I don’t remember the movie well enough to enumerate the changes, (other than the ending)
Definitely NOT Woman’s Literature, really just Literary Fiction written by a woman. The narration was 60-75% a female perspective. Anyway, still counting it as I will have a literary fiction or historical fiction that covers the category.
The topic is fascinating. Including the designer birth, the harvesting and the ultimate twist, of wanting to die,
But I didn’t like her writing. The multiple perspectives is not new and added nothing as nothing was revealed or truly perceived differently by doing this, I just had to remember who the pronoun was referring to. And she really didn’t change the voice of the text enough to make it interesting
The brother was an unnecessary distraction. and I saw his end story as annoyingly happy. His voice was a bunch of stupid clichés of someone from the 1980’s, if not earlier.
Hated the obsession of a HS love affair gone wrong and the non-communication stupidity.
Her story telling was choppy, not just the multiple voices, but little anecdotes, that didn’t truly fit. Almost like she interviewed people and tried to fit in these stories, or one liners or old jokes, that felt like padding. Even things like Anna could go on sleep overs because she might have to be picked up in the middle of the night (why???), but she baby sat six year olds.
Realistically, there should have been more real arguments, money issues… families break up over this, Considering the whole plot, it was relatively drama free compared to real life, other than medical issues.
Hated the dog thing. Every single person saying you’re not blind. Even then people knew there were other service dogs. and him ignoring the dog as well
..
and the ending. Contrived and coincidental. The day of the trial, the father on call. Felt like amateur plot writing. and it worked, and Kate lived, despite the kidney actually not having anything to do with the disease, just the nee caused by the disease.
one last thing, my own issue probably, but when I hear polishing knobs, I think of a euphemism for oral sex
I remember my middle school daughter and I being really mad about the movie ending. Also I remember the movie changed things it didn’t need to—like the aunt’s name. I remember the book name was unusual and to me that was part of her character.
It’s been too long for me to remember other details.
I didn’t even remember that there was a brother or a dog.
so, next genre is True Crime and as far as I am aware I don’t have any. So I signed up for a library card (always had so many books to choose from at home, I haven’t had on in 30 years. And also now live in a new town, can take three days); so skipped over and choose a smaller read, to get back to where I should be.
Action Adventure - Captains Courageous - Kipling
For the True Crime I am leaning towards Helter Skelter or The Executioner’s Song from the library
I finished Murder Must Advertise, a Peter Wimsey mystery, by Dorothy L Sayers. I was disappointed. The start itself was annoying, as she threw a dozen or more characters at you right from the start. The book seemed to alternate between descriptive story-telling and sections where it would just throw names at you rapidly. The alibi timeline for everyone was thrown at you in a single paragraph. And where she took time to describe didn’t really seem to make sense a good part of the time. About 10% of the book is devoted to a description of a cricket game, for instance, that didn’t really have anything to do with the story.
I"m not sure if she really meant it to be a surprise, but about 30% of the book goes by focused on a character, Bredon, before she makes it clear what you already knew from the start - that Bredon is really Wimsey undercover.
She also in several places goes on descriptions of how advertising is evil, but then always seems to justify with “but it is necessary and without advertising nobody would buy anything”
She also makes the statement that advertising is only for the lower classes and upper class is immune, which is clearly ludicrous when you consider advertising today.
The book wasn’t bad, just very uneven in the ways described above.
Next in the queue is Bullet Train, just in time for the movie adaptation.
I found the book depressing as he is not optimistic and his arguments and facts are persuasive. However I learned a lot from it and recommend it to folks who want a realistic assessment of our challenges.
The NYTimes review is better than Bill Gates’ review:
Have enjoyed many of his books over the years so was particularly saddened, but not surprised, by this attack on Salman Rushdie. Hoping for a full recovery.
for anyone interested in fantasy stories, I have invitation to ARCs (advance reader copies) for anyone willing to read and give an honest Amazon review. One of my stories will be published in this volume, so I’m obviously biased and interested in getting more attention to this publisher and their work.
If you’re looking for something new and willing to look past a not-so-pretty-formatted ARC, please DM me or look for Cloaked Press on Facebook, Twitter, or send an email to fall[at]cloakedpress.com
I finished Bullet Train. It was pretty entertaining, although I expected a little more at the end. It’ll be interesting to see the movie now. The movie trailer doesn’t really match my vision of how the movie would be, but I guess that’s to be expected. Despite the body count, the book really wasn’t much of a shoot-em-up. And most of the book was “in the head” of the characters. That is, there was a lot of internal dialog - especially with the kid - and I’m not sure how that would translate into the movie.
The part I liked the most was how Lemon, the guy who was definitely not the sharpest, still had the presence of mind while dying to try two methods to ID his killer to Tangerine (asking the kid to pass on info to Tangerine and, even better, attaching the Diesel sticker to the kid).
On track to finish Sanderson’s The Way of Kings this month. It has been an interesting ride.
Also listening to French Braid by Anne Tyler because I thought it was pretty and I bought the hard cover with a gift card I got for my birthday. But then I was afraid I’d never read it so I checked out the audio from the library.