scottishlass | I am a book snob and proud of it ... (Reply)

Bought a book yesterday because I liked the text on the backcover. I should have also checked inside the book but it is a bit difficult via amazon. So I relied totally on the short summary which was in Past Tense and I thought, Hey that sounds interesting.
Now that I have the book I will be dumping it without having read more than the first chapter. *sigh*
One of my pet peeves (which I should have included in my weirdness meme) about reading is that I can't abide authors (and published authors at that) that ignore any established style of writing and write in Present Tense. Yep dialogue AND narration. Call me old-fashioned or a snob but puhleeze, that is not good writing in my book. Here is an excerpt:

"Another Fourth of July without fireworks," Mia Calogera pronounces with a sigh as she and her friend Lenore emerge from an air-conditioned movie theater onto the Manhattan street.
The sun went down while they were inside, but the twilight air remains steamy. Lexington Avenue is far less crowded with traffic and pedestrians than usual, thanks to the summer's inital blast of oppressive heat, combined with a long holiday weekend and mass exodus for shore and mountain breezes.
"I thought we were meeting tomorrow night to watch the fireworks," Lenore responds, removing her wire-rimmed glasses as they fog over in the humidity.
It's a long-standing tradition for the two friends to climb the stairs to the rooftop of Mia's four-story apartment building, just across the East River in Queens. From that vantage point, they can view the nationally televised fireworks display against the dazzling backdrop of city skyline.

I don't know why, but I have a hard time to actually read through this. My mind cannot bend around the Present Tense narration - it needs the good old-fashioned SimplePast/Present Perfect narration that makes it so much easier to just follow the plot and enjoy it.

Okay, before I toss it out .. who wants it? It is a Wendy Markham (aka mystery crime author Wendy Corsi Staub) chick-lit book, called Bride Needs Groom. Another Jennifer Crusie it ain't.

Alien Abductee
Congratulations! You scored 70!

You've been probed so many times that strange faces don't surprise you much anymore. You positive that other intelligent life exists. You've seen technology so advanced you can't even comprehend what it does let alone how it works. Maybe other things are possible.