Neophilia
Neophilia means love of or enthusiasm for what is new or novel. Caught up in the hype of new books all the time, reviewing 5 books I bought and read because bookstagram made me do it, and some of them were good apples while others were rotten to the core.
Book junkies like me are always looking for their next fabulous read. In this endeavor, I am often swayed by the hype around newly released books. I think I have picked up some really awful duds in this, which I almost DNFed. The worse thing is that I bought these books; some were really steeply priced. This was adding insult to injury 🙁
Neophilia made me do it
The Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley was a book that showed a lot of promise in its initial reviews. I loved it’s hardcover and promptly ordered it. In fact another friend joined me in doing a buddy read for this book. There were the heavy duty words (in indigenous language) liberally sprinkled throughout that made reading difficult. The characters and the plot twists are all one dimensional with forced situations and thoughts.
Romance between the main leads is so forced, the characters themselves don’t fit into their age brackets and their thought process and actions seemed contrived. The plot was good and the setting of Sugar island and its surroundings sounded gorgeous but the complete treatment of the flow of the story and its characters, threw me off completely. I loved the community care and elder rights portrayed here but the beautiful heritage and cultural aspects are just strewn carelessly in the plot, instead of being masterfully woven into the story.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig- The book fell flat for me or rather the heroine did. And that’s largely because she is so dispassionate, depressed and wimpy. There is too much repetition to capture my interest. I wanted to flip pages and end the book quickly for it was taking far too long. Not impressed by the writing either as there is no freshness there.
The Invisible life of Adie Rue by VE Schwab- Nominated for the Best Fantasy Fiction 2020, the premise of this book tempted me. But it was a terribly disappointing read, and several reasons for that:
1) I had watched a movie called “Age of Adaline” which had a similar plot, including the name of the heroine. So the book felt like nothing new to me. Made me wonder if the book came out before or the movie.
2) The romance between Addie and Luc was not very palatable to me at all. Also his shenanigans to get her attention were pathetic. It made me cringe to read on.
3) The ending was highly lame as well.
1) I had watched a movie called “Age of Adaline” which had a similar plot, including the name of the heroine. So the book felt like nothing new to me. Made me wonder if the book came out before or the movie.
2) The romance between Addie and Luc was not very palatable to me at all. Also his shenanigans to get her attention were pathetic. It made me cringe to read on.
3) The ending was highly lame as well.
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The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner– This book has a beautiful premise and the first half is well woven. But the second timeline of the tale is such a huge let down. The twin narrations run parallel to each other but some 100 odd years apart. The feminist tone of the book is simply marvelous as a woman chooses to help her brethren defend the wrongs that ails them. I wish the second part of the book was equally engrossing to have made this book a winner.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller– For most of us the story of the Trojan horse is synonymous with Helen of Troy and how the Greeks battled to free her from her captors. I was expecting the storyline to depict this heroic Greek tale. But instead it profiles a lesser know prince Patroclus who is exiled from his kingdom as a punishment for a murder committed by him and sent away to the Kingdom of Phthia where meets and falls in love with Achilles. I expected tales of heroics and bravery from this book. But it meandered through the relationship between Patroclus and Achilles which I found to be really insipid and dreary. So the book was a fail for me.
So all in all, these books were a complete fail and I blame the neophilia behind it for making me invest in them. What do you think of these books? Have you read them? Which are the books that you picked up simply for the hype?
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Ouch! That must have hurt badly, na? I can understand. Long back, I picked up the book, Shantaram, if you have heard of it. It was hugely hyped so I got it, thankfully from my library. But after a couple of chapters, I returned it. Such a tome with nothing to grasp my attention. The good part was that I didn’t buy it. Imagine had I done that! I would have kicked myself. ;P
Yeah man it really hurts when you actually spend the money buying the book and spending the time in reading it and finding its a dud. There have been too many of these and have made a pact to avoid hyped books for now and focusing on my list instead.
You got lucky with Shantaram – though I do hear its a fabulous read and peeps recommend it to me all the time. Hmmmmm…….