In the past year cite a book ad that either lived up to its expectation --- or did not. Let us know what was in the ad that made you buy the book --- and what worked, or did not about it.
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I looked up the novel Sicilian Sisters on the Internet and I was intrigued by the cover of the book. It showed a beautiful girl in the ocean and another exotic woman's face, and then I got very interested in reading the book. It was about the Mafia and I always enjoy those exciting stories and movies. The cover attracted me to buy the book.
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My answer to this is a resounding ... The Da Vinci Code!!! My heavens, what is the deal with this book? It has a fascinating premise, OK ... but ... as a book, it reads like a screenplay! Quick and easy and designed to go to the Big Screen with Harrison Ford. I enjoyed it but would never, ever bother to read it again. Think of all the other great well-written novels I might miss.
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Digital Fortress --- I expected more suspense and not a love story.
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One book stands out from all the many I have lolled by the pool with, huddled on a plane clutching, or fallen asleep with, cuddling. Hands down, the most anticipated book in 2003 was Blow Fly, the newest and certainly the most finely honed Patricia Cornwell mystery/thrilller in the Kay Scarpetta series to date. For a mystery fan, the Scarpetta novels have always been entertaining and enlightening in the methodology of forensic science, but Blow Fly is the first to beckon the reader into the same room as Kay. We have been held at an impersonal and sterile distance until this writing, Cornwell's best to date.
In this latest richly woven tapestry of suspense, love, loss and terrifying deaths, we are drawn into Kay's HEART, her thoughts and emotions, more than ever before.
For the first time, Dr. Scarpetta is a displaced person, having left her luxurious life behind in VA out of necessity and is finally reaching out to the people around her who love her, or who can help her in her search for a killer or killers. She has finally matured enough emotionally to not be cold and calculatingly composed at all times. She is real, she cries, she needs, she wants. Most of these basic human elements were missing from Dr. Scarpetta's cool aloofness due to the necessary professionalism of her former position as the Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia. The reader is treated to more of gruff Pete Marino, dashes of lovely niece Lucy and her project, aptly named The Last Precinct, and baffling ongoing serial killings with no clues as to victimology or criminal profiling. Who is the killer in Baton Rouge, LA? Kay is summoned to help find a killer, and faces both her past and her future.
Who draws Dr. Scarpetta, Lucy, Marino, and a surprise character to the scene of the crimes?
And how does the now-incarcerated Jean-Baptiste Chardonne, half-monster, half-man, fit into the widening puzzle?
I stayed up nights reading this book from cover to cover and hope that 2005 will bring another Scarpetta installment and answers to haunting questions.
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Your question this week reminds me of what, for me, was the most disappointing book of 2003: Twelve Times Blessed by Jacquelyn Mitchard. I eagerly anticipated reading this book because of reviews and interviews I read (I believe she was a featured author on this site also). I plodded my way through this book continually thinking it would get better, and it never did. I came to dislike the main character, True Dickinson, immensely because of her constant whining and insecurities, which became the main theme of the story. In addition to that, Mitchard's writing was far inferior to Most Wanted and Deep End of the Ocean. I wonder if she even had an editor. So to answer your question, the hype and the reviews were the reason I bought this book, but Mitchard did not live up to either.
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A friend told me that Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen wrote that if one could only read one book in the summer, then let it beThe Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.
On that recommendation alone I bought the book and savored its originality and emotion. I am so glad that I did.
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I bought The Little Friend because I admired Secret History, also by Donna Tartt. I was disappointed because The Little Friend was wordy, basically formless, and ultimately went nowhere.
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The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom.
I was very disappointed in this book. I bought it because of his previous book, Tuesdays with Morrie, and had great expectations for it. The book seemed very contrived to me, and although I thought it would surely have a moving message, I could find none.
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The Secret Life of Bees was the most overrated book I ever read. It was inane, boring and totally unbelievable. I get very annoyed at ballyhooed books that are no good. By the time I was two-thirds done, I was quite upset.
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What makes me buy the book (especially for an author I don't recognize) is the blurb on the back. If it does not grab my attention, then I don't buy the book.
