She Treads Softly: Late-K Lunacy

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Late-K Lunacy

Late-K Lunacy by Ted Bernard
Petra Books: 4/14/18
eBook review copy; 428 pages
paperback ISBN-13: 9781927032831

Late-K Lunacy by Ted Bernard was a did not finish for me. I very rarely stop reading a book, so that alone speaks volumes. While the opening is set in a dystopian future, this ecology-based fictional novel is set in the present and focusing on a professor encouraging a group of student to consider the damaging effects of climate change. There is also fracking starting in the local woods. I tried to keep reading it several times until I finally gave up.

It was a chore to read right from the start due to the overabundance of descriptions and a preachy-lecturing tone to the narrative - all to the detriment of the plot. Everything is over-described, even minor characters. Early on I was muttering to myself, "Just get on with the story." I can accept lecturing me when you also provide me with a compelling set of main characters in a well-paced plot. Then throw in some suspense and intrigue. Develop those compelling characters and establish more of the setting along the way.

What didn't work: immediately lecturing the reader about your environmental concerns; setting the novel in an almost utopian small Ohio college town and providing all the history of this fictitious campus; declaring a love for Millennials making everyone who is not one or all pro-Millennial bad; making the "bad" guys all stereotypical caricatures, either in descriptions of them (they are never looking good, or even okay) or in their speech patterns; making fun of areas of the country that you consider less intellectually developed than you.... I could go on but the gest of my point is that this reader gave up on Late-K Lunacy pretty early on because the writing wasn't worth the effort. (And it's not that I innately dislike environmental issues, college towns, and young adults - I live in a university town, am environmentally conscious, and have much-appreciated Millennials working for me.) Messages in novels are fine; almost all novels have some message in the plot, but make sure the actual quality of the writing can carry your message-laden plot.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of the publisher/author through Library Thing’s Early Reviewer Program.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.