Reviews for Adverbs

The average rating for Adverbs based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2007-03-01 00:00:00 Christopher Lorraine Jenna once gave me the idea of buying books from Borders and then returning them within 31 days after having read them. The problems with that practice in my life are not ethical; they are practical: 1) I read in two- to three-months fury spurts, just like how I knit, except the reading trend is unrelated to avoiding other things in my life. Said fury spurts cannot be fabricated or induced, they just happen. I forget this, however, with great frequency, and buy fury spurts' worth of books sometimes without a fury spurt in sight. 2) I fold corners. If you know, you know. 3) Sometimes, at the end of a fury spurt, I get really ambitious and starting picking at the piles of New Yorkers all over my apartment. New Yorkers SUCK YOU IN and do not let you go until you are 13 pages into the article about the concrete industry in New York City and want to die and never read again. Behold: the end of the fury spurt. 4) Sometimes, to stave off the end of the fury spurt, I will try to "take a break," from such heavy heavy reading by listening to podcasts while commuting. Also sometimes, this happens because I can't always keep my eyes open on the bus, particularly when el Jeffo is on the bus and I need to pretend to not be there, or when it is very early in the morning AKA before 10 AM. This, ultimately, takes me away from the habit of the fury spurt and behold again: its end. 5) I am constantly overwhelmed by the volume of books in my apartment that I have not read or not finished. Sometimes this is so overwhelming that I stop reading. Anyway, I bought Adverbs with the intention of running through it and returning it, but then I folded corners, slowed to a crawl, and realized a month had passed. That said, it was a good read: a little gimmicky but very earnest, if that is at all possible. In case it wasn't abundantly clear: I should not write book reviews.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-01-19 00:00:00 Pierre Quilliam Find all of my reviews at: It's time for my library's annual Winter Reading Challenge. The challenge, should I choose to accept it (duh, of course I do), is to read five books between January 20th and March 20th. Once completed I can earn myself yet another bragalicious mug for my collection . . . Oooops, wrong mug . . . Easy peasy lemon squeazy, right? Well, the kicker this year is the theme is "Love on the Rocks." Romance is not my forté. The extra kick in the pants is out of the 25 suggested selections, I've already read 10. Although reading what the librarians suggest isn't a requirement, I like to choose my 5 from their list whenever possible. That's what led me to Adverbs. Uhhhhhh . . . . Yeah. Daniel Handler might possibly be the biggest hit or miss author I've ever come across. Being a mom I loved the world that Lemony Snicket built, and as a grown-up I was floored by Handler's ability to flip the switch and write something like The Basic Eight . . . But then I read Why We Broke Up and it was so "meh" that I didn't quite know what to expect. Well, I should've expected zilch 'cause this book was a real turd. Handler describes Adverbs as a "novel about love - a bunch of different people in and out of different kinds of love." What it really turned out to be was a series of unfortunate events (Ha! See what I did there?) - little vignettes that had characters, San Francisco, and yellow-billed magpies as repeating items that would tie them together. What it lacked? Any kind of depth or ability to entertain me. Wait, I take that back. The story "Clearly" was brilliant (but it was also creepy instead of "romantic," so you should probably take that statement with a grain of salt). Sadly, one snippet of a whole book is not enough to bump my rating up to 2 Stars. The schizy, rambling style aside, when Handler opted to break the fourth wall at the 68% mark, I knew this book had officially jumped the shark. However, I don't have the ability to "DNF" so I trudged through to the end, growing ever more bored and questioning how I could have ever enjoyed someone who wrote such pompous drivel. Let's hope the next four books in the challenge aren't lousy. Alright, enough with the bad stuff. Now I'm going to bore you with the awesomeness that is my public library. First, I work two blocks away from it, so whenever I need to escape from my crappy job it's super easy. And what an escape it is . . . That's just the parking garage. When you get inside it's sooooooooo purrrrrrty . . . With features like the old bank vault that has been turned into a "film vault" where movies are played . . . . And the children's library that literally has you stepping into a book . . . Or the rooftop, where you can enjoy a game of chess Alice In Wonderland style . . . I'm forever grateful to my beautiful library. It's the only way I could ever be able to read 200+ books a year, so one stinker of a recommendation is easily forgiven : )