Why you should never recommend a book until you finish it
Books I Bought, Read and Finished in January
Books Finished (if acquired this month too, in parenthetical):
The Life Impossible by Matt Haig ($$-Jess rec).
Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe ($$) (discussed here)
Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger ($$, Barnes & Noble something of the month) (discussed here)
Reasons Not to Worry by Brigid Delaney (want a book on using Stoic philosophy in modern life that’s fun and funny and not written by a bro? Here you go.)
The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits by Jennifer Weiner (gifted)
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor - $$
Books Read but unfinished:
The Invention of Good and Evil: A World History of Morality by Hanno Sauer ($$)
What Comes After by JoAnne Tompkins (Sarina loan)
What Does It Feel Like by Sophie Kinsella ($$)
Books Acquired but as yet unread:
($$=I bought it with my own hard-earned cash, 1/2$=I used my author discount, Gifted)
A Physical Education by Casey Johnston ($$, pre-order for May)
Far and Away by Amy Poeppel ($$, pre-order for June)
The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett ($$)
Mariana by Monica Dickens ($$)
Words to live by, people: never recommend a book until you finish it. Do I begrudge my bestie the $27 I dropped on a book she sung praises of that neither of us ended up liking? I do not; we had fun talking about it. Am I taking this as a reminder not to tell you to run right out and grab a book until I’ve drunk the very last drop? I am.
Endings matter. When I finish a book but the final act falls short for me, I don’t usually recommend it (astute readers might note it one month under “Books Read” or even appear as “Books Finished,” but never hear tell of it again).
On rare occasions, ending won’t work for me, but I’ll still recommend the book—especially if I can see why the author made the choices they did, or if an ending I didn’t love still made me think. A great example of this would be The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris —people either loved that ending or hated it, and that’s not a sign of failure—it’s a sign that the author really did something. Maybe ironically (and I definitely wonder if the editors thought same), Harris reviewed Death of the Author, by Nnedi Okorafor. I LOVED the ending of that one. It was unexpected in at least two ways, and for me it elevated a book I was already enjoying up to one I truly loved. But not everyone felt the same. Full info on Death of the Author in this post below.
This month’s fail, for me, was Matt Haig’s The Life Impossible. Mr. Haig is a wildly successful author, and I’ve enjoyed his earlier books (for me, How to Stop Time; for most, The Midnight Library.) Plenty of people are fans of the latest, too, and if it’s on your list, it may very well still be for you. I finished it without loving it, and here’s why: they solved the mystery.
That’s not usually a problem, right? If I’m reading a cozy mystery, or a thriller, or suspense, I want answers. But when I’m reading magical realism, I want… magic. As an author with one book in a magic genre (Playing the Witch Card, and witches are a genre of their own) I fully recognize that as a tough line to walk. The magic needs to make sense. It must have a logic and a system and rules, and those rules must limit its use in ways that force the protagonist into finding non-magical solutions to at least some of her problems, or to make sacrifices to work within the magic.
But I don’t want the author to explain the magic. Magic explained is science, and magic explained in ways that don’t fit within the physical rules of our universe is science fiction, and science fiction is not magical realism. Could a crossover of those two genres exist? Yes—and I think you could argue that Death of the Author is exactly that. The problem arises when the reader is promised one thing, and turns the page to find another. (I’d argue that Death of the Author puts it right out there that this is a genre-bender.) It’s a risk. Some readers may be delighted. Others, like me in this case, will feel as though the book lost the thread part way through.
In Praise of Pre-Orders
You’ll note above in my Books Acquired that I pre-ordered myself TWO books that I won’t see for months: A Physical Education by Casey Johnston and Far and Away by Amy Poeppel. I loved Amy’s last book (The Sweet Spot, grab it if you haven’t read it, it’s a perfect read), so I’m betting on this one, and I love Casey Johnston’s She’s a Beast blog (Proud Paid Subscriber Here), so I know I want this one.
Am I recommending you do the same? Well, I haven’t read to the end yet, so file these under Your Mileage May Vary. But I CAN tell you that if you’ve ever loved a book by Jennifer Weiner, you will love The Griffin Sisters Greatest Hits, which is everything she does best and yet also, absolutely, 100%, as I told Sarina, not a romance (even though she can write the heck out of those if she chooses). This is a sister story and a music story and a family story, and I unreservedly recommend it as a gift for future you’s poolside or beach bag.
That’s it from me this week!
Great advice.
I've also made the mistake of recommending a book while partway through—only to discover some plot point that could be incredibly upsetting to the friend I've just recommended it to. And then you have to go back and give them a little content warning, and then it just feels awkward!