Book-a-book of the Month Club discussion

Discuss the author David Arnold here. Other things you have read? Will you read more of his work?

I'm only halfway through, and I doubt I will read anything else by David Arnold. I'm not really enjoying his style.

I could give another one a go mainly because most of this book ended up taking place where I grew up and that resonated with me. I would be interested in seeing if more of his work takes place in areas I know.

I would probably feel the same way about a book from where I grew up. I am just not a fan of this writing style. It reminds me of the first book I read as a part of this group "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian".

Oh, the part time Indian book, that's a good correlation. The off-the-cuff internal workers spilled out on to paper kind of style. That's very true.

I enjoyed the book very much. You won't see a Bull In a China Shop for this one, from me, because barely any of it rubbed me the wrong way. It was easy to read and because it was very flow of consciousness which made it easy to relate to.

I read the auto-bio of the author in a couple different places and found it very interesting that the author chose to make the main character a female version of himself. There's a point where Mim is talking about all the things she likes and does, and it's straight out of this guy's bio. And then to read the book the only thing seems really girly is the main character's heterosexual attractions. Everything else is pretty much gender moot.

I wonder what everyone thinks about this decision.

Also, after reading his auto-bio I realized that the author didn't write "the book" he wrote "a book". I mean some authors hone and manicure their craft and their abilities with the end goal of writing a novel that is a mastery of their ability. Something that they would not, most likely, just sit down and pour out onto paper except for in blurs of genius that are fleeting and far between. Instead I get the sense that he just had this story in his head and wrote it down. It's not particularly crafted or manicured as it is just the way David Arnold writes. This made me very curious for his next book, to see if it's as successful of an endeavor if he changes voices, or if he just chooses to keep his voice and change other variables about the book. I think he would find it easy and suiting to just write a sequel to this one. If that was the case I probably wouldn't read it.

Joe wrote: " Instead I get the sense that he just had this story in his head and wrote it down. It's not particularly crafted or manicured as it is just the way David Arnold writes. This made me very curious for his next book, to see if it's as successful of an endeavor if he changes voices, or if he just chooses to keep his voice and change other variables about the book."

I find this to be the case with John Green - almost to the point that it is the same book with different characters. In some cases I don't mind, but in other cases I have to take a break for awhile or it is too much of the same thing.

Did you notice that Arnold used numbered lists a few times? John Green does this and I seem to remember that Matthew Quick does as well. This seems to be a YA writing tool lately - perhaps all the tweens think in lists?

Through the first two-thirds of the book, I couldn't stand it. However, the introduction of additional characters that actually stayed around helped balance it out. The style didn't bother me much at that point. I might be willing to give it another try if it comes across my path, but I doubt I will intentionally seek it out.

Joe wrote: "It's not particularly crafted or manicured as it is just the way David Arnold writes. This made me very curious for his next book, to see if it's as successful of an endeavor if he changes voices, or if he just chooses to keep his voice and change other variables about the book."

Hmm......that's a good point. I'd like to read another of his books and see if his writing style or voice changes.

(I still can't seem to figure this GR out. I was trying to copy/paste a certain section of Joe's comment and the the whole thing ended up being italicized. Lol!)

(yeah, I think the editor was made by web developers. HTML is like second nature to us and makes some sense, but it takes time to get used to. It's the only inline text editor I know that does HTML but not some kind of _italics_ or **bold** syntax. which is pretty much the same idea, but the <i> requires that you end it with </i> which is very very very easy to overlook.)

Oh see I thought I should probably end it with that but I just didn't. Lol!