Elsewhere
Alas, another book full of potential which is sadly crap because of the way it is written.In this YA novel by Gabrielle Zevin a girl dies and goes to the afterlife, where she has to learn her life lessons - backwards. Because in the afterlife, you age backwards until you turn into a baby and get reincarnated.
Why oh why do people think starting a story with a chapter narrated by a dog is a good idea? The author is a dog person - there's a huge number of dogs in this story - but that is really no excuse. It just makes the whole thing ridiculous, like a picture book of bears dressed in human clothes. Nice for two-year-olds, irritating for the rest of us.
Anyway, the bland life lessons are generally about falling in love and about working hard and and and - yes, it's the great American/Hollywood dream. I can't see why anyone needs to learn such lessons when they're so freely available on television. And then they're written in such a dull, unbelievable way, that it'd be more fun inbibing them from a soapie anyway. This is, in short, a book to miss.
Why oh why do people think starting a story with a chapter narrated by a dog is a good idea? The author is a dog person - there's a huge number of dogs in this story - but that is really no excuse. It just makes the whole thing ridiculous, like a picture book of bears dressed in human clothes. Nice for two-year-olds, irritating for the rest of us.
Anyway, the bland life lessons are generally about falling in love and about working hard and and and - yes, it's the great American/Hollywood dream. I can't see why anyone needs to learn such lessons when they're so freely available on television. And then they're written in such a dull, unbelievable way, that it'd be more fun inbibing them from a soapie anyway. This is, in short, a book to miss.
posted by Carly at 1:17 pm
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