I Won’t Be ‘Forgotten’ How Bad This Book Is

London Lane has amnesia, Fifty First Dates style. As in, every night at 4:33 a.m. her mind becomes a blank slate. However, unlike Drew Barrymore, London can remember her future.
This little malady as you might imagine, causes her some difficulties. Since she keeps this a secret from everyone but her mother and her best friend Jamie, all her teachers and schoolmates just think she is hopelessly stupid and forgetful. London programs her phone and writes herself helpful reminders (that seem completely unhelpful) like what to wear that day. I keep wondering why she doesn’t print out her class schedule or keep some sort of detailed dossier, but this is just one of the many things that drives me nuts about her freakish imaginary mental disorder.
After I finished this book I kept having a hard time nailing down exactly what it was that made me hate poor, afflicted London. After taking a quick second look through the book it came rushing back to me. Its not just Cat Patrick’s limp, teenage-attempt-at-poetry writing, or the major plot holes or incongruities or the empty dialogue. I mean, it’s some of those things. But mainly I hate London because she is a whiny, self-obsessed bitch. This is the girl that thinks things like,”even though I have the benefit of knowing that I’ll grow more beautiful each day- and that Carly will never look better than she does right now…” or that frequently notes that her best friend (and only person that can stand her) Jamie, looks “alarmingly like a hooker” and is the “kind of girl boys love to flirt with-not date.”

Jeez with friends like these! London also has a less than charming Bella Swan-esque habit of disdaining anyone that seems eager to be kind or friendly to her. I think, we the reader, are supposed to infer that these unfortunates that always are around to lend London gym clothes, or help her in class, are ‘uncool’ and therefore worthy of London’s inner-monologue sneers. Know that I think of it, London really is the poor man’s Bella Swan here; no magical boyfriends, but plenty of moaning, ‘adorable’ clumsiness, and general lack-of-personality disorder.

Instead of Edward, London has Luke Henry, omg-so-cute new boy whose ‘vintage band tshirts’ and ‘chuck taylors’ let us know that he’s so hipster and like, totally bored with the whole mainstream style, man. Oh, and he’s an artist.  When London meets Luke she can’t remember him, or I guess more accurately, can’t future (I will now be using this as a verb, take note) him. Major plot hole alert.

Let me ruin the rest of it for you…

My Dog Found this Book to be VERY INSULTING

I feel like I usually only write glowing reviews—mainly because I only read books I’m fairly certain that I will like.   Also, I always feel slightly guilty writing about how much I hated a novel.  I know firsthand how much time and effort went into writing and publishing any story, and also, I’ve had “if you’ve got nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” drilled into my head from infancy.   Plus, it seems like if you hate a book, you could just stop reading it.

But unfortunately I have some sort of disease that compels me to finish a book, even if I hate it at the first chapter.  I think there are two reasons for that:

1)   My mom forcing me to finish everything on my plate because of the children starving in Africa (which shaped my young psyche into one that cannot leave things half done, a problem that has mushroomed to include cakes and cases of beer)

2)   My eternal, long-suffering sense of optimism, where I continually assure myself that the next chapter will really be a turning point, transforming the novel into something complex and thought-provoking, life-altering, and super awesome.

No matter what’s to blame, I sure didn’t like A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron (Macmillan/2010).

Now, I don’t know a lot about Cameron, except that he wrote 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, which I’ve never read, but I know that they made a tv show out of it, and the whoever played the dad died, and he was on some late ‘70’s sitcom who’s name I can’t recall.

So why he decided to segway from teenagers to animal books (he has some other recently released title called Emory’s Gift which is about a bear, which also I haven’t read, but I’m going to make an executive decision that it probably isn’t much good either) I haven’t the faintest.  I should have been wary, since they were giving away hardcover editions on Shelf Awareness, instead of galleys or sample chapters.

A Dog’s Purpose, it turns out, is a combination of Nicholas Sparks and Marley and Me.  And maybe a little Thomas Kinkaid as well, just because I hate him too.

Told from the perspective of a dog, there is a lot more butt sniffing and mating and animals in heat than I really wanted to be involved in.  I guess Cameron could be commended for keeping his character believable, except I don’t believe even my dogs are that simple-minded and inane as his protagonist Bailey (well, maybe my little one).  Annoyingly, Bailey also is reincarnated several times, sometimes as a purebred, sometimes a mutt, sometimes a male, sometimes a female, but always boring and slightly stupid.  I couldn’t wait for him/her to find her purpose and die for good.  And imagine how disappointing it was to find out that Bailey-whose-name-keeps-changing’s purpose was to sort out his former owner’s love life.  If Cameron starts telling people he invented a new genre I’m going to freak out.

If you’re looking for a good dog-centric fiction novel, I suggest The Art of Racing in the Rain (HarperCollins/2009), or The Dogs of Babel (Bay Back Books/2004), both of which are excellent.

oh wat?  You don’t take posed photographs of your dogs as if they’re an old-fashioned couple?