Before my massage last Saturday, my mom showed me a list of books she wants to read.  Sidenote: It was handwritten on three sheets of lined paper because my mom is cute like that.  It was mostly classics.  You know, stuff you probably (or should’ve) read in school, like Fahrenheit 451, To Kill a Mockingbird and Animal Farm.  A lot of it was stuff I haven’t read but want to!  Classics are classics for a reason.  They’re the backbone of our literary history!

The book I just finished was so not on that list.

You know, I should probably stop assuming anything by or about Hemingway means I’m going to love it.  That assumption might work nine times out of ten, but that tenth one might turn out to be horribly boring and hard to get through because you’re thinking “Is anything interesting going to happen?!” the entire time you’re reading it.  Case in point: Hemingway’s Girl by Erika Robuck.

This one is about a girl named Mariella who works for and is also attracted to Hemingway, who happens to be married at the time.  Turns out he’s attracted to her too but there’s that whole being married part and that other part where Mariella meets and falls in love with another guy.  The whole thing takes place in Key West and can I just say I like European Hemingway way better than Key West Hemingway.

Overall, the entire book was just so… vanilla.  The story wasn’t interesting, the characters weren’t captivating, the writing wasn’t fine-tuned.  Plus there was that part where Robuck decided to have Mariella and Hemingway refer to each other as “Papa” and “Daughter” and it got majorly weird.  Oddly enough, the last few pages of the book were told in letter-format and I actually kind of liked that.  I’m a sucker for a good letter-style book.

In other words, if you come across this one, skip it.

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What was the last really good book you read?

What was the last really bad book you read?

Do you have a favorite “classic”?

In other news, my mom and I just decided to create a two-person book club to take down those classics!