TTT: Totally Deceiving Books

The saying goes that people will deceive you, but books never will. But sometimes, books do (whether in a good or a bad way).

Today, The Broke and the Bookish talks about those situations where a book was not what you thought it would be. Sometimes this happens because you misread the blurp, or sometimes it’s just plain blatantly deceiving.

  1. Boy by Roald Dahl – at the very peak of my Dahl frenzy, I picked up this book and in my excitement didn’t pay much attention to the blurb or the cover art. A few pages in I realised that a) the book was not a story and b) I wasn’t enjoying it. I was little. My mother explained to me that it was a real story about Dahl. I wasn’t interested and promptly returned the book. I should probably   attempt it again now that I am older and wiser.
  2. Feed by Mira Grant – well, I kind of thought it would focus more on the virus itself and finding a cure, and things like that. Medical ethics, even. Instead it focused very much on the blogging world and the concept of truth. Which wasn’t bad, just different than I expected.
  3. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson – yeah… the cover is of Steve Jobs, and the book claims to be a biography of Steve Jobs, but really… it’s a biography of Apple. ’nuff said.
  4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams – when I was very little, I always used to eye the huge book with some trepidation. I always wondered why people would want a guide to the galaxy, why it was filed under the kids’ books and not under “science”, and why it used such absurd language (English was new to me, ‘kay?). I was much older when I finally realised it was more satirical than weird, and more novel than science.
  5. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld – this book was supposed to be amazing. It was supposed to satirise society’s notion to conform and it was supposed to look at the dark future of plastics. Instead it was kind of lame. Sort-of enjoyable, but a little shallow.
  6. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – you think you’re going to read an awesome crime thriller. And you do, and you love it, but you also read an excellent analysis of the treatment of women in our so-called progressive society.
  7. The Hobbit by J.R.R, Tolkien – my, but I am harsh today. The Hobbit promises to be a story of fantasy and adventure. Instead it is rather slow and rather annoying. It took me so long to read this, and in the end I had to push myself in order to complete it. Tolkien is great at setting the scene, painting a picture… but I just did not consider this to be the book it was hyped up to be.
  8. Life of Pi by Yann Martel – I thought this was going to be a book about survival on a boat, but that’s really just the face of it. I loved this. Super philosophical and amazing.
  9. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins – I thought this was going to be a shallow bit of chick-lit and was planning to just get it over and done with for my reading challenge. Well, it wasn’t the deepest or most intense book I had ever read, but it was so much more than I expected.
  10. Chernobyl Strawberries by Vesna Goldsworthy – I knew this was a memoir, but apart from that the description was kind of… well, nondescript. So I expected it to be about life during or after Chernobyl, or something like that. It wasn’t, really. It was kind of an unremarkable memoir. Vesna does have a way with words, but she just couldn’t hook me.
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12 thoughts on “TTT: Totally Deceiving Books”

    1. A lot of people really enjoyed Steve Jobs, so I’m not entirely sure you should scrap the idea entirely on my account (unless the things in my review sound like they’d annoy you too).

  1. Life of Pi is on my list as well… For similar reasons. So is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, except I was disappointed when it wasn’t science, despite it’s title.

  2. I love The Hitchhikers Guide but it’s understandable to think it’s absurd (I still think that after finishing the series) I can’t imagine how difficult it would have been if I was still learning English. Afterwards though you would be an expert.
    Also I still have trepidation about Life of Pie because of that cover. People keep saying how wonderful it is but I look at it and think “that’s ridiculous, What is it about!?!” I preceed to stare in confusion and then gently return it to the self and walk away.

    1. That’s funny, but I kind of had the same concerns about Life of Pi. Try reading the first chapter in the library, and if you don’t like it, leave it… that’s what I did. Only I didn’t leave it. 🙂

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