"It is sometimes easier to be happy if you don't know everything."

Howdy.

Finished two books last week - Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith and The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. Think I'll start by talking about the latter.

I watched the movie of The Jane Austen Book Club last year or the year before - hated it with a passion. I heartily wished death on all the characters, they were so irritating - except perhaps Emily Blunt's character. Then again, I only liked her out of spite, because she was so obviously meant to be the irritating one. Hugh Dancy sank about six rings down the ladder of my estimation because of his involvement in this film - fortunately there weren't any other actors I like involved. And the ferocity with which it stuck to the 'chick flick' genre! Grrr. This film made me so angry with its stupidity and boring-ness. I don't know why I bothered with the book. The book was, somehow, just as bad as the film it inspired. The characters were all two-dimensional stereotypes, none of whom inspired my sympathy. The recently-single woman was too much of a doormat; the assertive one was just an emotionally blind meddler, the one and only male character was a wuss, the chatty one was depressing to read, the 'so Frenchy so chic' girl was so obviously meant to be unsympathetic (I wonder why one would bother writing such a character?) and the lesbian girl was so inexplicably messed up and whingy I wanted to slap her. The first person narrator was infuriatingly ambiguous - I gave up trying to work out what was going on with her (or, what the heck, it could have been a him).
There was no plot. There was no purpose. No storyline went anywhere. And if I ever pick up a book with that much pointless, useless backstory again I will to take a match to it. Am infuriated that something like this can put a 'Jane Austen' label on itself in any form.


Morality for Beautiful Girls was a much better book. There's no way Alexander McCall Smith will ever put a book in my top 100 list, but The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series are enjoyable, light reads. The mysteries are never very mysterious and the pace is ponderous and slow-striding, but in an acceptable way - and the African vibe is very naturally done. I don't have an awful lot to say about this book - but it's an OK read.