Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Book club is suffocating my reading


Book club is tomorrow. I've once again procrastinated reading the selection, except this time it isn't the library's fault.

It's mine. And it isn't for lack of trying.

Going Bovine is the trippy and amusing tale of a boy who gets Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and has to save the world from Dr. X (who is also the only person who can cure his disease).

It is 480 pages long. I've been trying to read it for a week and I've just now made it to page 250.

I feel like a high school student. I'm sitting in the back of the class thinking this book is lame and what does it have to do with me and why aren't there Cliffs Notes on it and do we think Chris likes me?

Only I'm also a teacher, so now I feel guilty. I have a need to be prepared for book club. But I'm not having fun. And I don't understand why.

In the book, the protagonist just got picked up by some happiness junkies who have created a Utopian community dedicated to happiness and they say hilarious things like: "Don't hurt your happiness."

So the writing is fine. And, after reading the acknowledgment section, I was convinced I AM Libba Bray.

And the plot is fine. There's even a punk rock angel. And allusions to Don Quixote. And garden gnomes who talk. And jazz musicians. And fire demons.

So why the ennui?

I guess I have 230 pages to answer that question.


"I'm just saying it's not all windmills and ninjas."
Libba Bray

3 comments:

  1. why?
    1. because the kid is annoying
    2. because the book is boring
    3. because you HAVE to read it which emphasizes any remote suckiness of a book. and this book has suckiness in spades.

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  2. I don't think there is anything wrong with showing up at book club and saying "I just couldn't do it, it sucked that much."

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