So the Les Miserables EPIC READ OF MUCH EPICNESS continues, and I'm still not even half way through, and even though I'm mostly enjoying it I do wonder if I'll still be reading it when I'm 50!
However I was allowed a brief interlude between pages of Much French Misery to read November's offering from my book group. As I mentioned in a previous post I've actually been 'let off' the last two book group reads because I'd already read them, allowing me time to focus on Les Mis (weep!). This month however I'm up again with the first of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels 'The Killing Floor'. I feel it goes without saying that this is not the sort of thing I would choose to read normally, but hey-ho the purpose of book groups is to make you read something you haven't already right? Right?
This is the motto which fuelled the rest of this post
So I tried to be open minded, I honestly did. I thought 'hey this is a best-selling book, a best-selling book about to be made into a Hollywood blockbuster, there must be something redeeming about it?'. I know plenty of people who have loved these books, sure all those people have been men over 40 but that doesn't mean they won't interest me, hell plenty of 20-something women such as myself enjoy Sophie Kinsella and God knows I hate her*, so maybe I'll have similar tastes to middle age men. You never know right? Right?
So, yeah, it sucked. It sucked big time. It was really bad. Like hella bad. Like a waste of paper bad. Like I can't believe it got published bad. Like it makes me want to become a writer because God knows I can write better than that bad. Bad.
The basic story goes that hard man Jack Reacher, ex-military golden boy and ultimate lone wolf, wanders into a small town in Georgia and is promptly given the sort of warm welcome that makes Rambo look like.... well, actually it's just a total Rambo rip off so I guess a comparison is a waste of time here, it's just the initial plot of Rambo. Anyway he goes to prison for a while for a crime he didn't commit, gets out after killing a few folk inside, and attempts to chase down the people responsible for his initial incarceration and horrifically murder them. All with the help of everyone in the town who's black (like 3 people, but Lee Child is keen to tell you that the bad guys are not only murdering scum, BUT THE BASTARDS BE RACIST TOO) and the one female character, who also happens to be drop dead gorgeous and has the uncanny ability to drop her knickers every time Jacky boy enters the room. Oh and she's a cop, but she's totally down with the protagonist killing bad guys left right and centre because, you know, he gives her the good lovings.
Jack spends the majority of the book either murdering people in horrific and grizzly ways (and I'm not kidding here, one guy has his eyeball popped out with a thumb, another has his neck hacked away until his head is only attached to his body through his spinal cord), sleeping with the only woman in town or SHRUGGING. Seriously this guy must be suffering from a repetitive strain injury in his shoulders because of the sheer number of times he has lifted them towards his ears. Every response he gives throughout the entire novel, whether it is to a police chief holding him at gun point or a bad guy threatening to chop his balls off, is pre-empted by a shrug. I know he's cool and everything, but who in their right mind shrugs in that situation?
Oh and the plot twists, the clever plot twists, the plot twists are so predictable it's painful. Early on in the book Jack learns that the conspiracy he's trying to crack has 10 members, all of whom must be chased down if he is to stop their diabolical scheme. Of course we're supposed to guess which members of the town are one of the 10, and every time one of them reveals themselves, usually laughing manically and pointing a gun at Jack's head Bond villain style, we are supposed to exclaim 'oh lordy I didn't see that coming'. You can tell Lee Child is proud of these moments, he writes them with relish, leaving the revelations till last thing in a chapter to keep you hooked. But it's so easy to guess who is in the 10 it's all very flat. Every single one of the bad guys can be easily identified by the sheer fact that they are rich (the conspiracy involves counterfeiting) and racist. Now I'm not saying racists are nice people, generally they're not, but I'm guessing in a small town in the state of Georgia it wouldn't exactly make you stand out, nor would it mean you were a member of an international counterfeiting ring! However this is not the worst of the failed plot twists, oh no, there is a quite outrageous and startling one that really beggars belief. The book begins with a guy being murdered, a guy that is shot in the face and cannot be identified. Now I don't know who decided to put the slightly lame 'Jack Reacher's CV' in the front of the book, I'm guessing some smart arse publisher who thought it would be cool. This 'CV', which you are surely expected to read before you start the novel given where it is placed in it, clearly tells you the date of Jack's brothers death, something obviously essential to put on any CV (!!!). Therefore it doesn't take a genius to notice that JACK'S BROTHER DIED THE SAME DAY AS THIS MYSTERIOUS MAN! And if that wasn't obvious enough too anyone with a brain in their scull then the first half of the book is peppered with comments like 'the man reminded me of you Jack', 'the man was about your height and build Jack', 'have you heard from your brother recently Jack?' etc. Then finally when the identity of the dead man is revealed WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE SURPRISED! Seriously, seriously, seriously retarded writing, and editing, and publishing.
But on a final note it not just the writer and the editor and the publisher who are retarded, oh no the casting director on the new film is going to have to take that title too. See throughout the novel it is mentioned almost as many times as Jack shrugs that Jack is exactly 6 foot 5. It's in the little CV printed at the beginning, it's pointed out by various people, and every time Jack is presented with something that might be too short for him, like trousers or beds, he has to mention that he is 6 foot 5 and therefore finds these things tricky DON'T YOU KNOW. Therefore I present a meme which perfectly illustrates the look on my face when I looked up the upcoming film on IMDB.
Casting the shortest male lead in Hollywood to play a guy who is constantly referred to as very tall. Smart mover casting director, smart move.
*not just because she writes inane books I'll have you know, oh no I have personal reasons for hating her that are totally unrelated to her crappy books.
