Which Best Selling Novel Should You Read? March 2016

It’s a best seller and a Pulitzer Prize winner. Somebody out there HAS to hate this book.

Reading a current best-seller list is like scanning the television guide; we might not watch/read everything, but it’s good to know what’s new.  Even though the new best-selling novels are too expensive to buy right now,  the high prices won’t last forever, and I like to plan ahead.  By reading the March 2016 best-sellers list, I can see what I’ll want to read in March 2017.

1.   All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr-

I’m surprised this novel doesn’t get more negative reviews.  It’s a #1 best seller, and it’s won (or received) the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2015.   When a novel hits #1 or wins a Pulitzer, a bunch of contrarians start griping about how it’s overrated.  This novel is both.  How can it NOT be considered overrated?  Where are the contrarians?

Maybe the book doesn’t deserve any negative reviews, but that’s not the point.  No matter how great a book is, the contrarians must come out once it reaches a certain point of success.

Contrarians, I’m disappointed in you.

    2.    A Girl’s Guide to Moving On by Debbie Macomber-

This is a best-selling novel written by a best-selling author, but it sounds like a blog title.  I read a lot of blogs, and I’m sure I’ve seen that title before.  I’ve written blog titles like that, except for the word girl or the words moving on.  I’m not a girl, but I’ve been told that I write like one.  I’m not sure what that means.

Obviously, nobody agrees with me about the bloggish title of this novel because the book is #2 on the best sellers list.  Congratulations, book with a blog title!!

    3.  The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins-

Here is proof that success brings out the contrarians.  The Girl on the Train has been a best seller for months, but almost everybody I know says it’s not that good.  Maybe they say that because it’s not that good, or maybe they say that because their expectations were so high for a book that’s been on the best seller list for so long.

People I know keep saying it’s overrated, but it keeps selling.  I wish I could write a book that was overrated.

    4.  The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah-

Here’s the second novel on this list to be set during World War II.  I’d write a novel set during World War II too, but then I’d have to do research, and I’d probably mess something up.  In my book, partisan fighters would tweet out Nazi troop movements, or POWs would escape while German soldiers were staring at their phones.

In my memory, people have been staring at their phones all my life.  I’ve only been staring at my phone for five years, but I swear I have memories of me staring at my phone in elementary school (in 1971).  I’d better not write a novel set during World War II.

   5.  Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee-

Harper Lee passed away last month, but her rough draft is still a best seller.  It may even remain on the best seller list longer than The Girl on the Train.  Maybe this is morbid of me, but it’s kind of too bad that Harper Lee didn’t publish her rough draft earlier when she could have enjoyed the success that it’s having.  I mean, I guess it’s good that her estate will still make a lot of money off it, but maybe it would have been better if it had been discovered when…

Never mind.  It’s probably morbid of me.

   6.  Cometh the Hour by Jeffrey Archer-

This is book 6 of a 7 book Clifton Chronicles series.  The blurb mentions a bunch of characters, so it sounds like you have to read the first five books to understand the sixth book.  Maybe the series is pretty good.  It probably is, but I don’t read a book series that goes over three books anymore, and if I do, I don’t start until the author is completely finished.  When book 7 of the  Clifton Chronicles cometh, I might read book 1.

   7.  Wedding Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke-

This is a food murder book.  I think food murder is a horrible idea for a book series.  I thought Sue Grafton’s alphabet mystery series was a horrible idea, but this is worse.  There are already 19 food murder books by this author (and I don’t want to make any bad puns with the author’s last name).  I don’t care how many successful food murder books this author writes, I still think it’s a horrible idea.  I’m never going to change my mind.  I’m open-minded about many topics, but food murder books is not one of them.  I cannot change my mind on this.

I need to apologize to Sue Grafton.

   8.  My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout-

This book is a bad role model for students.  My two daughters have been told by their English teachers not to start off their compositions with “My name is…”  Now a best-selling book title starts with “My Name Is…  How do I explain this to my daughters?  Maybe I should tell them to title their essays “My Name Is _________” and see how their teachers respond.  I hate it when famous authors use writing techniques that our English teachers told us not to use.

On the other hand, I like titles that are complete sentences.

   9.  Brotherhood in Death by J. D. Robb-

J.D. Robb sounds like a guy, but she’s a woman.  Evelyn Waugh sounds like a woman, but he was a guy.  Robert Galbraith sounds like a guy, but she’s J.K. Rowling, who also sounds like a guy but is really a woman.  I know that gender shouldn’t matter when a reader is selecting a book, but c’mon.  An author shouldn’t try to deceive his/her readers like that.  If a guy wants to read a book written by a guy, he should have that choice without looking up an author’s name on the internet to see if he or she is cheating.

   10.  NYPD Red 4 by James Patterson and MARSHALL KARP-

I’m pretty sure MARSHALL KARP did most of the writing, and the other author will get most of the money, so I’m trying to help out MARSHALL KARP as much as I can.  I’m not going to read NYPD Red 4 by MARSHALL KARP because I don’t like the scam that the other author is pulling, but maybe MARSHALL KARP can start publishing his own novels soon so that MARSHALL KARP can start getting credit for what he writes.

*****

These are the top ten best selling novels so far in March.  Which one are you most likely to read?  Is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel automatically overrated?  Do you have memories of staring at your phone before staring at phones was possible?

*****

Here’s the reason why I like a book title that is a complete sentence.

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