THE LOVELY BONES
by Alice Sebold
Why you shouldn't read it Emotional porn anyone? The people
who write manufactured pop tunes that get you on the key change, know
exactly what notes pull the heartstrings. Alice Sebold has done it with
words. The Lovely Bones leaves the same saccharine aftertaste in
your mouth as Westlife. This is total manipulation of the tear ducts. The
concept, to give some credit, is original - the murdered daughter looking
down on her own family and friends as they grow and change, could be a
satisfyingly twisted take on the coming-of-age novel. But The Lovely
Bones is relentless in its sentimentality. So much is ladled on that
the story buckles under its syrupy weight and, although you might still be
crying a few chapters in, you find that, strangely, your sadness is replaced
by a stifling sense of boredom.
Bluffer's guide High-school student Susie Salmon is brutally
murdered on her way home one evening. The novel is told from the dead girl's
point of view, she exists in a rather pedestrian heaven (based on her school
playground, but where the only textbooks are magazines like Glamour and
Vogue) from where she watches her sister and friends grow up. Will they ever
solve the mystery of her death? Will you be around by the end to find out?
MANSFIELD PARK
by Jane Austen
Why you shouldn't read it Whilst Austen's other novels are
full of flighty and fabulous females Mansfield Park heroine Fanny Price is
righteous, meek and dull. In the face of dubious morality our hero Fanny
simply wrings her hands in a worried manner. Readers will have a hard time
feeling empathy or even interest. And that's despite the fact she cops off
with her cousin. Mansfield Park does, however, hold the comedy honour of
having spawned endless discussion in online forums, amusingly named The
Fanny Wars.
Bluffers guide Plain, poor, do-gooder Fanny is sent to live
with well-off but entirely unpleasant cousins, the Bertrams when her own
family's fortunes are wrecked by her father's drinking. Vice, vacuous
libertines, and carefully tended gardens, threatening to go to seed, await
her in their lavish mansion. Remember the bit about gardens - you can hold
it up as a laboured metaphor for the creeping wildness of the family.
Fanny's virtue and chastity come under fierce attack from suave neighbour
Henry Crawford, unfortunately they are saved by her equally dreary cousin
Edmund. Plus, they're all rich on the back of slavery, scum.
BEDROOM SECRETS OF THE MASTER CHEFS
by Irvine Welsh
Why you shouldn't read it You'll go in expecting the drama of Trainspotting,
or the satisfyingly dirty pleasures of Filth - where half the book
is narrated by a tapeworm. But what you'll get here is the uneasy feeling of
someone resting on their laurels. Welsh is genius at creating utterly
hideous characters and situating them firmly in the surreal. Unfortunately,
his particular brand of alcoholic and drug-induced horror is swamped by
suffocating blandness.
Bluffer's guide Environmental health officer Danny is looking
for his estranged dad, and trying to kick twin demons, booze and drugs, when
he meets geeky Brian Kibby, the hapless new boy at work. The two are
apparently cosmically linked, and Danny's bitter hatred of model-railway fan
Brian threatens to completely take over his life. And there's a suggestive
picture of a banana on the front cover. That Irvine Welsh - he's so naughty.
Dramatic tension comes from the fact that one dark and stormy night (yes,
really), Brian gets saddled with the after-effects of Danny's excesses.
Danny drinks, Brian gets the hangover. Danny boshes six pills at a club and
dances till dawn; Brian suffers the comedown from hell. And how does this
metaphysical transformation happen? By way of a spooky wind. A spooky wind?
It's like Harry, Ron and Hermione haven't revised hard enough for their
Ordinary Wizarding Levels. Top that with a 'twist' that's about as straight
as the Pope, and here's one bedroom secret you definitely don't need to
uncover.
BRICK LANE
by Monica Ali
Why you shouldn't read it UK Bangladeshis wrote to the
publishers calling the book "shameful" for it's alleged
representation of the Bangladeshi community as "uneducated," "illiterate,"
"close-minded" and "without ambition". The publishers,
presumably overjoyed at the extra publicity, responded by reiterating their
pride at having published the literary sensation of the year. Despite the
book being critically acclaimed and making it on to every books of the year
list, the characters are unconvincing, the pace plodding, and the plot
sloppy. Also, everyone's been talking about it for ages now - you don't want
to be last season do you?
Bluffer's guide Nazneen, a young Bangladeshi woman moves to
East London following an arranged marriage to a man 20 years her senior. She
speaks next-to-no English, and soon finds herself a virtual prisoner in the
looming tower blocks surrounding Brick Lane. Her husband's endless plans and
ideas, along with his insistence that she saw off the corns on his feet with
nail scissors, sorely try her patience. But she has no choice other than
settle down to her new life, in distress and confusion. Then Tower Hamlet's
voices begin to clamour, and radical ideas shake her world again.
THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS - A MYTH
by John Boyne
Why you shouldn't read it The scene in which a Nazi's son and
a concentration camp inmate meet came to John Boyne in a dream. He appears
(and has admitted), to having done little further research into what is
obviously a hugely sensitive area. As well as plenty of factual
inaccuracies, insultingly brushed under the carpet in the subtitling of the
book "A Myth", it is impossible to know who the intended audience
is.
The crossover novel has become a publishing phenomenon in recent years. Books
such as Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time,
Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now, and of course Harry Potter,
were all originally aimed at children before gaining legions of adult fans,
but it's a marketing-led genre full of vagaries. The Boy In the Striped
Pyjamas gets completely caught up in these. It tries for childlike
innocence with simple language but achieves only a cold, contrived, naivety.
Bluffer's guide Bruno is the son of a Nazi commander living
in Berlin during the Second World War. His father is stationed in Auschwitz
(dubbed, belittlingly, as "Outwith") to oversee the running of the
death camp. The family moves with him, to a house outside the barbed wire
borders of the place from which nobody returned. The artistic liberty taken
by moving the controller's house outside the grounds of the camp (in
reality, it was well within Auschwitz's walls) serves to distance the
perpetrators from their actions. Bruno strikes up a highly implausible
friendship with Shmuel, a Jewish boy his age who is enduring hell on the
other side of the fence. And, whilst death is raging all around, in the
universe of the novel the only life given any value, is that of a Nazi's son
accidentally stuck in the middle, wearing striped pyjamas.
What is your most hated novel?
