Why Are There Bad Books?

THE WINNER OF THE BOX O’BOOKS GIVEAWAY is: RYLIE, at comment #12! Drop me an email with your address to receive your prize (at slow-boat-to-China book rate shipping, but still…)

The past week has been such a roller coaster for me. I’ll have a great writing day, then be smackerooed with some horrific industry developments. I’ll get two pieces of good news, then balance those out with two pieces of sucktastic news. I’ll read a wonderful book, and then I’ll read something that leaves dents in my wall from being thrown against it so often.

I read one of the latter this weekend. It was one of those books that makes you feel dirty for reading it, one that you’re afraid has made you a worse writer simply due to exposure to its unfortunate writing, sloppy plotting, poor characterization, and general condescension. (And no, I’m not saying what book it was, but I guarantee you that it’s not one you are thinking of.) I was incredibly disappointed by this novel, which has been received rather well. I really hate not connecting to a book that other people seem to like. It always turns my criticism inward. What’s wrong with me that I don’t see what other people like about this? I wish when I read positive reviews I could just wonder where, exactly, the reviewers are buying the crack they are so clearly smoking. Instead, I go, “um, am I a bad reader/critic/cyborg with no real human emotions, that I am left cold by this work?

Not even cold. Clammy. It’s fashionable to say that novel X is just “not your cup of tea.” Which is fine. There are plenty of novels that are not my cup of tea. Perhaps it’s because they aren’t my genre, or perhaps it’s because, whatever the author was trying to do, no matter how skillfully they accomplished it, I am not going to connect to that style. Wuthering Heights, for example, is not my cup of tea. Has never been my cup of tea, as a matter of fact. In high school, when we did the unit on Wuthering Heights, I wrote my paper on why I didn’t like it. (Given what a ridiculous goody two shoes I was in high school, it baffles me that I did this, and speaks volumes about my level of dislike.) I saw what Bronte was doing, and I didn’t like it. She did it well. I didn’t like it.

But this novel goes beyond the tea metaphor. It was bad. It was objectively bad, annoyingly bad, and bad in a way that makes me angry all over again whenever I think of it. The kind of bad that makes budding writers throw down a book and scoff, “I could do better than that!”

And maybe that’s the universe’s point.

So when I lie in bed, wondering why in the world this book is in print, I will come to the conclusion that it exists for this reason: somewhere in the world is a young, aspiring writer for whom this book should be a cup of tea. But it’s bad. Not, not-tea. BAD. And the writer will read it (or attempt to — I know I struggled to push through), and will think, “Dear heavens, I can do better than this!” and they will pick up a pen, and they will write something good.

As for me, I took a cleansing shower, snuggled with Rio, thought of five books I’ve read this year alone that blew my mind, and sat down to write my own version of “better than this.” I did some mind-blowing research (as in, I can’t believe this bit of information was just lying around for me to find, because it’s so achingly perfect for my book!) and a wrote a chapter.

One of the books I thought of in my list of “Awesome Stuff I’ve Read Lately” is today’s giveaway, SKINNED, by Robin Wasserman. (In passing, do not Google “skinned” if you are looking for images of this cover. Just sayin’.) It’s hard to explain what exactly captured me about this book without giving it away. All I will say is that I thought it was about one thing (perhaps because I was such a fan of the book EVA growing up, and the opening scenes remind me of it), and the cover copy led me to believe it was about that as well, and it’s really not. It’s about something very different, and very cool, and something I haven’t seen explored in YA before. Definitely a book to chew on. It’s the first in a trilogy, and I can’t can’t can’t wait for the next one! YAY FOR GOOD BOOKS!

Anyway, leave a comment here to be entered. And tell me, have you had a bad reading experience lately? You don’t need to name the book, but what was the general, anonymous reason that you didn’t like it?