Fling, Marry, Kill: Mainstream Edition

[rachelmanija]

Hope springs eternal. But I just bought two new bookcases, just in case.

If you're joining late, fling means "read now and see if you like it," marry means "keep for later because you surely will," and kill means "it sucks/you won't like it, toss unread."

If you're familiar with any of these, let me know what you think!

Poll #20317 Fling, Marry, Kill: Mainstream Fiction

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 36

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Take Three Tenses: A Fugue in Time, by Rumer Godden. Three generations in the same house, seen simultaneously. (Who am I kidding, there is no way I would ever kill this.)

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Fling
7 (30.4%)

Marry
14 (60.9%)

Kill
2 (8.7%)

The Steep Approach to Garbadale, by Iain Banks. Mainstream novel about a family that has a video game empire? Banks' books are very unpredictable for me in terms of whether/how much I'll like them.

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Fling
9 (47.4%)

Marry
2 (10.5%)

Kill
8 (42.1%)

The Magician's Assistant, by Ann Patchett. A magician's assistant and also widow discover surprising things after his death or maybe faked death.

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Fling
11 (64.7%)

Marry
2 (11.8%)

Kill
4 (23.5%)

People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks. An ancient Haggadah uncovers mysteries. The premise sounds great but I read something else by Brooks and really disliked it.

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Fling
11 (55.0%)

Marry
0 (0.0%)

Kill
9 (45.0%)

And the Ass Saw the Angel, by Nick Cave. Nick Cave's southern gothic. I have taken a few cracks at this and never gotten far, but I love his music. Might just need more sustained concentration.

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Fling
10 (55.6%)

Marry
1 (5.6%)

Kill
7 (38.9%)

Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson. A woman repeats her life in multiple variations. I love this premise.

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Fling
11 (45.8%)

Marry
9 (37.5%)

Kill
4 (16.7%)

Ladder of Years, by Anne Tyler. A wife and mother runs away and starts a new life. I often like Tyler but I'm having a knee-jerk "Did she let her kids think she was DEAD???" response to this one.

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Fling
9 (47.4%)

Marry
1 (5.3%)

Kill
9 (47.4%)

The Tiger Claw, by Shauna Singh Baldwin. Novel based on Noor Inayat Khan. Possibly depressing.

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Fling
15 (62.5%)

Marry
2 (8.3%)

Kill
7 (29.2%)

The Lords of Discipline, by Pat Conroy. Semi-autobiographical novel about military academy. I like the setting and I like Conroy, but for some reason I have never gotten far into this one. Try again?

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Fling
10 (43.5%)

Marry
1 (4.3%)

Kill
12 (52.2%)

Comments

[yhlee]

Ah, gotcha! Haha, it's been so long since I read it that I couldn't remember where it was set at all. I'm also clueless about literary (?) fiction subgenres...thanks! :D

I loved Bellefleur, but man is it a weird book. I've never read any other Oates so I don't know whether it's typical of her or not.

[kore]

It kind of depends, Oates writes a terrifying number of books all in different genres, but there's a unique Oatesian mindset of nihilism and a kind of delight in the grotesque/unpleasant/gross that is constant. I think of her more as Urban (Northern) Gothic. I don't think she's great at characterization but she's kind of compulsively readable, and very good at pastiche. Probably my favourite of her literary takeoffs is Wild Nights! Stories about the last days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James and Hemingway which does just what it says on the tin in spite of that terrible title. I like her short stories better than her novels, the short stories are exquisitely written and constructed, but I just can't spend a whole novel in her headspace.