I've met the only second book* that made me cry "Uncle!" and toss it aside unfinished.
If you're an F. Scott Fitzgerald fan, goody for you -- but, "The Beautiful and Damned" lost me on a number of levels. Fitzgerald's worst offense, however, is that he utterly disdains his main characters. If I can't find something (anything) to like about a character within the first half of a book, it's a problem -- and Fitzgerald's Anthony and Gloria are all surface and no soul. Yuck.
Enough! There are too many other good and great books out there to waste my time on this.
Speaking of which, I received a box in the mail from the Venomous One just loaded with literary goodness. Between that, the two Edward Rutherford Dublin books I got used in hardbound, and, found as a result of Suzette's current reading list, this interesting biography, I've got plenty on my plate.
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*The first book I met that I couldn't bring myself to finish is Tom Wolfe's "The Bonfire of the Vanities," and his characters are simply loathsome. I've started that book three times, and three times I've thrown in the towel.
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I quite agree about Bonfires. Waste of time - could not finish.
Here's another literary annoyance for me: The Firm. While it was good for what it was, it seemed to me as if the author couldn't wait to get it all over with in the last third. I did finish it but I never picked up another Grisham book again.
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