3 books I've given up on lately

and I honestly don't think it's my mindset, especially since I'm pretty interested in the new one I'm in now.

But these three are now firmly on my list of

"Books it's OK to give up on & which I'll absolutely read someday... provided I find myself on a deserted island with absolutely no other reading material and plenty of firewood"

new inductees:
Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne
Anna Karenina, Tolstoy
The Devil Wears Prada, Lauren Weisberger

Truly I think maybe you just need to take drugs to read Tristram Shandy, or OK, at least I would. :)

My problem with Anna Karenina, beyond the aforementioned wacky dream chapter, was the fact that there are two story lines, neither of which was all that interesting to me, but since the story goes back and forth all the time, Tolstoy makes you get your hopes up with each transition that now something interesting is going to happen, otherwise why the switch? There's one story line for Anna & Vronsky and one for that other guy, the gentleman farmer, who was really boring and moody all the time, albeit a crack iceskater, and had the weird even moodier brother and was in love with the flibbertygibbet socialite 20-yr-old who really had a crush on Vronsky. I was only interested in the Anna side and even then I really didn't want her to get with Vronsky. Yet I hoped we wouldn't have to find out about their actually uniting until later in the story but it happened surprisingly early (oh give me a break - you can't spit on a mention of AK without seeing a remark about her and Vronsky's liaison so there's no way you didn't assume they would be together at some point ::spoiler disclaimer::). Given that I still have this persistent aversion to stories where adultery is the main dish I knew I was just biding my time til I might be too mad at her to continue reading (I got over this aversion enough with Tom Perrotta's Little Children to actually enjoy the reading so there is hope for me on this front, just not enough to deal with Anna and Vronsky). Once their relationship was actually a Relationship, consummated and all, the main problem wasn't my being angry but just that at that point it became really boring. I might have to venture into Cliffs notes for this or something just to quickly see what all the fuss is about, because I truly couldn't see where else it would go... Aside from everything and everyone coming to very bad ends of course. What little tension was there before they got together tho seemed to have completely dissolved when they did. So: hmph³²⁷¹. I used to have much the same reaction whenever I read Thomas Hardy tho, too, but I've started to get more into his language, etc., plus I feel like he has more tension usually, building up to the inevitably depressing climax (with the exception of Under the Greenwood Tree, which is considerably lighter).

I have now tried to read the Weisberger twice. I really want to like it but I honestly can't figure out what all the hoopla is about. (I hope perhaps this is one where the movie will be fun and I'll just forget about ever reading the book.) To me it reads like a great idea for a story but one which has yet to be fleshed out. I don't find it very witty, contrary to all the reviews, and yes, from the very first chapter we Get how completely unreasonable and extraterrestrially full of herself the heroine's boss is; we Get how crazy it is that every single other person working under the boss is just as insane in their kowtowing to said boss; but without more interesting language I'm just not intrigued enough to go on. This time I made it into chapter 4 before my reaction from the first attempt (chapter 3) came back to the surface too persistently to be ignored, that is both times I came to a point where I realized I wasn't interested enough in the main character even to take the time to decide whether or not I gave a big enough shit to keep seeing what was going to happen to her next. I must admit Weisberger does have a gift for describing physical screwball comedy scenes and outlandish situations in great detail (like the heroine's driving the boss's stickshift Porsche in NYC traffic and smoking and frantically talking on the cell phone to figure out where the boss's recently spayed French bulldog should be picked up and delivered, breaking a heel on her Jimmy Choo in the process... - nuf said) but they still didn't make me even chuckle so again the promise is there but the payoff was weak. Maybe she should become half of a screenwriting team, she just needs to find someone funny who can spin her ideas better. Anyway based on those scenarios alone I think the film has way more promise than the rest of the book.

And plus, there's Meryl... so No Brainer - I'd see it even if it were a movie based on a single page of the life of the boring Tolstoy iceskating gentleman farmer's moody life as he chewed out his steward all the while pining for the flibbertygibbet socialite...