the one where i attempt to make analysis of a possibly poorly written audiobook interesting

can't believe it's been nearly a month since i've posted. so much for posting every day, am i right??

my brain is suffused with excuses for not being here and devoid of interesting things to say.

#sigh

i have some thoughts about the basis for and origins of truth, but frankly i am a bit worn out on that whole discussion. i was going to share some pictures of stuff i saw today, but frankly i forgot to go back and take the pictures, so that's out. i could tell you about the audiobook i am currently listening to, but frankly i haven't really figured it out myself... it could be a brilliant mystery or it could be merely poorly written.

funny how they look the same when you're in the middle of them, stupidity and brilliance. alls you know is, you don't get it. could be you don't get it because it's an ungettable hot mess. or, could be because it's purposefully ungettable - it's hiding from you. the former ends in disappointment and the latter in fulfillment. not only is the latter immensely entertaining, but it redeems the time spent. to spend time with something, sustaining all the while a hope it will come to fruition, only to have it not pan out... well, what a waste of time and hope! the plot that bobs & feints, peeks & evades, and at the end comes to a thrilling conclusion... ah! that's a catharsis and a vindication, a true fulfillment.

this audiobook has a solid mystery as the basis, but it seems more clumsy than deft in the unfolding. like i said, could be that it's so good at piecemeal unfolding that it seems clumsy, but all signs are pointing to "just a hot mess".

on the whole it's fascinating -- an intriguing melange of kidnapping and religious fanaticism with a light dusting of familial dysfunction.

but...

despite the fascination, there are these solid periods of sheer confusion and others of molassesesque action.

light is shone on the trail of clues in an uneven, unmethodical fashion, so there's no way to come up with your own hypothesis, and half the fun of mystery books is trying to figure it out and then seeing if you're right at the end. a good writer can pull you along the entire time then throw in a twist or a final clue so skillfully that you don't feel bad at all for having been on the wrong track.

worst of all, though - today i heard a convenient placement of a teddy bear wearing a bell where there had been no mention of a teddy bear before. just-in-time props, characters, plot twists, settings are a pet peeve of mine, and not like a wee goldfish pet peeve. more like a feral cat pet peeve.

admittedly, the dual narrators of frantic mother and precocious-but-still-merely-8 kidnapped daughter aren't reliable. on the one hand, that could lead to just-in-time mentioning something, but on the other... well, it's simply poor writing. that or poor editing. i mean, if a writer is throwing that shit, well then the editor should catch that shit and put it in a bag.

it's definitely NOT so bad that i can't listen to it. i definitely want to finish it. it's just not as good as i had hoped.

or, is it?

#cliffhanger