I just read (well, skimmed) The Art of Racing in the Rain.
It’s for a new book club I’m visiting next week, so I wanted to like it. I really really wanted to like it so I could participate enthusiastically (!) in the discussion, but I knew I was in trouble by page 7.
Wow. Can you say “trite,” “unoriginal,” and “one-dimensional”?
No character development. Shoot—no characters! Only stereotypes!
Completely predictable, not to mention unbelievable, plot. The whole thing reads like a bad Lifetime movie (apologies, Lifetime).
I struggle to see how nearly 2000 ratings on Amazon come up with 4.5 stars. That’s either a comment on the sophistication of the reading public, the success of Garth Stein’s marketing machine, or a whole lot of hope given to those of us still honing our craft.
Publishers, you can do better than this!
Karin S. Wiberg 
Oh, my. Sad.
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As one reviewer said, it’s a tearjerker that doesn’t “earn” the tears…oy.
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so, did you join the bookclub?
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Meeting this week. Will see how the others reacted to the book…!!
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LOL. I’ve heard that Stein’s first agent actually refused to pitch this book to publishers. If publishers are only publishing trite @#$%, how do we writers know that they’ll be able to ID good stuff when it appears?
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Seriously!! 🙂
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