July 1, 2010 question: Name a book or author that you truly wanted to love but left you disappointed. (And, of course, explain why.)
My answer: I LOVED LOVED LOVED Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind. It captivating and mysterious and I completely LOVED Zafon's writing. When I found out last fall (shortly after reading The Shadow of the Wind) that a new prequel (The Angel's Game) was coming out-I was thrilled. I got it for Christmas and it took all of my energy NOT to start reading it immediately-and I mean right then and there without opening any other presents!! When I finally got the chance to dig in I was SO DISAPPOINTED. Here is why:
It's kind of my own fault. Well at least a little bit. You see, I read that it was a prequel-but what I didn't not realize (because they had me at the word prequel so I stopped reading the blurb after that), was that this was set in the same city, featured a few landmarks from TSOTW, but it was set like 80 years in the past. The main characters are not really connected at all and the storyline was completely different. I felt cheated!! For the majority of the book I was trying to figure out how the two stories were linked (besides a few landmarks as I mentioned) and by the time I finished I realized they weren't really connected-at least not in the way I was expecting. The other thing-which I will NOT accept responsibility for-was the use of the supernatural . NOW LET ME BE CLEAR-I quite enjoy the supernatural-but in this case it was just kind of weird and didn't really fit in with the rest of the book.
All in all I didn't hate the book-but I was VERY disappointed!!
How about you? Are there any books or authors that have disappointed you?
Wow. I loved Shadow of the Wind to the point of not finishing it. I didn't want it to end. :)
ReplyDeleteI haven't read the prequel and now I wonder if I should. Maybe I should borrow it from the library.
It can be hard when we are pre-disposed about reading material and it turns out to not be what we thought, I have misread or not read enough on a book and the reading was a big let down but my fault making it worse in a way because it was then just another book for the thrift store not a keeper!
ReplyDeleteI hope my response will help you in not making the same mistake I did. Now that you're prepared (as I was not!) I hope you'll be able to enjoy it!
ReplyDeleteby the way, thanks for stopping by guys!
ReplyDeleteI did not like Eat,Pray Love and would not even bother reading her next book. I think I and maybe two others that I have talked to did not like it. I felt like this young divorced women with no responsibilites went to find herself and I thought it was a bit self serving. I think I don't understand where she was in her life and felt she was travelling the world trying to find herself did not make me want to feel compassionate towards her. This next comment is for you Sara I felt she was puling (not sure of the spelling). Ha. Ha. For those who do not know what puling is it means to whine or to pule.
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