Book Review Thursday

I’m currently taking a break from David Sedaris (who I endorse, BTW) and am reading Water for Elephants. This book was written by a woman and is narrated, first person, by a man. I do not endorse this.

I have been irritated by novels written by one gender, and narrated in first person by another since I was a teen and read Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone. That book follows a grown man’s idea of the disappointments of a fat girl. I had many issues with this 1 being a girl 2 being fat and 3 being a fat girl. The book was terrible. The problem seemed to be that a man cannot accurately internalize and then transcribe the inner thoughts and feelings of a woman, or the order in which they are processed. The entire novel, I felt, reflected a man mocking the “difficulty” involved in being a fat girl.
Water for Elephants is different as it is a woman’s representation of the life of a man. So far, I’m not impressed. I took the recomendation from a girl I worked with for a while. I asked what kind of books she liked and what kind she didn't like to try and form an educated judgement on her taste. I purchased this book anyway. It won awards and was on great books lists. I think it's kind of sucky. Maybe the plot is really amazing later on and it develops wonderfully, but the writing I've read so far is a little boring. It's entertaining enough, and I'll keep plodding along, but I won't keep it in my "forever" book collection.