Book Blah

Have you ever read a book where you keep asking yourself...what's the point? If not consider yourself lucky. I'm almost at the end of In the Land of no Right Angles by Daphne Beal and I have literally found no point or climax to the story.

Sigh.

It looked good. My friend Jen left it for me after a visit this summer. She really liked the book. I didn't. No offense to her sense of selection. I had high hopes. It's just...just...nothing. It got 3.5 stars out of 5 on Amazon.com. Here are some of the accolades:

“An unpredictable journey of the spirit and the flesh. . . . [An] enchanting, at times perilous, tale of love, magic, and illusion.” –Elle

I can tell you that there is no magic in this book. An the only illusion is that it is a good read.

“Instantly suspenseful. . . . Beal’s intimate knowledge of Nepal . . . shines from these pages, making her a frank and humane tour guide into an underworld she makes fully her own.” –Jennifer Egan, author of The Keep

It's 'instantly suspenseful' because the reader keeps waiting for something to happen.

“Vivid. . . . Tantalizingly ambiguous. . . . Beal capably describes the outsider’s disorientation in a foreign land.” –Rebecca Donner, BookForum

The ambiguousness of the book is tantalizing in that all other books seem tantalizing to me right now.

Sigh again.