Smells Like Teen Spirit (Only Not)

[redbrunja]

So I'm in the middle of Saving June, which I am actually enjoying, with one big caveat:

While law of averages demands that, somewhere in the united states, there is a group of politically active teenagers who are all rabidly passionate about seventies music.... it's completely unbelievable in a contemporary work of fiction. Completely. Sure, there are teens who are passionate about cultural appropriation and being allies and being aware of and fighting privilege... but they're talking about that on tumblr, not around a beach fire while someone melodically strums a guitar.

I got to the part where the main characters are just randomly going to go to a "kind of intense" anti-war demonstration and I'm just like:



I wish the author would have stuck to questioning the existence of god and meaning in the universe, or talked about the nihilism and apathy that (imho) is what my generation struggles with.

Also, I'm almost done with Gone, Girl, and goddamn, was that book a massive, massive disappointment. I feel so stupid that I believed all the people saying good things about this book. I feel so guilty that I infected qualapec and her mom with my excitement for that book. Mea culpa.

Comments

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Because I hate both pov characters? I don't require my characters to be nice but I do need be able to root for them on some level and frankly, I want BOTH pov characters (who are working against each other) to lose terribly. Plus, this novel was billed as a suspense novel, and there is NO surprises. There is one mid book plot twist that I knew was going to happen fifty pages in.

[summerstorm.livejournal.com]

Yep, that is exactly what I expected and why I haven't got around to reading it yet and possibly never will, lol. (Well, not the lack of suspense, I'd be all right with that, but the characters don't sound like people I even remotely want to spend time with.)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

They're not.