Archive for August, 2014

Pulitzer Prize Winning Novel

Posted on August 13, 2014. Filed under: Books, writing | Tags: books, Pulitzer Prize, reading, writing |

Nope, not mine. Not yet, anyway. 🙂 Actually, I am pretty sure the only prize my first completed novel will win will be something like the “Best Beach Read of 2015,” or “Best novel to turn into an awesome summer movie!” I would be pretty happy with either of those.

But while seeking out representation – yes, still looking for a literary agent (apparently they don’t respond overnight) – and continuing to work on the sequel to my first novel, I have been reading a lot of other books.

Now, I don’t like to say bad things about books, in general, because I know how hard it is to write a book. And, having never had a novel published, I don’t exactly have the right to speak ill of other people’s successful careers. So I am going to try to say this without sounding like a horrible person – I don’t understand why The Goldfinch won the Pulitzer. I recently finished reading it and I really don’t get it. I liked the first half of the book. I cared about the main character. My heart broke for him. I thought the writing was amazing. And then it took a turn down an unbelievable alley and my sympathy for the main character disappeared along the way and I found it really hard to force myself to get to the end of the book when I just wasn’t buying it.

But it won the Pulitzer! I mean, it has to be great, right? Okay, okay, so there’s at least one other book that has won in the last decade that I don’t think deserved it, but mostly I have loved many of the books on the list. Mostly, I think they have chosen well. Which is why I have such a problem with this one. I keep thinking, what am I not getting? Is it because I have gotten old and my brain is too small to understand the genius of the book? Or maybe it’s because my life has had so many disasters in it now that I have survived this long, that I just prefer happier books?

I don’t know. So, here’s my question. Is it just me? Have I lost my reading taste buds? Or is it that maybe, just maybe, the Pulitzer Prize is not always given to the most fantastic book?