#dsaucedo

12. Any books that disappointed you?

ooh, yeah, definitely. in the last few years i’ve been trying to get over my need to finish a book no matter how much i may dislike it it, because what if it gets better? (sometimes it just doesn’t). but sometimes i make myself finish them anyway. not counting DNFs because i think that’s a separate question:

- aimless love - billy collins i made a post about this (very briefly) but billy collins just doesn’t do it for me. i got really tired of how many poems there were about the act of writing poems, or how often he inserted himself in things that didn’t need him to be there, and the “i’m so clever” tongue-in-cheek tone of almost everything. i genuinely liked maybe 5 or 6 poems in the whole book.

- black cats and evil eyes - chloe rhodes this was a loose collection of superstitions and folkloric traditions, and it was fine as a sort of starting point, but it was poorly organized and felt pretty shallow. i did learn a few things though.

- severance - ling ma maybe if i hadn’t been morbid enough to read a zombie novel during a pandemic, i would have enjoyed it more. i understand why the protagonist’s voice was so bland and unemotional, but it didn’t exactly make it thrilling. i did like the shen fever concept, since it was pretty different from other zombie plagues i’ve seen, but again, read it during a pandemic. i wanted to like it for what it was trying to do but i was kind of skimming by the end.

- most likely - sarah watson i read this for a book club at work that never happened because of covid, and i made myself finish it anyway because, i don’t know, some stupid sense of duty? i was already on furlough, what did it matter? anyway, the basic concept of this novel is kind of interesting, where one of four girls becomes the first female president but you don’t know which one at first. but the concept fell apart on a closer look because of how they framed it, and there was also an extremely uncomfortable subplot with a teenager pretending to be someone else and, more importantly, older to get close to a city councilor’s assistant (to the point of going on dates), which would have been very fun in an adult novel, but which was just statutory waiting to happen in this case. (luckily the guy fucking bolted as soon as he found out)

- an easy death - charlaine harris one of the only books i’ve ever left a goodreads review on, and only because i wanted to rep Wake of Vultures (because i will take every opportunity to do so): “A very exciting premise with very boring, inconsistent execution. If you want a gritty, funny, heartfelt historical fantasy western, skip this one and read Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen instead.”

1. a song from the year you were born: Oh shit, “Mr. Jones” by Counting Crows is apparently from the year I was born. I super unironically love that song so I gotta go with that. 

12. a song by an artist who’s from where you’re from (town/city/state/country): Nelly is from St. Louis and he’s the first artist a lot of people think of from there, so I’ll go with the one Nelly song I can think of that I genuinely like: “Over and Over Again.” (Since when is Tim McGraw in that song, though, what the fuck? Oh well. I didn’t listen for long enough just now to get to his bit, so if it sucks, that explains why they cut it from the radio edits.) I also just found out that Story of the Year is from St. Louis, and I like “Hero” by them.

I mean, part of them paying you to edit it is them asking you to tell them when a paragraph is worthless. In fact, it might make you seem more worth the money. I've definitely told clients that they should cut a full paragraph. But, yeah, if it's all shit, focus on the very big things, like thesis and evidence, and the very small things, like spelling and punctuation, and forget about in-the-middle stuff like transitions and style.

“ All things considered, the Soviets agreed that this arrangement had been made to maintain a strategic distance from that they assembled their pumps.”

this may not technically count because i did read it once, but despite holding onto it, i have no intention of ever reading it again. it wasn’t a bad book; as insane as the basic story concept is, i honestly don’t remember most of what happened. i’ve really only kept it because i couldn’t bear to get rid of it knowing i would never see its like again. i got this gem at a publishing convention in 2015ish and i was so awestruck by the cover that i waited for like 10 minutes for the rep to finish talking to someone else so i could ask for a copy. this book *was* published, but this is not the final cover, for better or worse. may i present:

The DSM has been wrong--dangerously wrong even--in the past, and I personally don't think it should be the end-all-be-all of diagnosis. I think it's certainly an important guide and it sets some necessary standards for definitions, but I don't think any document can ever truly definitely describe every issue. People are unique and often inscrutable. To try to quantify every experience seems impossible, and a little pointless.