Book Confessional- Which book was highly recommended to me, but I didn’t like it?
It’s rare for me to not like a book. Sometimes there are parts of books, or an author’s writing style that annoys me, but it’s rare that I don’t like a book at all. That being said, it does happen occasionally.
In a previous blog post on 11/20/2017 I wrote a review of a book that I didn’t like. I won’t repeat myself here. The difference between that book, and this blog post, is that I’ve been challenged to write about a book that was “highly recommended” to me. That’s hard! I had to rack my brain to think of a widely-read novel that I didn’t like… maybe one that you’ve read too. Then I finally came up with the answer:
Dark and Darker by E.L. James.
*Spoilers ahead!*
I read the Fifty Shades series in 2017 (I know, I was way behind the curve on that one!), and really liked it. I got Dark and Darker as Christmas presents this past year, and was excited to read the story from Christian’s point of view! Sadly, I was very disappointed.
Let me just say that, unlike others who wrote public reviews on these books, I understood that Dark and Darker would be the same story (the same plot) as the original series. As a reader of the original three books, I shouldn’t be surprised that Christian proposes, or that his helicopter crashes.
Basically, I had the right mindset when I began reading.
First of all, these books are LONG! They may not be thicker than the originals, but they’re printed on very thin paper. There are a LOT of pages! The length normally wouldn’t be a problem for me—I like long books where I can be completely immersed in whatever story I’m reading—but these two books dragged on. And on. And on!
Like I said, it’s the same plot as the original trilogy, just told from Christian’s perspective, which shouldn’t have changed the length too much. Instead of getting to know Anastasia’s background, her friends, family, and home life, we’d get new details about Christian’s. We did, but we also got details about his businesses. WAY too many details!
Did we really need to read about every meeting he went to, or the financial data of the companies he was considering acquiring? Not really. There were plenty of other ways for readers to see that he’s a smart, astute businessman. Even showing us a few of these business details would have done the job, but James continued to give us unnecessary details throughout the entire book! Not only was it WAY too much, but it slowed down the pace—sometimes to a crawl. I actually considered skipping pages to get back to the real story… something that I almost NEVER do because it feels like an insult to the author. This didn’t just happen once, unfortunately, but the urge stayed with me during a large percentage of the second book.
The verdict: I don’t think I’m going to read the final book from Christian’s perspective, set to release in 2018. I’d like to read it, but I don’t think I can sit through any more business meetings… even for a man like Christian Grey.
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