Please, please, someone, anyone, everyone, give me a book recommendation. The last few books I’ve read have ranged from a struggle to unenjoyable. I can’t quite put my finger on why. I know part of it is my fault – I’ve had a couple of poor choices lately, books I knew going in I wouldn’t love.
I started The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in an attempt to fulfill an online book club goal. I don’t think I made it even halfway through. I read Naked Heat, part of the Heat Series the TV show is based on. My expectations were not high for this one – so it wasn’t much of a disappointment. I got about halfway through Baking Cakes in Kigali, but got sick of the simplistic speaking pattern of the characters. I read My Name is Memory, but I didn’t care about the characters, and although I enjoyed the more historic bits, I had to force myself through the present day storyline. I somewhat enjoyed The Winter Sea, but it still didn’t pull me in, didn’t make me salivate.
Yes, salivate. Because that’s what a good book does to me. A book I love makes me hate to put it down, makes me think about it at work and long to get back to it, makes me want to stay up long past my bedtime, and yes, makes extra saliva gather in my mouth, because my unconscious mind forgets to regulate body functions like swallowing. I long for that moment when you realize you have 50 pages until the end, and you look up at the clock and it’s midnight, and you say, “Screw it, I’m finishing it tonight.” I used to read books like that all the time. What the hell happened?
I sat down this afternoon with a glass of wine and my latest read. I’m on Chapter 3 of East of the Sun, by Julia Gregson, and I really hope I enjoy it. I have a few other books on the shelf, waiting, but honestly, at this point, I’m doubting my judgement.
So, please, recommend a good book. One with characters that drag you in by the hair and a plot that glues you to the wall with gravity as it spins around you.
I’ve read the Hunger Games books, and I enjoyed them, but I don’t want any more YA dystopian. Please no Nicholas Sparks, no Janet Evanovich, no Harry Potter. No Fifty Shades of Grey.
