Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Together we didn't quite all go yet

Together We Will GoTogether We Will Go by J. Michael Straczynski
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Preliminary Review:

I won this book, so feel obligated to review it ASAP.
I was surprised when a real hardcover book actually showed up in the mailbox. I'd received emails saying I won and I was like, yeah, how?

I don't know if there was a blurb to read before I entered to win this book. If there was, I probably wouldn't have read it in order to avoid spoilers. All I had to see was "J. Michael Straczynski" and thought wow, I love Babylon 5, so I want to read his book.

Now there's no reason to expect a writer to write the same kind of thing over and over. In fact, the work usually gets dull when they do that. The problem here is that had I read the blurb, I would not have wanted to read it: A book about people on a road trip to suicide? No. That's cutting too close to home. Our family was devastated by one young cousin's suicide some years back.

Anyhow, when I got the book, I did read it non-stop to page 92. I thought, "This is very readable!" Then I remembered that the last book I'd been reading was a Barnes&Noble translation of Herodotus, so sure, this book is easier than Herodotus (though not as much like fantasy--Herodotus is weirder than Hobbit Town.)

The one-word-review I kept wanting to give this is "Competent"--which from me is high praise. The book is well-written. I've read, put up with, or given up on a lot of books that were not competent. With this book, you are in good hands, if you want to read it.

The problem is that after that first weekend when the book arrived, things have gotten kind of depressed--nothing to do with the book, just a coincidence. I've read up to p.182 so far, and it's sufficiently interesting and diverting, but I felt I was like reading it for homework. No reason for self-discipline while wallowing in depression. So I lay back in bed and flicked on a Rivers of London audiobook for a re-listen, which is the kind of thing I do when I'm depressed, only in the past it was Discworld novels, and before that, well, that kind of thing.

I will get to the end of this. I am curious about the characters. Admittedly not desperately curious.


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