I wrote the book review for the last book I read and it was a negative one. I see so much hate on the internet and people seem so easily able to list other people’s weaknesses that I thought it wouldn’t be difficult to compose the criticism, but I did and I liked the result.
Perhaps, in my unconscious, I have a block to criticize someone because I fear one day I will be in the opposite position, and if one day my dream book is published and I am the target of acidic criticism from other people. At the same time, those who care about the negative criticism finds all the barriers and excuses they need to not grow, not to try.
Yesterday I didn’t post a book review because I feared not being fair to the book, maybe to write a negative criticism it is necessary to reread the story more than once. For me, the book I read has an excellent plot, but it gets lost in the moorings, leaving loose threads.
Choosing the main character to have the same name as the author causes unnecessary confusion in the reader. I understand and like the idea of mock memoirs, but a well-told story doesn’t have to cause narrator-author confusion.
There are many details in the book that I like, the care with the playlist throughout the story, the songs that played in the back of every scene, on the radios, the tapes produced by the teenagers, and the connection of the songs with the feelings of the characters.
The depiction of an elitist lifestyle, 80’s Los Angeles teens who had no cares in life but to have fun. Interesting to have a small sample of the conflicts and problems that the characters faced.
The book is a mix of suspense and horror, which are styles I’ve always admired and maybe that’s why the ending isn’t surprising because we are back to the concept of the first-person narrator who tells the story from an impartial perspective and therefore unreliable.
I hate reading books I don’t like, mostly because I love finishing books that I start. So if I get past page 50 I have to read to the end, no matter how much I suffer. Besides, I intend one day to write my own book and if I don’t understand what I don’t like about someone else’s book, I run the risk of making the same mistakes.
I’m not going to expose the book I read, I learned to praise in public and criticize in private. I’ll spread the books I like to the four corners of the world, but what I wouldn’t recommend I’d rather let each one draw their own conclusion, and who knows, maybe one day we can sit down, have a coffee and discuss our impressions about the book.
Meu grão de areia 