Luis tells me I shouldn't do what I am about to do. He thinks I'll get hate mail. As if anyone reads this. I haven't finished Once a Runner, so maybe he's right I shouldn't review it yet, but I'm really feeling compelled.
First some background. This book was published in like 1978 or something. I guess it has some kind of cult following, people who swear it's the best book ever written and what not. It's got this mystique surrounding it becasue it's been out of print for a long time so it's hard to find a copy, amazon has used copies starting at $160 and up $990, blah, blah, blah... So Luis quite illegally downloaded a PDF of the entire book (and printed it at work - I'm so proud of him); he read it, and now I'm trying to read it.
Frankly, I am having difficulty getting through it. It's like a bad young adult novel. I just can't get passed lines like "What's wrong with me? Am I in love? For true this time? For real?" Vomit. The characters are so shallow and the dialogue so contrived, it makes me cringe. There are some interesting descriptions of running and the mindset it takes to be competetive, but I'm not sure it's worth struggling through just to get to those few readable paragraphs. It's such a bummer to not look forward to the book I'm reading. I may abondon it. My advice - read and heed the 1 & 2 star reviews on Amazon.
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