I’ve decided to make you a special end of 2020 list. Because 2020 was not as good as everyone hoped, here are five books I read this year that let me down:
1. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. This always seems to be on those “Books you must read” lists, and it holds a special place in the hearts of many. But THIS BOOK IS MESSED UP! It’s not at all a coincidence that the tree is a “she”. She gives and gives and gives, and then she gets murdered. Apart from
Little Women, I can’t think of a more obvious example of teaching girls that their only goal in life should be to attach themselves to a man and make him happy. AND THAT WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY. The boy is a prime example of white male privilege – if you asked him, he’d say he deserves a place to rest. And it’s true: he has worked hard to pick and sell the apples, cut the branches and build the house, fell the tree and build the boat. By the time he’s an old man, he probably does need a place to rest, but he has not for a moment considered the tree. If someone else asked to share his resting place, he’d say, “No, this is mine, I earned it. Get your own.” Never mind that they were probably the one who planted the tree in the first place. I am angry at him, and I’m angry at the tree for never complaining or standing up for herself, and I’m angry at society for teaching her to give and never complain or stand up for herself.
2. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. After hearing this book being praised by everyone I know who’d read it, I was expecting great things. This is often a problem when things are over-hyped, and is the reason I prefer not to know much about a film or book before I watch or read it. I’m not saying the book was all bad – there were some magical bits, but there is also a lot to criticise. It’s a debut novel, and you can tell that Owens is a non-fiction writer, not a novelist. Her natural history writing is perfect, but everything else is really clunky. The metaphors are too obvious, and a lot of what’s said in the dialogue should have been left for the reader to realise on their own. It’s really not a bad book, and I quite enjoyed it. I’m just really confused that it’s been raved about so much, with seemingly no mention of its flaws.
3. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg. This 1987 novel was adapted for film in 1991 and it’s the movie I have vague memories of. While much of it still stands up, the very 80’s/90’s attitude of “you will magically stop being pathetic and become a better person when you get off your ass and lose all that weight, fatty!” has not aged well at all. The relationship between Idgie and Ruth was lost on me when I was younger, but I appreciated it on this reading. I always enjoy a book that switches between past and present, so that’s a plus, but I no longer have room in my life for fatphobia so overall it’s nope from me.
4. The Names They Gave Us by Emery Lord. You know that old saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”? Yeah, I was fooled again. The author’s name is very similar to mine, the cover is absolutely beautiful, and the title promises the magic of names and language and etymology. But it was just another American teen summer camp story, with a tame romance, and a dying parent to try and manipulate you into feeling something, and a “God will get you through anything” message. Throw in a black kid and a trans kid and some kids who live in poverty or have parents in prison, and few other tokenisms, but only for the purpose of making the straight, cis, white protagonist a better person. Bleh.
5. Please Don’t Go Before I Get Better: Poems by Madisen Kuhn. The vast majority of this book is not poetry, as the front cover suggests, but stream-of-consciousness prose. There are a few lists and a few poems, and only two or three of the poems are actually any good. Kuhn made her name as an Instagram poet, and although she’s been through a lot in her young life, she doesn’t have the wisdom or crafting skills to turn her experiences into good poetry yet.
Posted by Emma
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