Since I read about two books a week, I get most of them from the library. In the last month or more, I haven’t found much that caught my interest. There was one novel by an Australian author that painted a great picture of the outback and a psychological thriller that was a good read. Several of the others I didn’t finish. My last read was John Grisham’s latest, The Guardians. It’s supposed to be a legal thriller, but there’s no thriller in it. Just a lengthy legal process of exonerating the wrongly imprisoned. Too many characters to follow and none of them developed, not even the protagonist.

Many of the books that I give one or two stars on GoodReads are by bestselling authors and have high ratings. What am I missing? I love a good story, interesting characters, settings that make me want to visit, a mystery that keeps me guessing, a fascinating concept in SF, humor, heart, a thought-provoking idea…but many of the books I’ve read recently have none of these.

I hope the next novel I pick up is exciting.

Or maybe I need to get back to writing and see what I can do.