My whole family absolutely loved it so I wanted to see what the fuss was about. The author’s writing style is choppy and odd. The sentences don’t flow and I found it really difficult to read. I was SO bored by it. I forced myself to read 300 (of 337) pages and finally gave up and googled the ending. This book got so many awards including National Book Award and the Pulitzer. What am I missing?! I feel like everyone who loved it must be lying!
by sagelface
10 Comments
This is one of my favorite books. Sorry it was not to your taste.
Not everyone has to like everything, though I have always found it easy to at least find why people like the books that I dont
I couldn’t engage with it, either. I really wanted to.
Your opinion is wrong. It’s my favorite book. The sentences are prose poetry of the highest quality. The arc of the main character is deeply moving. The setting is perhaps the most fascinating character of all – the brief, snappy phrases describing wind and water. The local cast of characters is hilarious.
That being said, I pushed this book on two close friends who both absolutely hated the book. One said I ruined his summer vacation. All of you are philistines.
Nobody I know except me and the geniuses of the Pulitzer committee agree that the book is any good. But again, some opinions are wrong, and saying The Shipping News is boring is one such example of a wrong opinion.
Human brains come in all types of hardware. When a writer with Apple hardware writes a book it is like software which is only compatible with other Apple brains. All the Android brains just crash. Then you have a writer with a Samsung brain who writes something which all Android brains can read but perhaps it is just tailored a bit better to Samsung brains. The Huawei brains can read it, but it is just a little slow. Anne Prolux’s software doesn’t run on your hardware. But for people with compatible hardware they are great books.
This is completely different to not liking a book because the writer is unskilled or the content of the book doesn’t appeal. This is not enjoying a writers style and it is just one of those things. I can appreciate certain writers are skilled but reading their stuff is like being attacked by wasps in my brain.
The writing style stopped me at page one. Glad I didn’t read any further.
I’ve read it once and thought it was quirky, but not the worst book in the world. Don’t think I’d ever reread it. Postcards was a much superior read
Sometimes I wonder if people say they “love” a book because of its critical aclaim. Maybe your family bought into the hype that comes with winning a Pulitzer Prize. It’s okay if you didn’t connect with material. I read it a few years back and, while it wasn’t a struggle to get thru it, it didn’t make much of an impression on me either.
I flipping love that book, soo funny! And lots of facts etc. shame it wasn’t your cup of tea
Ma suggested this to me. Wasn’t the protagonist sort of ugly?? That was my take away, long ago.
The rest was fun, though, if I find it again I would re-read it.