i dislike expecting a book to be good and then having it suck really bad

[minxnim]

example: 'girlfriend in a coma' TOTAL CRAP. SUCKED.

a really awesome book i didn't expect to be quite as interesting was 'you are all sanpaku' by ohsawa. i was like !!! at some parts of it.

 

[azal]

I felt kinda the same after reading several terry pratchett books.

well not really like what you are saying.....
I thorougly enjoyed the books and thought at some points they were incredibly profound and funny....but.........
my friends who reccommended that I read him, hyped him up so bad that it was like an inevitable let down.....
it was like...this is not going to worth it unless it completely changes my life...that's how much they were singing his praises ad how much he is the perfect author for my tastes.

so while I thought it was cool...I was still bumbed....

I'm seriously not listening to friends reviews anymore...I'm sticking strictly to the jaded opinions of angry critics whose entire bodies of work ooze with the foul stench of failed writer.

 

[avi]

prep- welcome back!
did you read angelhead?

 

[minxnim]

yess i did. i did. it made me sad and (well, the author's writing was sort of overly repetitive and annoying sometimes) but otherwise i liked it. i am glad i read it. and it made me realize that i'm not quite sure if schizophrenia is really ONE disease, you know? like, there are so many KINDS.

 

[avi]

yeah, it really is a sad, tragic book, but I was also glad I read it. and yes, even informative in a way.

 

[BigFakeSmile]

i read lolita once, partly because i think its on the pre-req list for being a pseudo-intellectual, but also because someone promised that the narrator was really interesting and youd find yourself feeling some weird sympathy for the perv -- um... NO!!!

 

[minxnim]

bigfakesmile!!! omg so true. i really liked nobokov's dozen short stories, but when i read lolita afterward i was like WHAT IS THIS A HARLEQUINN FUCKIN ROMANCE JERK OFF NOVEL? like, no sympathy for the pervs. sayin.

 

[BigFakeSmile]

!!!

 

[minxnim]

that book made me skeeved out about all older male friends of the family for a good year.

 

[BigFakeSmile]

im skeeved out about all men. <---"period!!"

except bjorn. me and bjorn are meant to be together.

 

[minxnim]

i used to have a crush on a kid named bjorn and my friends used to say his name sounded like 'big arm' said really fast

another book i realized: on the road. like, kerouac is such a MAN"S MAN. puhleeze. that book is so bleh.

 

[BigFakeSmile]

i hate mens books. i had this boyfriend once and he was like "omigod you have to read zen and the art of motorcycle maintanence this book changed my life, itll change yours"

so i read it, so i could know what the crap he was talking about and because that is also on the prereq list, at least for that age group, maybe... and well -- um... NO!!!!

 

[minxnim]

the pre-req list for being a pseudo-intellectual was obviously written by a dude who never got any action and who lives a life like a crappy after school special. i'd rather try out oprah's book club.

another thing guys always seem to recommend to me that sucks endelessly: WOODY ALLEN MOVIES. i dunno. the guy like molested his kids. nuff said?

 

[BigFakeSmile]

and like, sometimes a guy book is pretty good or classic or whatnot, but try getting your guyfriends to read a chick book. dude, i read the best chick coming-of-age book, "braided lives" by marge piercy. i tried to get my guy friend to read it after i read "fever pitch" by nick hornby at his request to better understand his personality problems... he TOTALLY didnt read it!!

 

[minxnim]

blah! it's like, come on, we read catcher in the rye!! no fair.

 

[BigFakeSmile]

of course, reading about the female experience is a pretty mighty bummer. we almost never get prostitutes.

 

[avi]

I'd just like to point out that as a sensitive male of the new century, I have never read any of the above so-called man books. thank you. I even took a class once on "20th Century Jewish Women Authors" to further secure my positive as a caring and empathetic man. the frilly shirts help, too.

 

[minxnim]

we need to clone avi

 

[azal]

I'm not to big on Kerouac's stories and the substance of his writing...but I'm totally in love with the style of it all.

 

[xfer]

Lolita is an amazing, amazing book, and I'm not saying that do to my aforepreptioned paedophiliac tendencies. The plot's only OK, but the writing is just crazy good. I had never read any Nabokov before two years back when I sat down and read Lolita, Pale Fire, Invitation to a Beheading, and The Defence all in a row, and I came out of the experience with the belief that Pale Fire is maybe the greatest book every written (definitely top five).

I had never read Nabokov because I spent half my time in college taking Women's Studies/English classes and left it with a hatred of Virginia Woolf and a conversational understanding of jouissance!