This book was for real?

[gategrrl]

I was in the grocery store early this morning, doing some quick shopping for both of my sick kids. Yes, BOTH my kids are home today. Little Guy had a fever of 100.4F, and Mermaid still has a murderous sore throat and headache (well, the throat I'm sure about, the headache? I think is purely mine).

But anyway. I'm at the grocery store and could not resist passing by the paperback rack in the back. The cover that caught my eye happened to have a girl with white wings flying against a blue background, with the title something like, "Saving the World". Pretty much said it all. However, I'm a sucker from WAY back for people with wings (not angels, but winged characters).

This book was one huge stack of cliches and tropes. Evil scientist creating genetic supermen/girls/children. Not only wolf-human crosses, but bird-human crosses. All the bird-humans are under 14. I skimmed through it, wondering if it could get any worse but honestly, it had nowhere else to go. I don't remember who the author is; I'll have to note it next time I'm there (which will probably be tomorrow).

What REALLY killed me about this book? I had to keep from laughing out loud. On the back was a blurb written by who-knows-who, a housewife? quoted as saying that as busy as she was driving an SUV, doing homestuff, and being an adult, she LOVED this story. Um.

What I got out of this skimmed book in the grocery store was, damn, here's the book that PROVES to me that yes, I could write a better book (but I'll feel ashamed if the writer of this book turns out to be a 15 year old, in which case, that's nothing to be proud about). I just have to take it seriously. And not flail over rewriting.Or just give it up and keep mocking bad books that make into print.

Comments

[khek.livejournal.com]

James Patterson (yes, that James Patterson) wrote those--there are currently three in the series, and a fourth is coming out in either April or May. Maximum Ride is the series, the first title is The Angel Experiement. Saving the World is the second one, and the third one ends with ...and other Extreme Sports.

Kids love them, they're extremely popular with the fifth to eigth grade crowd. ANd actually, my brother in law was reading the first one when I saw him at Christmas. He said it was "fun, mindless fluff. And the chapters are really short, so if I get interrupted, it doesn't matter." My b-i-l has a pretty grinding position, so it's nice to see him reading anything other than work-related stuff.

Still, cliches are rampant, and there are lots of better books out there. Not as popular, but better.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

I've obviously never heard of this series before; and of course reading in any form is laudable. But it would be nice if a writer is going to write in a particular genre, that he or she would bone up on the cliche so as not to well, write something that's been done before.

He writes hard-hitting mystery crime novels? This is a big genre switch.

[superbadgirl]

I would call nothing Patterson writes hard-hitting, myself. I tried to read him once.

I barely survived.

[betacandy.livejournal.com]

He's the one who wrote Kiss the Girls, wasn't he? Hard-hitting, my ass. It folded neatly into an Ashley Judd/Morgan Freeman movie.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

See, I've never ever read the guy, only the descriptions on Amazon from his readers (you know, the ones that actually leave comments?) - and that's the impression I got.

THIS book, which I talked about in my post...well...I'll leave it there.

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

But mocking is FUN.

Anyway, it's all about commitment. If I were committed, I would have more than one novel done by now. But I lack that focus. It's bad.

Of course, I could also easily be the other kind of committed so...

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

*sighs*

Is there a focus machine available? You know, you turn it on, and it keeps your motivation going, and your attention on one task, at set times of day, and there you go, you finish your novel, rewritten?

I know, it's a magic-machine. But damn. I want one.