books that make you angry

I'm almost certain I'm not alone in sometimes getting frustrated with a book. Either the main character is too whiny or the author keeps hinting at something but never actually gives you the information. If you read a variety of books, I'm going to assume you've felt this way before.

I started reading As Simple As Snow a couple weeks ago. I was enjoying it, too. I saw a few parallels between this book and Looking for Alaska* which was interesting. Then I stopped reading for a couple days, got sick and started a three day volunteering gig that took up a lot of time and energy. Not a lot of reading time. Today, I stayed in bed and decided to finish it. Which I did.

I suppose there's an important part of this story I should add. It's a mystery, of sorts, about a girl who disappears, leaving a dress laid out next to a hole in a frozen river. Here's a review from the beginning of the book:

"As Simple As Snow is one of the best books I've read in a long, long time. Galloway draws you into another world, and you'll be wholly involved from the opening line, with its blunt force. He awakens all our curiosities and then satisfies them, so that the only question left unanswered is how long it'll be until he gives us something else to read." -Kaye Gibbons, author of Divining Women

 My problem with the end of this book, it would follow, is that it proved that last sentence to be complete and utter bullshit.

Immediately, the ending coloured my entire experience of the book. I don't feel like I can look at it objectively anymore. And it's not that I can't tolerate a couple loose ends when I read a book--I can. I was just left totally alone, wondering what happened and feeling stupid for not being able to figure it out. It seems like this book is one of those ones that makes more sense the second time you read it but I doubt I could bring myself to go back and start again. Then again, maybe that was the point. Maybe I was supposed to be angry and there's a subtle honesty to it because we don't always figure things out in reality. Sometimes we just have to keep moving on, not knowing if the teacher murdered her or if she was sleeping with that main footballer turned Goth guy or if she ran away or jumped in the river or what.

I'm still mad that Kaye Gibbons lied to me but I'm sure I'll live and the book suffered no damage since I didn't actually throw it at the wall, no matter how much I wanted to.

In other news, I want to go to Vidcon. More immediately though, Maureen Johnson is coming to town and I will be seeing her this Saturday! Needless to say, I'm excited.

*probably because the reason I bought it was because John Green said it was a piece of his inspiration for LFA.