TOP TEN TUESDAY | BOOK COMBOS

This week’s prompt is to put together a list of book pairings – two books I’d combine together into one. This is going to be hard, because I don’t really think of books that way. I’ve done my best, but I have to admit that a lot of them are pairings where one book is excellent as is, but the other could use some help. So it’s more a list of books I think could benefit from some mentorship or advice from another. Except for the first one. That’s a little different.

    

To start off with a little controversy, my first set of books I would combine are Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life and A God In Ruins. And honestly, I’m not even sure how that would work. Life After Life was much more than I expected going into it, and I love how Atkinson handled the Groundhog Day element to the story. I loved the character development and how you get to see how characters would differ if the events in their lives changed. A God In Ruins suffered by comparison. It lacked the strong narrator, and the plot meandered pointlessly a bit too often. The thing that has me equivocating over this combo is that part of me just wants to say I could have done without A God In Ruins altogether. So I’m not sure if combining the two would have been successful or if it would have just ruined Life After Life. Maybe Teddy’s story could have been a longish final part or epilogue to the story, or even a novella sequel rather than a whole book. Anyone who has read these – particularly if you disagree or read them more recently than I – feel free to share your views in the comments, because I know A God In Ruins was well-liked by many readers, so I don’t think my opinion is the popular one!

     

My next combination is Seth Stevenson’s Grounded , but written by Bill Bryson. I love his tone and writing style, and his travel memoirs are among the most entertaining books I’ve ever read. He has written one book that spans more than one country (Neither Here Nor There), but most focus on one. I’d absolutely love to read his account of circumnavigating the world, all the nuggets of fascinating trivia and all the amusing anecdotes he’d collect along the way, and the amazing journey he’d take his readers on. As you know, I found the premise of Grounded to be an interesting one but poorly executed. I kept thinking as I was reading how amazing it would be in the hands of a better writer – and Bill Bryson is the best of the best.

     

I was fascinated by the premise of The Power – a world in which physical power is suddenly manifested in women so that they become the stronger sex. But I thought it was handled very poorly. Alderman’s choices and writing style were too blunt, too fast-moving, too much of a straight role reversal, not enough subtlety and gradual shift. I was left feeling like this idea, in more delicate hands, could have been so much more than it was. Emily St. John Mandel is someone who excels at imagining the intricacies of a world in which one major event or shift has occurred, and because of it, everything has changed. She thought through what that world would look like, stepped into it, and was able to transcribe it onto the page with every detail and subtlety intact in Station Eleven. There wasn’t a single angle or repercussion she missed, and because of it Station Eleven was a masterpiece. I think had The Power been written by Mandel, it would have been brilliant.

     

I went into The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend wanting the same charm and whimsy I found in The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, but I didn’t find it. It didn’t have enough books in it, it didn’t have enough reading, it didn’t have enough payoff on the promise of community building, and even the love story was just… lacking. I have forgotten many of the details at this point, but I think it could have benefited from a dash of Fikry-ness.

        

Here’s the thing. I wanted to love Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. So many other people, people whose opinions I respect, did. But having dealt with trauma and mental health issues, I felt the author didn’t have enough experience or understanding of these issues to draw an accurate picture. So I couldn’t completely buy into the book because it just felt… wrong. Off. I had the opposite experience with Miriam Toews’ novel All My Puny Sorrows. Having lost her sister to depression and ultimately suicide, she had an incredible perspective on the themes she undertook. That subtlety, that knowledge of what the view from the inside looks like, right down to the need to laugh in situations where humour is not appropriate, or the complexity suffering depression causes and the questions surrounding whether life is always to be sustained at any cost – be it emotional or physical – made the characters uncomfortably real. A dose of that in Eleanor Oliphant would have made all the difference for me.

Okay, so I’m sure many of you are shaking your heads and grumbling at me under your breath. Let’s have it: where am I wrong? Which, if any, do you agree with? Which books would you combine or borrow a little from one to give to the other? Share in the comments!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly link-up feature created by The Broke and the Bookish and hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every week TTT has a different topic, and everyone who links up has to create a link of ten items that fit that topic. To see past and upcoming topics, go here.