The Land of Stories

Ever feel this way?

Sometimes I wonder if there is anything worse than a bad book; one that doesn't have a happy ending (those are synonymous in my book).  The other day I decided "Yes".  And it's suffering through an "eh" book.

I was excited to get a new book called The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer.  The summary sounded like a lot of fun:  What would it be like if all the fairy tale lands were connected and went on living after "happily ever after"?  And even through the entire book, I kept saying that the premise of the book was great.  Unfortunately, the writing never made it up to the promise of the storyline.  As a reader, I was upset to be told how to feel, what to think, and what moral I should get from the story.

Not satisfying.  Not satisfying at all.

A good book presents the story, setting, plot and characters and lets you feel, think, and judge based on what you experience through the tale.  This has all the early elements of a great story but seems like the rough draft of an amateur.  So, I wonder, how did this get published?  Well, there were no advertising quotes on the book of publishers, reviewers, or other authors endorsing the author or the story.  That might say something.  And the rest I found on the back cover with the picture and author's bio.  He is a star from the show Glee. 

I sure wish that publishers and editors would stick to their own standards and would help the author succeed in finishing a great book instead of pushing through an incomplete project due to unrelated fame.  Instead, I inflicted the blandness of the book in its entirety upon myself because it's just too hard to put a book down and walk away.  Sigh, maybe the next book I read will be better.