When you dislike the book

I love my book group. I love the way we choose books. The lolly vote, where we all bring two books along to champion, discuss, then vote for, means the group have seriously considered what to read. Then you have 25 lollies to distrubute amongst the books. You're not allowed to vote on your own books. Top twelve books are the ones we read the following year. 

We've been selecting our books this way for over ten years and we've barely had a dud book.

Well, this month's book, unfortunately, is a bit of a dud.

I'm not resenting reading it - this is something. It's not that fucking cat book, as it is know. After many years I still harp on about Cleo, The Cat that Healed a Family. I have no idea how this dross has managed a 4.04 Start Goodreads rating. I think I'm rather resentful that it's memoir, which we don't read in our book group and it was allowed through. 

Anyway, I'm trying to get through Melissa Ashley's The Bee and the Orange Tree. 

This book had so much promise. First off, it's a lovely looking book. Of course you should judge  - but it looked intriguing. Written by an Australian author, it's based on a true story of three women in Paris in the late 1600, a story about women and fairy tales. The book held great promise.

Unfortunately, it's dross.

Okay, dross might be a bit strong, but it's boring. 

With the exception of the Nicola character, I have no strong feelings for any of the characters. 

The language needs a very solid edit. It's overwritten for the most part.

Okay, it's been impeccably researched, but there is a a point where you need to kill your darlings. I think there was some big editorial masturbation going on there. 

And it's really just particularly well executed. It's like the author was given a two book deal and they had to get this one in under the wire. 

I've got 80 pages to read before I give this back to Blarney for her to finish for Thursday's book group meeting. 

I normally quite like historical fiction. I just don't like this. 

One character is going to have her head cut off. One will probably end up back in a nunnery. And one will go on penning vapid fairy tales. 

And maybe next month's book (Delia Owen's Where the Crawdads Sing) will not make me want to roll my eyes and curse pandering editors. 

Oh well. If this is all I have to whinge about, I'm not doing badly at all. 

Today's song: