things that mean something to me on CD's as well as the internet - apparently you can email it to yourself.
Atonement was a book I had to read for a book club I'd been doing at the time, which has long since disbanded. I remember having the same reaction to its first fifty pages that I did for another book club selection House of Sand and Fog. I threw it across the room and into the wall, rather violently. Ranted at the characters. And ended up scanning the book to see if it got better, if I got my satisfaction. It didn't. So...I think I skimmed the middle section and read the beginning and last sections thoroughly. (The part about the war just did not work for me.) I left the book, annoyed and angry. Never wanting to look at it again. Meanwhile - everyone in the book club adored it. Loved the character of Briony. Who I wanted to see dead. I hated her that badly. I have no idea what it was in the author's prose that caused this reaction. But, I find it interesting that of all the books we read that year - and we read quite a few, not to mention the books in the years after that one...this book is amongst the few that I remember.
A friend of mine had a similar experience with The Sparrow - she hated the book, but could not stop reading it or thinking about it. And it haunts her to this day.
Yet, the Harry Potter novels that always leave me with a warm fuzzy feeling after I've read them? I forget. I call them happy books. Much like the fanfic you reference that you read to make you happy, but can't seem to remember.
I don't know why that is?
Odd, I did like the Herself stories that you listed. I think because they were *anti-romances* or *offensive romances*. Also, she is adept at describing physical pain, which is a skill I admire and like in writing. She's also an interesting writer - she often, or at least she used to, focus on the body's flaws, its ickiness, the ugly part of sex. I'll never forget a scene in her fanfic - "Where They Always Have To Take You In" - where Spike is briefly made human and literally throws up on Buffy while they are having sex. It is amongst the most disgusting sex scenes I've read, yet at the same time amongst the most intriguing. It's also a brave scene for a writer to write - akin to walking on a tightrope.
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branchandroot
Re: This post struck a chord with me...so pardon while I ramble on.
Date: 2008-01-24 02:28 am (UTC)Atonement was a book I had to read for a book club I'd been doing at the time, which has long since disbanded. I remember having the same reaction to its first fifty pages that I did for another book club selection House of Sand and Fog. I threw it across the room and into the wall, rather violently. Ranted at the characters. And ended up scanning the book to see if it got better, if I got my satisfaction. It didn't.
So...I think I skimmed the middle section and read the beginning and last sections thoroughly. (The part about the war just did not work for me.) I left the book, annoyed and angry. Never wanting to look at it again.
Meanwhile - everyone in the book club adored it. Loved the character of Briony. Who I wanted to see dead. I hated her that badly.
I have no idea what it was in the author's prose that caused this reaction. But, I find it interesting that of all the books we read that year - and we read quite a few, not to mention the books in the years after that one...this book is amongst the few that I remember.
A friend of mine had a similar experience with The Sparrow - she hated the book, but could not stop reading it or thinking about it. And it haunts her to this day.
Yet, the Harry Potter novels that always leave me with a warm fuzzy feeling after I've read them? I forget. I call them happy books.
Much like the fanfic you reference that you read to make you happy, but can't seem to remember.
I don't know why that is?
Odd, I did like the Herself stories that you listed. I think because they were *anti-romances* or *offensive romances*. Also, she is adept at describing physical pain, which is a skill I admire and like in writing. She's also an interesting writer - she often, or at least she used to, focus on the body's flaws, its ickiness, the ugly part of sex. I'll never forget a scene in her fanfic - "Where They Always Have To Take You In" - where Spike is briefly made human and literally throws up on Buffy while they are having sex. It is amongst the most disgusting sex scenes I've read, yet at the same time amongst the most intriguing. It's also a brave scene for a writer to write - akin to walking on a tightrope.