Lyrics and stuff: Book Talk

[Meredith Quill]

Your Book Talk Topic!

[kassa]

Have to say this is a rare situation where the show outperforms the book by a long shot.

 

[lasu]

It's funny how we all see things differently, because I was coming to post how much better I liked the book!  To be fair, I did the audiobook, which is one of the absolute best audiobooks I've ever listened to.  I've heard over and over again that the audiobook is way, way more enjoyable than reading the print version - the voice actors really are freaking amazing.  But these are things I have really disliked about the show versus the movie:

• Eddie being in love with Camila.
• Camila [presumably] sleeping with Eddie.
• Billy and Daisy kissing.
• Karen wanting Graham only when someone else does.
• Karen and Graham banging while leaving Caroline outside waiting in her car.

There are other things I don't like - the "aging" didn't work at ALL, Billy has zero charisma, but the things listed above are the more egregious.  I like the show ok in and of itself, but it suffers (to me!) when I compare it to the source (although one could argue the audio version isn't source).

 

[babyhouseman]

I'm liking the show OK, but the book just had a certain quality a movie could never duplicate. 

[AuntieMame]

I read the book back when it was first released and was underwhelmed. As I said over on the topic thread: 

“I had issues with the book too. And I shouldn’t have. A modern epistolary format of created documents about a rock scandal? Character portraits of talented artists set against the backdrop of an interesting time and place and a creative time for an artistic genre? I should have eaten that up with a spoon. But it didn’t work. I’m reading the book again to see if I can figure out exactly what goes wrong because I like Taylor Jenkins Reid. 
…
 
This should be astounding, book and series. The ingredients are there and yet it isn’t quite cake.”

It just isn’t quite cake. I’ll report back if I can figure out what ingredient is missing from my reread. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by AuntieMame

[kassa]

I didn't care for the book (deleted it out of my kindle library and I hardly ever do that) and was surprised they made it into a series. I'm enjoying the series, but you are correct - it isn't quite cake. But what is the missing ingredient? The cast is doing well with what they've been given so it's not the acting.  The ingredient was missing from the book as well.

Why does "That Thing You Do" work? Because the characters once loved and supported each other and had fun before it all went to hell? I can buy that the non-Billy folks in The Six have a genuine loving bond with each other, as illustrated in their living together scenes and fond reminiscences about each other. It's never been shown how any of them have anything more than a business relationship with Billy or Daisy or vice versa. 

Edited March 20, 2023 by kassa

[lasu]

12 hours ago, AuntieMame said:

I had issues with the book too. And I shouldn’t have. A modern epistolary format of created documents about a rock scandal? Character portraits of talented artists set against the backdrop of an interesting time and place and a creative time for an artistic genre? I should have eaten that up with a spoon. But it didn’t work. I’m reading the book again to see if I can figure out exactly what goes wrong because I like Taylor Jenkins Reid. 

I have weirdly decided this isn't actually a good book.  Anyone I know who has read it with their eyeballs has not liked it.  The ONLY people I know who genuinely enjoyed it have been those who did the audiobook version, and I just think the voice actors elevated the actual material.  I've read a couple of TJR's other books, and I've strongly disliked them.  I suspect if I had read the print version, I may have disliked it as well.

I still think the audio version is fantastic.  The show is a bit of a disappointment, as I've found the deviations from the book to be odd.

[AuntieMame]

4 minutes ago, lasu said:

I have weirdly decided this isn't actually a good book.  Anyone I know who has read it with their eyeballs has not liked it.  The ONLY people I know who genuinely enjoyed it have been those who did the audiobook version, and I just think the voice actors elevated the actual material.  I've read a couple of TJR's other books, and I've strongly disliked them.  I suspect if I had read the print version, I may have disliked it as well.

I still think the audio version is fantastic.  The show is a bit of a disappointment, as I've found the deviations from the book to be odd.

I read it with my actual eyeballs, lol. I’ve also toyed over the years with an idea for a Hollywood novel that was a combination of straight narrative and created documents. It was really a disappointment when this book was such a disappointment. 
 
To be fair, the only other Reid novel I’ve read was The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and I liked that while I was reading it. 

[millennium]

I bought the book and started reading it.   After about three chapters it became a chore.   It reads as if it were written by AI.   Every character sounds the same.   They have the same diction, the same tone, they use the same workmanlike sentence structures.   Not  a one is animated by descriptions of facial expressions, unique tics, indicators of temperament.

It's like reading a bare bones script that needs real actors to bring it to life.  I couldn't imagine slogging through another 200 pages or whatever of this pap.   I threw the book away.

Author should change her name to Taylor Jenkins Don't-Reid.

 

Edited June 1, 2023 by millennium

[chocolatine]

4 hours ago, millennium said:

I bought the book and started reading it.   After about three chapters it became a chore.   It reads as if it were written by AI.   Every character sounds the same.   They have the same diction, the same tone, they use the same workmanlike sentence structures.   Not  a one is animated by descriptions of facial expressions, unique tics, indicators of temperament.

It's like reading a bare bones script that needs real actors to bring it to life.  I couldn't imagine slogging through another 200 pages or whatever of this pap.   I threw the book away.

Author should change her name to Taylor Jenkins Don't-Reid.

I read the first few pages of the free Kindle sample that Amazon provides, and was so put off by the bad writing that there's no way I'm going to read the whole thing. I almost always read the book that a show is based on, but just couldn't do it this time.

[lasu]

14 hours ago, millennium said:

I bought the book and started reading it.   After about three chapters it became a chore.   It reads as if it were written by AI.   Every character sounds the same.   They have the same diction, the same tone, they use the same workmanlike sentence structures.   Not  a one is animated by descriptions of facial expressions, unique tics, indicators of temperament.

It's like reading a bare bones script that needs real actors to bring it to life.  I couldn't imagine slogging through another 200 pages or whatever of this pap.   I threw the book away.

Author should change her name to Taylor Jenkins Don't-Reid.

Thank you!  This is going to sound like a weird thank you, because I actually loved this book.  But, I think you just cleared something up for me.  I listened to this on audio, and I've known for a while that there is a common theme (though not absolute!) that people who listened to it liked it, people who read it with their eyeballs hated it.  Your description just made me understand that the voice actors are indeed doing a lot of the work the author didn't.  The audio version of this is so, so good, but this confirms that the book itself isn't.  This makes sense to me, because I've read two other of Don't-Reid's books and thought they were both absolute drivel.  So I really appreciate this description of the book as written.