Another one bites the dust: Fruit of the Lemon; The Slap

I figured this would be an appropriate title for every time I want to post about all those type of books. You know, the ones you just can't bear to finish, or even get going on. Because, let's face it, I do this to books a lot - drop them and move on to other, more readable material.

If you are reading for pleasure, then reading should never seem like hard work. If in the first 20+ pages you find your mind wandering on more than one occasion, or if you find that you are procrastinating terribly over it, there is really no point torturing yourself. Especially if you're like me and only read one book at a time. Just let it go and remind yourself that reading is meant to be gratifying.

At the end of the day, there are more books in this world than you will ever be able to read, so why waste time reading the ones that give you little amusement?

I didn't intend to read Fruit of the Lemon - the plan was to read Andrea Levy's latest work, The Long Song. When my friend Aman told me she was reading FOTL, I became all nostalgic about the book discussions we'd have over numerous cups of hot chocolate at university - I missed reading reading the same things as my friends and so decided to give FOTL a go. My regular readers will know that I'm a huge fan of Small Island, which is a brilliantly written novel. FOTL was quite a disappointment for me: the writing style was not at all engaging and is nothing like Small Island. I have to agree with Aman that it's quite mediocre; the action is almost frivolous, in a way, and there was nothing in it to make me want to read on. About 40 pages in, I decided to put it to rest. I'm still looking forward to reading The Long Song, however.

I've heard "The Slap" being mentioned as one of the best books of 2011. I only wanted to read it because there is an adaptation of it running on the BBC at the moment. Since I find it works better to read a book before watching an adaptation, rather than the other way round, I found myself a copy at my local library. As soon as I saw it, I knew I'd never get through it - it's about 500 pages long. I read two pages and gave up. Seriously. I'm not sure if it was more because of the writing style, which I found had too many mundane details and I knew it would bore me to tears, or because Tsiolkas managed to use the c-word twice on the first page. No one should ever feel the need to use that disgusting word, at least not more than once. I just couldn't continue (especially when I knew there was 498 pages to go...). I finished watching the adaptation on iPlayer last night, and did find it quite interesting, but I doubt I could still go back and read the book. Stay tuned for a review of the adaptation.

Have you read Fruit of the Lemon or The Slap? What did you think of it?