Thoughts on mindless reads.

Once in a while it's nice to read a mindless, quick read book. I'm glad there are authors out there who write books such as this. However, I have found that finding a decent mindless read is as involved as finding a decent intellectual read. Here are the three kinds of mindless book categories I have found:

1) Exhibit A- The Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella. In this type of mindless read, which I will call the Best Form, the author understands that we're not going for any awards here. There's no attempt to be deeply intellectual or artistic with the language. However, the writing is elevated beyond than that of, say, a high school freshman, which leads to...

2) Exhibit B- The Shack. In this version, which I will call the Eh-Form, the content is good, and the author still isn't going for any literary turn of phrase recognition, but it reads like an entry level college essay and some of the sentences make you cringe in the execution. In defense of this book, it isn't really a mindless read, but can be found in a grocery store which, in my book, still falls into a related category. And...

3) Exhibit C- There's a (slight) chance I might be going to hell, which was the reason I wrote this entry in the first place. I got this book from the teacher's lounge and it looked like a funny, mindless read. Sadly, this book fell into the third and worst category, the Real Bad Form. In this type of book, the writing is poor to begin with, but to make things worse, the similes, metaphors, and descriptions make an attempt to be witty and clever in an uncomfortably painful way. Take these examples:

"Anything synthetic will not only cling to your wet, leaking skin like a hickey on the neck of a high school senior on picture day but will cost you more than a reckless cocaine habit in dry cleaning."

"... new businesses popped up all over town like pimples on the forehead of puberty."

"By the time she got to Kate's, she was sweating more than a chubby man in a backyard cage fight testing out his moves from a $19.98 Fast 'N Furious Head Bustin' Street Smarts DVD recently purchased from Wal-Mart and she wanted nothing more than to have a little face time with a glacier."

Aaaaaaand I was done. At page 20.