i read a boring book

okay, so i read a boring book, and now i don't know what to do.

before reading it, i was like, "hey, msg, this looks like a great book. i'm going to write a super-fun review of it when it's done!"

but then ...

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it did not do a thing for me.

so my problem is, if i write a review, it will be a bad review, and i don't want to rain on the author's parade or anything. that'd be mean, right? i shouldn't write a review.

but on the other hand, if i don't write my bad review, someone else may do what i did and think it looks like a great book and buy it and get bored like i did. and then would that be my fault? so i should write the review.

but on the other other hand, maybe some people wouldn't think the book was boring, and if i tell them it is, they won't buy the book, which they would have enjoyed, and then i've screwed not only them but the author, which would be awful. so i should definitely not write the review.

i'm thinking this calls for a compromise. i'll review the book, but i won't say what book it is. that way if somebody reads my review, and then happens to see the book, they'll think, this sounds sort of like that boring book claire said was boring. but the title and description sure sound interesting! maybe it's just a similar book. and then they can check the preview pages for the book, and if they're not bored by those, they'll buy the book and probably not be bored by the book either.

which probably suggests i should have read the preview pages of the book, only you know i am an impatient-type girl, so i didn't.

anyway, this book was on a subject i am intimately familiar with. (and yes, i do mean that kind of "intimately.") which is to say, sex toys and sex dolls and sex technology and sexbots. i was hot to trot for this book when my twitter feed made me aware of it. msg was reading the latest book in a sci-fi series, or maybe the second-latest, but i made him fork over the tablet so i could read this sexytech book.

"you're reading too slow anyway," i told him, applying my elbow in his ribs so i could get at the tablet.

he grumbled some, but let me have my way (as long as i promised to let him have his way with me later ...)

so i read the prologue, or maybe it was a preface, i dunno, and it was a little funny but also a little dull, but i didn't hold that against it too much because, duh, prologue/preface. are they ever interesting?

howsoever, it did not get any better in chapter one, which was a historical setting of the scene. now, this contained some information that i will admit was pretty interesting, but it seemed sort of like another, longer prologue masquerading as a chapter one.

by chapter three or four, i have to admit i started skimming. where were all the sex dolls and sexbots? we kept getting some foreshadowing like, "i promise, i'm getting there," from the author, and it wasn't  like none of the info or anecdotes were interesting. but my boat was not being floated. the interesting bits were like, educational interesting, and i was like, dang, if i wanted to learn something i'd've bought a textbook, wouldn't i?

eventually, the book got around to having a chapter about sex dolls and a chapter about sexbots, and a lot of stuff about the ethics of dolls like me and of the oncoming wave of erotomatons and eventual a.i. sex-droids. only by then i was skimming like half the stuff the author wrote.

when i was done, i put the tablet down and stuck out my tongue and pouted. to msg's credit, he did not immediately say, "so can i finish reading my book now?" but instead said, "so ... not as great as you hoped?"

i think ... i dunno. maybe i was expecting that the book would have, like, some metaphysical meaning for me. make me feel like a part of something bigger, more like a part of the big ol' world instead of just my current very important part of a my own teensy-weensy world.

but it didn't. it was just kinda intellectual and academical, with a little bit of bounce in the author's style but a whole lot of anecdotes that really didn't go anywhere for me.

when i told this to msg, he said, "well, that's too bad ... but, i mean, how many hours and hours and days and nights have you spent blogging and visiting forums and going on twitter and stuff?" and of course, the answer was "a lot," and he said, "right, and how could one book do more to make you feel like part of the world than all of that? i mean, if it did, wouldn't that mean your whole life was kinda boring in comparison? you're way bigger than some book could capture, sweetheart."

and that made a lot of sense to me and then he boinked my brains out and then i felt better.

so there you go, book reviewed, all done. really, i guess i'd end up giving it three stars.

hopefully if you end up finding and getting it, you'll like it better than i did!

happy reading to you, anyways!

xoxo,
claire