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A review by larabobara
I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You by Courtney Maum
2.0
I’m hesitant to post a review here because I read this for book club and I don’t want my book club friends to see it. But...is there anything worse (at least, anything book-club-related) than disliking the book YOU chose for your book club to read?
I couldn’t stand any of the characters, except for peripheral ones (love you, guy from the train!). Also, I have a habit of folding up the bottom corners of pages whenever I find editing errors in books. Guess how many pages I folded in this one? Let’s see...
p.75 - well, now that I’ve googled it, I stand corrected. Lisa comments on the difficulty of obtaining cranberries in France and that “French women are too ladylike to get yeast infections.” Here I always thought cranberries helped UTIs, but apparently they can combat yeast infections, too.
p.79 - “She had cinched the dress with a brown leather belt, underneath which was a camisole of soft pink silk.” So, wait. The camisole is under the belt, but not under the dress?
p.82 - “All of the sudden I knew that this was it.” No!! Not all of the sudden. All of A sudden. A. Sudden. There is nothing even remotely erotic about a sex scene with bad grammar in it. (Also, side note: sorry, book club friends! I think I might be the first person in our book club to choose a book with such a racy scene in it.)
p.121 - “Kinder-Surprises were famous across Europe, but in America, they’d been overtaken by the Cadbury egg...” Nope. Listen, lady. You are implying that American children are too busy stuffing their faces with Cadbury eggs to give any attention to Kinder Surprise eggs. Give me a break. She obviously has never spent any time with a child who has seen YouTube videos of kids and their kinder eggs. I searched far and wide for kinder eggs, only to learn that the real reason they were “overtaken by the [gross] Cadbury egg” is that our FDA won’t allow tiny toys to be hidden in chocolate eggs because we Americans are too idiotic not to choke on those toys when they are so close to our food (ahem. Not really. But we will sue the hell out of any company that makes candy with choking hazard toys hidden inside). Does anyone even eat Cadbury eggs? I sure don’t, and I like some ridiculous candy.
p.210 - [paraphrasing]: “Are you a Luxembourger, then?” He nodded...”I’m from Antwerp.”
Last time I checked, Antwerp was in Belgium, not Luxembourg, so why did he nod? One doesn’t nod unless in agreement, generally.
p.308-9 - he gets to spend time with his five year old daughter after some sleepovers are cancelled. Dude, do kids have sleepovers at 5? Because maybe my boys are just too mama’s-boyish, but at 5 and 7, I feel like we are a long way off from that. Are French kids just that much more detached from their parents?
p.311 - he’s watching the first video interview of his parents again, and after one story is told, there’s a period of silence. His mother drums her fingers on the table, and his father watches her hand. But how? Back on page 148, he sets his parents up for the interview in the kitchen so that they are back to back. The mom even comments that she can’t even see him and the dad reaches “out for her thigh, hitting her in the elbow instead.” (Now that I think of it, how does Richard even know Dad was intending to hit the thigh and not the elbow, unless Dad said, “I shall tap you on your thigh to reassure you I am here.”?) I’m obviously over-thinking this. I guess maybe it’s not that outlandish to imagine him being able to see her drumming her fingers on the table. Short of rearranging the chairs in my kitchen and making my husband reenact this with me...I dunno. I’ll report back.
Anyway, this was a quick read, and it lends itself to one of my favorite literary questions: what makes a book good? Because I sure did write a lot about a book I didn’t even like, and I feel like I will probably talk a lot about it when our book club meets later this month (and not just about editing mistakes).
Also, until I checked it, I didn’t realize the word “catalogued” could also be spelled “cataloged,” so at least I learned something from this book.
I couldn’t stand any of the characters, except for peripheral ones (love you, guy from the train!). Also, I have a habit of folding up the bottom corners of pages whenever I find editing errors in books. Guess how many pages I folded in this one? Let’s see...
p.75 - well, now that I’ve googled it, I stand corrected. Lisa comments on the difficulty of obtaining cranberries in France and that “French women are too ladylike to get yeast infections.” Here I always thought cranberries helped UTIs, but apparently they can combat yeast infections, too.
p.79 - “She had cinched the dress with a brown leather belt, underneath which was a camisole of soft pink silk.” So, wait. The camisole is under the belt, but not under the dress?
p.82 - “All of the sudden I knew that this was it.” No!! Not all of the sudden. All of A sudden. A. Sudden. There is nothing even remotely erotic about a sex scene with bad grammar in it. (Also, side note: sorry, book club friends! I think I might be the first person in our book club to choose a book with such a racy scene in it.)
p.121 - “Kinder-Surprises were famous across Europe, but in America, they’d been overtaken by the Cadbury egg...” Nope. Listen, lady. You are implying that American children are too busy stuffing their faces with Cadbury eggs to give any attention to Kinder Surprise eggs. Give me a break. She obviously has never spent any time with a child who has seen YouTube videos of kids and their kinder eggs. I searched far and wide for kinder eggs, only to learn that the real reason they were “overtaken by the [gross] Cadbury egg” is that our FDA won’t allow tiny toys to be hidden in chocolate eggs because we Americans are too idiotic not to choke on those toys when they are so close to our food (ahem. Not really. But we will sue the hell out of any company that makes candy with choking hazard toys hidden inside). Does anyone even eat Cadbury eggs? I sure don’t, and I like some ridiculous candy.
p.210 - [paraphrasing]: “Are you a Luxembourger, then?” He nodded...”I’m from Antwerp.”
Last time I checked, Antwerp was in Belgium, not Luxembourg, so why did he nod? One doesn’t nod unless in agreement, generally.
p.308-9 - he gets to spend time with his five year old daughter after some sleepovers are cancelled. Dude, do kids have sleepovers at 5? Because maybe my boys are just too mama’s-boyish, but at 5 and 7, I feel like we are a long way off from that. Are French kids just that much more detached from their parents?
p.311 - he’s watching the first video interview of his parents again, and after one story is told, there’s a period of silence. His mother drums her fingers on the table, and his father watches her hand. But how? Back on page 148, he sets his parents up for the interview in the kitchen so that they are back to back. The mom even comments that she can’t even see him and the dad reaches “out for her thigh, hitting her in the elbow instead.” (Now that I think of it, how does Richard even know Dad was intending to hit the thigh and not the elbow, unless Dad said, “I shall tap you on your thigh to reassure you I am here.”?) I’m obviously over-thinking this. I guess maybe it’s not that outlandish to imagine him being able to see her drumming her fingers on the table. Short of rearranging the chairs in my kitchen and making my husband reenact this with me...I dunno. I’ll report back.
Anyway, this was a quick read, and it lends itself to one of my favorite literary questions: what makes a book good? Because I sure did write a lot about a book I didn’t even like, and I feel like I will probably talk a lot about it when our book club meets later this month (and not just about editing mistakes).
Also, until I checked it, I didn’t realize the word “catalogued” could also be spelled “cataloged,” so at least I learned something from this book.