One woman’s meat is another woman’s nut rissole

 

I mentioned – didn’t I? – that When We Were Bad is my current favourite novel. Yesterday I looked up Charlotte Mendelson, the author, on Amazon, to see what else she’d written, and I checked the readers’ reviews of WWWB. Almost all were complimentary – no surprise there. But one reader who didn’t like it said it was turgid (what?!) and that there was no warmth in it and the characters were two dimensional. What???? How could they say that???? The novel is warm and the characters are fully realised as believable people. The novel is engaging from beginning to end. And it is funny. How could anyone say it is turgid?

If someone can criticise a masterpiece in that way, then it  makes me feel a whole lot better about the following comment from a reader at my local library  “Zuzu’s Petals was better than Plotting for Beginners, which was absolute rubbish.”

And now here’s a confession: I didn’t rave over a recent prize winning literary best-seller, which was considered to be comedic. I didn’t find it funny, and I thought some of the humour was cruel. It is no doubt obvious to you, dear reader, that there is no accounting for taste, but it is hard to remember that when you are the writer whose book (i.e. baby) is being damned.

Now check this out, and make sure you keep reading down, beyond the ads.