Re: October! What are you reading?
Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2014 9:17 am
I finished Americanah. I didn't like it much. I don't understand the hype. I liked to learn something about life in Nigeria, but I thought the endless rants about racial issues in America got old after a while. I might have felt differently if I were either black or American or both, but since I'm neither I got easily bored. Yes, it is absurd and wrong and awful that the main character had to straighten her hair in order to get a decent job, and that her white boyfriend had to yell at the employee of a white beauty salon for her to get her eyebrows waxed, but the endless stories and dialogs and blog entries about race were tiring. I wish she had focused more on her life in Nigeria, but that's not what the book was mainly about. As I approached the end I started skimming and didn't even care if the couple would end up together or not. I just wanted it to be over. Oh well.
Then I started The Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley. It's slow so far, but it's about to pick up. This woman is smart: she realized she has a huge readership in Brazil, so not only did she set this novel here (apparently it's also about the building of the Christ the redeemer statue in Rio), she also RELEASED this book here first. The Brazilian edition has been on the market for months while the US/UK ones aren't available until Nov 6th. Anyway, she writes trashy historical fiction that's usually fun. We'll see. I got this one for free from the publisher.
Then I started The Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley. It's slow so far, but it's about to pick up. This woman is smart: she realized she has a huge readership in Brazil, so not only did she set this novel here (apparently it's also about the building of the Christ the redeemer statue in Rio), she also RELEASED this book here first. The Brazilian edition has been on the market for months while the US/UK ones aren't available until Nov 6th. Anyway, she writes trashy historical fiction that's usually fun. We'll see. I got this one for free from the publisher.