Oh dear

Just finished a book.

It's got a lighthouse in it, which annoyed me because 'one day' I would like to write about a lighthouse. Or about a person who lives in one.

But then, but then...

It all goes deliciously wrong. The writing is overdone. So many exclamation marks, so much yelling and berating and shouting and pleading. Wooden characters. Much praying and goddy stuff. A child who is so unlikeable you want her to wander too close to a cliff and die. A father so wet that you want him to put a noose around his neck. Or throttle his demanding wife. Or have her take some poison, or kill herself or stab him. Or something. The writer clearly did lots of research and so has to resort to various clunky means to 'get it all in there.' It's melodramatic and overwrought and nothing exciting happens at all. It's insipid and flat and bland apart from the occasional passages that describe nature which are okay.

I had read negative reviews so I wasn't expecting much but I still wanted to read about the lighthouse. I'm glad it wasn't brilliant because that means there's still room for a good lighthouse book.