I just read Louise Erdrich’s *The Sentence*, and about 25 pages in I knew I’m gonna read all of her work – something about her voice just appealed to me right away. There’s a tenderness and sentimentality to her narration, without the prose being too romantic or saccharine, and the characters are so grounded and forgivable.
The opposite happened to me with Love In the Time of Cholera and in fact that is the only book in years that I didn’t finish. I just couldn’t get into the flow of it, something about the style felt so emotionally removed, almost like the narration was projecting disinterest or even rejection of the characters, which just doesn’t work on me.
A few other authors I can think of that had an immediate ”hook” in me are Kurt Vonnegut and Neil Gaiman, and in terms of my native language, Väinö Linna.
by Villagedog_lady
19 Comments
A Man Called Ove
Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges
oh, for me it was the name of the wind by patrick rothfuss! i was hooked from the get-go. the way he weaves words together? magic. 😂 and then there’s the opposite experience with fifty shades of grey… i knew right away that it wasn’t my cup of tea.
Invisible monsters- Palahniuk absolutely is something that I have continue to promote.
I don’t agree with “personal pronouns” or transgender (72 genders being promoted in public schools), I think it’s all a ploy to disguise yourself as whatever it is that you **pretend** that you want to be I always wanted to be a ninja when I was just a kid but I don’t associate myself as a ninja as a 50 year old man.
The point is invisible monsters absolutely was a great read and it made me change the way that I feel about people who associate themselves as a 50 year old man or a eight year old girl **(is it always seems on social media and YouTube that these transgender males dress themselves up as eight or nine year old girls where you won’t see somebody like Bruce Jenner dressing himself up as a eight year old girl….. I look at this feeling like mental illness)**.
But this is one of those books that Really got to me it really got under my skin and made me think, most good novels will make you deep dive into what is that you assumed to be a “normal” Existence but invisible monsters made me go outside of my comfort zone and made me think outside the box
John Irving–Prayer for Owen Meany. I don’t even love that book but I knew I wanted to read more of him and for the next year and a half devoured almost everything he had written to that point.
John Scalzi. I started with Red Shirts, which was funny, but Old Man’s War was terrific, amongst others.
Essex Dogs by Dan Jones. I love good historical fiction that’s actually (mostly) historically accurate.
The Tin Drum
A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving.
It was a paperback at an airport when I realized I didn’t bring anything to read on the plane. I was not familiar with any of Irving’s other novels, just picked the one with a bunch of glowing reviews stickered to the cover.
I fell for the characters and writing style. Then spent the next year devouring Irving’s back catalogue.
I remember I got a little paperback horror anthology from the scholastic book fair when I was in like 5th grade. One of the stories, Lovecraft’s *The Dunwich Horror*, completely captured my imagination. I remember constantly referring to the dictionary (and in some cases, the encyclopedia) to help me with the more difficult, archaic passages.
A lifelong dedication to Lovecraft in particular and cosmic horror in general was born with that one short story that I read 43 years ago.
This happened to me last year with The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, her debut novel. I thrifted it on a whim and fell in love with her narrative voice within the first few pages. Her style is evocative yet succinct and grounded in character. I’ve picked up more of her work since and plan to work through her backlist.
Jo Nesbø’s The Redbreast kicking me into a full blown adrenal surge is the latest.
Dennis Lehane… Just finished reading “Small Mercies” and now I need to devour every thriller he’s ever written. Starting with “Mystic River”.
Small Gods, STP. Everything about it sucked me into the rabbit hole.
Fifth Season – NK Jemisin
Arcadia by Lauren Groff. Her prose is poetic and so richly descriptive. I always learn a few new words when reading her work.
My Best Friends Exorcism. I was drawn in by the book cover but I really enjoyed the mashup of genres. I like how Grady Hendrix writes his characters
Claire Keegan – I was given Walk the Blue Fields when it came out in translation, quite a while ago now, and I still remember than when I first read it, I felt such magic from it, and such pain. I’ll read anything she writes.
Not a favorite anymore, but JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was way better than the other children’s fantasy books I was aware of at the time. Also Anthony Horowitz’s Stormbreaker blew me away, as it was my first spy novel.