(no subject)

Last year it was hyped, great-buzz books dealing with suicide. (I never did get around to reading Leonard Peacock)

This year it's hyped, great-buzz books with brutal rapes in them.

I'm not even mad except when they turn out to be actually pretty bad books. "Like a warmed-over slightly racist version of Laura Esquivel" is tolerable; "Like a warmed-over slightly racist version of Laura Esquivel with a brutal rape in it" is like, jeez, more than one serious critic thinks this is good writing? More than one magazine gave it a starred review?

I really am super cranky and impossible to please this year.