I am out of town for a few days, and I sadly left my book at home – the one I am 2/3 done with (Ayelet Waldman's Love and Other Impossible Pursuits). I did bring two other books with me, one of which was You Lost Me There, by Rosecrans Baldwin. I was intrigued by it – it has gotten some great reviews lately, and I jumped at the chance to read it when I was offered a review copy by Penguin. I started You Lost Me There a few days ago, and I hate to say it, but I just don't like it. I am going to do something I rarely do – give up on it. There are just too many books out there that I want to read, and reading this book is becoming a chore, something I feel like I have to do, rather than something I want to do.
You Lost Me There is about Victor, an aging Alzheimer's researcher living in Maine. His wife, Sara, a successful screenwriter, died in a car accident a few years before, and he is having an affair with a much younger woman who works in his lab, and keeping up with his wif'e's elderly aunt. He also comes across some notecards his wife wrote about their marriage, not long before her death, which reveal that he and Sara had very different memories and perceptions of their relationship.
Sounds like it should be a decent book, no? Well, the writing isn't working for me. It's sparse and almost choppy, due to the narrator's intense dislike for introspection or dialogue (inner or outward). Things happen to him, and he barely reacts. I am 90 pages in, and I don't care about him, nor do I feel that I even have a sense of what he wants or who he really is. I've never encountered a character so passive.
So I am giving up. This book just wasn't for me, and there are too many other fish in the sea.
Anyone else read this yet? If you want another take, check out these reviews from people who liked the book a whole lot more than I did:
Entertainment Weekly (an A- !)