Bestsellers --I can't understand why

I bought Anita Shreve's book Wedding in December because I loved the cover art, and I'm a sucker for anything wedding related. What I found was a book with more mood than plot. Do people really enjoy reading about the kind of dishes used, more than finding out what these dishes have to do with the character? It was like a novel based on interior design rather than storyline. I can't believe so many people would want to read it--I guess they just didn't notice it wasn't about much?

im interested to see if other people agree with you because this is currently on my to read list.
thanks for the heads up.

Not too long ago I bought "On Beauty" by Zadie Smith based on the breathless adoring reviews plastered over the first few pages of the book. Although I finished it, I've mentally listed it as the best worst book I ever read. Well written with nicely shaded characters, NOTHING EVER HAPPENED. Page after page after page the story crawled along so slowly, I could actually hear my hair growing.

So what's wrong with me? Or the reviewers? How could something so right go so wrong?

I gave up about page 100 of On Beauty because nothing happened. Yawner.

On Beauty definitely sucked. I didn't finish it. White Teeth was so good, though, that Sadie has been allowed to write two crappy books since and still float by with reviewers.

Oh, the water guy is here....sigh...talk about beauty....

We had a UPS guy when I was a teenager that I had a major crush on. Black hair, blue eyes and built like a brick...

Anyway.

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

A more horrible book I have not read!
Really, the characterization is terrible, the plot predictable, the writing atrocious.

That lady should be forbidden from using metaphors and similes for the rest of her life.

And yet, it's on the bestsellers list... I don't get it!

Eh, it is all subjective. Like the old adage, Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I rarely like bestsellers HP excepted. I tend to like books no ones heard of!

Two words:

Danielle Steel

The Time Travelers Wife - yawn I tried twice and just couldn't get through, I was upset I wasted as much time on it as I did.

"Not a fan of magic realism. It seems like cheating because you can make anything be anything." What do you think of The Bible?

Anne Rice is bad that way. She'll go on for two pages about the curtains in the parlor, what color they are and their texture and who they smell like and what they mean to some character you've managed to forget because she was so busy describing the curtains, she left out irrelevancies like character development.

I will say I tried to start Ed King by David Guterson, mostly because it won some award for worst sex scenes. Couldn't make it 5 pages. Droning, on and on...

>Charlotteg

Let us remember the corollary to that Truism; "Beauty is only skin deep, but Ugliness does all the way to the bone."

And Clive Cussler. Raise the Titanic! was the first book I forced myself to finish. I knew I couldn't really savage it unless I had read it.
Now I'm older, and presumably wiser, and I don't bother finishing bad books.

I was just reminded on another one I really, really hated: The Horse Whisperer.

Its like how I feel with modern S.K. Is he even trying anymore?

One of the Higgins Clarks (I don't remember which one) lavishes a lot of print on what characters are wearing (including--ick--the brand names), what they're eating, what they're driving. Does she get paid for the advertising? Or is her mind such a shallow puddle that these things are really important to her?

I took the book back unread and have vowed to stay away from any author named Higgins Clark in the future!