MemberLisaMaria_C

About My Library

= Outstanding! Strong characters and involving plot told with style. Worth buying and keeping on your book shelf and recommending to others--even give as a gift. I'd read other books by this author - these might make good introductions to the genre. The book made me laugh-out-loud or cry or challenged my thinking or made me wish I could write that way. Amazing.
= Exceeds Expectations. Likable, or at least interesting, characters, interesting plot, readable style with aspects that make this book stand out within the genre - a good, fun read, or if parts are a slog, nevertheless worth it. The kind of book that might pay rereading, either because there's more to it or a good comfort read. It will stay on my shelves. Really liked it.
- Acceptable. Mostly enjoyable. I made it through the entire book and didn't consider it a waste of time or money, though it's not getting shelf space and I can't see ever rereading it nor does this make me want to rush to read more of the author. Worth a try if the subject appeals. Liked it, if mildly.
- Not terrible, but it didn't hold me and I stopped reading--or I finished it wanting to hurl the book against the wall. Someone else might find it more appealing. Okay.
= Dreadful - I don't get how this tripe got published or on a recommendation list. Or how anyone could like this crap. Disliked it, even hated it.

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About Me

Most important in terms of fiction I like is style and characterizations. I'm not fond of "low" styles of popular fiction with head-hopping, book-saidisms and other awkward writing gremlins, but neither am I fond of "high" post-modernistic styles such as stream-of-consciousness, refusal to use quotation marks and other artificial literary pretentiousness--yet I'm capable of enjoying a novel written entirely in second person. Go figure. Give me a character to root for, I can get through dark material--after all The Color Purple and The Kite Runner are favorites of mine--but if I basically dislike every character, especially the protagonist, I'm not going to make it through hundreds of pages. So yes, expect me to rate some literary masterpieces low and some cheesy but fun books high.

And because what we hate is as important as what we love:

Detested authors: Isabel Allende, Mary Balogh, Clive Barker, Max Brand, Terry Brooks, Dan Brown, Raymond Chandler, Lee Child, Noam Chomsky, Sandra Cisneros, Harlan Coben, Paulo Coelho, Don Delillo, E.L. Doctorow, Sara Donati, William Faulkner, Christine Feehan, Jasper Fforde, Ian Fleming, Vince Flynn, Jonathan Franzen, William Gibson, Philippa Gregory, Zane Grey, Kent Haruf, Adam Hochschild, E.L. James, James Joyce, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Louis L'Amour, Robert Ludlum, Gregory Maguire, Karl Marx, Peter Matthiessen, Cormac McCarthy, Stephenie Meyer, Karen Marie Moning, Joyce Carol Oates, Chuck Palahniuk, Francois Rabelais, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Nicholas Sparks, Mickey Spillane, Danielle Steel, Brad Thor, J.R. Ward, Jacqueline Winspear, Howard Zinn

As for friending, I'm flattered some ask, but I currently have only two "friends" on LibraryThing for a reason--they're friends. Real friends I've met in the flesh and am in regular contact with. I won't "friend" people I don't know. I also won't read the self-promoted and self-published books of people I don't know--so don't ask.

Location

New York, New York

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LibraryThing Early Reviewers

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Currently Reading

Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud

Favorite Authors

Dante Alighieri, Stephen E. Ambrose, Kelley Armstrong, Isaac Asimov, Jane Austen, Carrie Bebris, Anne Bishop, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Gillian Bradshaw, Charlotte Brontë, Lois McMaster Bujold, Joseph Campbell, Orson Scott Card, Jacqueline Carey, Lewis Carroll, Kristin Cashore, Michael Chabon, Agatha Christie, Arthur C. Clarke, Colleen Cowley, Jennifer Crusie, Emily Dickinson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy Dunnett, Jeffrey Eugenides, Euripides, C. S. Forester, E. M. Forster, Robert Frost, Neil Gaiman, Elizabeth George, Robert Graves, Ursula K. Le Guin, Charlaine Harris, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Robert A. Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Alice Hoffman, Homer, Khaled Hosseini, Zora Neale Hurston, Paul M. Johnson, John Keats, Omar Khayyám, Laurie R. King, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Milan Kundera, Mercedes Lackey, Harper Lee, Gerri Leen, Tanith Lee, Dennis Lehane, Jean Lorrah, Daphne du Maurier, Anne McCaffrey, Colleen McCullough, David McCullough, C. L. Moore, Naomi Novik, Ann Patchett, Sharon Kay Penman, Elizabeth Peters, Ellis Peters, Tamora Pierce, Terry Pratchett, Philip Pullman, Ayn Rand, Mary Renault, Mary Roach, J. K. Rowling, Salman Rushdie, Dorothy L. Sayers, William Shakespeare, Robert Shea, Kay Nolte Smith, Mary Stewart, Josephine Tey, Joss Whedon, Oscar Wilde, Connie Willis

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