Hoffman’s The World as We Knew it and the difficulties of frustrating style.
This week I tried to read Alice Hoffman’s The World as We Knew It and could not finish. I did end up to Chapter Five or so, but decided to put the book down and pick one up that I was more interested in. Saying that, Hoffman’s The World as We Knew It was interesting in the plot and characters; I was more moved away from the book because of her writing.
In all honesty, I don’t know what it was in her writing that I wasn’t a fan off, but something made me not want to read the story and if it wasn’t the plot or the characters it must be the the words/style. Her writing was very flowery and smooth, but from it I was disinterested. I want to say that there were too many unnecessary details. While I don’t necessarily believe Chekhov’s gun should be followed strictly, I do think that having too much filler detail is a waste of the reader’s time. Why would I want to read about a sister and how much she is liked by everyone and how their mother adores her when she is going to die in the next couple pages and never be heard of again? (This does not exactly happen in the story.)
Perhaps it was the show-not-tell that frustrated me as even with all the details, most of the descriptions were told. How they looked; How they acted; what they wanted: everything seemed to be told to me rather than letting me see if for myself.
Since I didn’t finish the story though, I am not going to review or score it. I don’t believe that right or fair. The main reason for this post is to explore this journey of reading together. Sometimes, reading isn’t exactly fun or easy, and sometimes you find a book in your hands that frustrates you for no reason. What are you supposed to do?
I picked up a different book that I was halfway through in the same day. What do you do? Let me know below.
Rosey Reviews 