I have to tape my protective goggles onto my face before I start reading, because I know I'll probably fall asleep--from sheer boredom, if nothing else.  I want books to excite me, and, usually, they do.  Since I learned to read, books have been a necessary escape from a confusing, and often cruel, world.  As a fat kid with glasses who couldn't play sports, I escaped the torments of gym class by hiding under the bleachers with a book.  The books of my childhood are like old friends to me now, and all books hold a special place in my heart, for what they represent. 

A book, even a bad book, is due a certain amount of respect--which is why I feel I have an obligation to finish reading it, once I start it.  This obligation goes far beyond the five or ten dollars I spent purchasing it; I have to discover the hidden magic.  Lately, though, I haven't discovered anything worthwhile.  I finally turn the last page, and all I feel is a dull disinterest. 

If I make it to the last page at all; there's a growing pile of books next to my bed that, while I haven't admitted defeat and given up on them, I haven't finished reading them, either.  I will, I mean, I have to, now, I started reading them...right?  I'm just pausing for rest. 

The problem is, I don't care if these characters live or die.  I don't care if their world ends.  I don't care--because the writer never made me care.  The basic facts of the books are so forgettable, their characters so one-dimensional, their worlds so dreary, if I stop reading them for a few days, I forget what they're about.  I realize, oh, crud, I'm going to have to start again at the beginning.  One recent offender is Shaman's Crossing, the first book in Robin Hobb's Soldier Son trilogy.  I started reading it a few months ago, and now I sort of forget what it's about.  Um, there's some adolescent angst, some teenagers who don't really understand the politics influencing their parents...wait, is this Atonement?  Is this Great Expectations?  The great "reveal," of course, is that parents are people, too--not the godlike idols we imagine them to be.  Except, really, what teenager thinks their parents are perfect?  Real coming of age stories, like Jane Eyre, reflect our growth and development as human beings, as we come to grips with war, violence, death, racism, and hate. 

These things are, by definition, pointless.  There is no Reason, there is no Truth; life is what we create for ourselves.  If everything happens for a purpose, and coming of age means learning that purpose, then, well, growing up isn't very difficult, is it?  Your perception of the world around you is hardly challenged--see, your parents aren't really bad people, they just made choices you didn't understand, but, hey, now that you know what's going on, all's well with the world again!  Unlike her first two trilogies, Hobb's latest offering rings false, because it doesn't resonate with the actual coming of age experience.  

I opened up Happy Hour of the Damned, read the first two pages, and put it down.  It was too stupid, even for me. 

I started reading Treason Keep, having made it through the first of Jennifer Fallon's Hythrun Chronicles, and eventually gave up.  Fallon's books are like video games: pleasantly repetitive, if you enjoy the story.  Her spunky, one-dimensional heroine, who never doubts herself, surges forward, battles an indomitable foe, is captured, is rescued, and surges forward to fight again.  I got the same sort of "am I playing Zelda?" déjà vu when I watched Peter Jackson's King Kong.  It's not that I have a problem, particularly, with this sort of "level up" reading, but sometimes, when you've played on level, you've played them all. 

I really enjoyed the first few installments of Kate Elliot's Crown of Stars series, because it started out good.  Halfway through Child of Flame, she digressed into this weird, possibly drug induced fantasy of walking through the solar system, visiting planets like stops on a treasure hunt, and I gave up.  I mean, I really want to return, and plow through it, in hopes that, eventually, the book will become comprehensible again.  Unfortunately, though, she's destroyed the book's sense of place for me.  Imagine if, halfway through The Fellowship of the Ring, muppets dressed like Timothy Leary started grooving across the screen. 

There are good books out there, books I don't already own, I know this.  But...where are they?  Maybe I need to start reviewing books at the halfway point; I'd have more material for this site.  If you, Dear Reader, have some suggestions for me, then please, please, please forward them along.  Otherwise, I might have to start rereading A Song of Ice and Fire in self defense.