2 Stars
The warning signs were shining like G.D. beacons that I would not enjoy God-Shaped Hole.
#1 – The blurb by Dave Eggers told me to expect a main character who was a 27-year old female Holden Caulfield. There are two types of people in this world – those who love Holden Caulfield and those who hate him. I DESPISE HOLDEN CAULFIELD.
#2 – The blurb was by DAVE EGGERS. YUCK.
#3 – The foreward claimed the inspiration for this story came from Jeff Buckley’s album Grace, which no one should deny is a truly great album, but seriously . . . . .
How fucking cliché can one book get?
#4 – Since I am an old lady who was familiar with Jeff Buckley before “Shrek” created the milkshake that brought all the girls to his yard, I was pretty sure I knew how this would turn out without ever reading the synopsis.
#5 – Then I read the first paragraph and it totally confirmed that everything I thought about how this would end was 100% accurate.
So why did I read it? Because my real-life book buddy told me to, we are generally of one mind when it comes to our reactions to stories and she promised this would fall into the “love it” rather than “hate it” category.
And on any other day there’s a solid chance I could have enjoyed this more as I am most definitely a “right place and right time reader.” Unfortunately, even if I was in the mood for super saccharine love, there would have been one ginormo hindrance to my love-fest: BEATRICE. Now, I am a self-proclaimed asshole so I am definitely not opposed to characters who are assholes. Beatrice took it to a whole new level. From wanting to tell complete strangers that they were fat so they shouldn’t be eating chips as a snack, to how everything smelled weird to her delicate senses, to people’s decorating styles of the ugliest she’d ever seen, to sales girls that must have cutlets in their bras to give them cleavage to how people were too stupid to understand her jewelry designs, Beatrice had nothing nice to say most of the time and I found her to be insufferable. Much like Holden Caulfield, I guess.
But to those of you who can either find her relatable or at least not so awful you are hoping her boyfriend will die and ruin her life, you might discover that this was the literary equivalent of the Miss Dior commercials. Do you know what I’m talking about? Natalie Portman is all gorgeous running down the beach with smokey eyes in a soaking wet ballgown . . . .
Or with a fabulous red lip . . . .
Where a love story is captured from start to finish in 30 seconds and things are both great . . .
And then not so great when he’s all “I love you” and she’s all . . . .
Which is “prove it” but for some reason I could only find it in Spanish and then she gets super shovey, but then in another one they’re all . . . .
And I am just maybe too old for a story like that and that makes me saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad because I don’t want to be old and also . . . .
But I didn’t like it and it didn’t make me have any feelings (aside from annoyance, but I feel that feeling nearly all of the time) so it only gets 2 Stars : (
#1 – The blurb by Dave Eggers told me to expect a main character who was a 27-year old female Holden Caulfield. There are two types of people in this world – those who love Holden Caulfield and those who hate him. I DESPISE HOLDEN CAULFIELD.
#2 – The blurb was by DAVE EGGERS. YUCK.
#3 – The foreward claimed the inspiration for this story came from Jeff Buckley’s album Grace, which no one should deny is a truly great album, but seriously . . . . .
How fucking cliché can one book get?
#4 – Since I am an old lady who was familiar with Jeff Buckley before “Shrek” created the milkshake that brought all the girls to his yard, I was pretty sure I knew how this would turn out without ever reading the synopsis.
#5 – Then I read the first paragraph and it totally confirmed that everything I thought about how this would end was 100% accurate.
So why did I read it? Because my real-life book buddy told me to, we are generally of one mind when it comes to our reactions to stories and she promised this would fall into the “love it” rather than “hate it” category.
And on any other day there’s a solid chance I could have enjoyed this more as I am most definitely a “right place and right time reader.” Unfortunately, even if I was in the mood for super saccharine love, there would have been one ginormo hindrance to my love-fest: BEATRICE. Now, I am a self-proclaimed asshole so I am definitely not opposed to characters who are assholes. Beatrice took it to a whole new level. From wanting to tell complete strangers that they were fat so they shouldn’t be eating chips as a snack, to how everything smelled weird to her delicate senses, to people’s decorating styles of the ugliest she’d ever seen, to sales girls that must have cutlets in their bras to give them cleavage to how people were too stupid to understand her jewelry designs, Beatrice had nothing nice to say most of the time and I found her to be insufferable. Much like Holden Caulfield, I guess.
But to those of you who can either find her relatable or at least not so awful you are hoping her boyfriend will die and ruin her life, you might discover that this was the literary equivalent of the Miss Dior commercials. Do you know what I’m talking about? Natalie Portman is all gorgeous running down the beach with smokey eyes in a soaking wet ballgown . . . .
Or with a fabulous red lip . . . .
Where a love story is captured from start to finish in 30 seconds and things are both great . . .
And then not so great when he’s all “I love you” and she’s all . . . .
Which is “prove it” but for some reason I could only find it in Spanish and then she gets super shovey, but then in another one they’re all . . . .
And I am just maybe too old for a story like that and that makes me saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad because I don’t want to be old and also . . . .
But I didn’t like it and it didn’t make me have any feelings (aside from annoyance, but I feel that feeling nearly all of the time) so it only gets 2 Stars : (
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