Some books are Toilet Books. As in, you read them while on the toilet but not so much when you’re not. Sure, you only get in a few pages at a time, but Toilet Books aren’t hefty, mind-altering volumes but light reading in both form and content — young adult fiction, in particular, works well.
Toilet Books from 2010 have thus far included Le Guin’s Gifts and Voices, that dude from Franz Ferdinand’s Sound Bites, The Phantom Tollbooth, and, now, Till We Have Faces. Lewis might seem like a stranger author to take into the toilet, but Till We Have Faces is one of my least favourite books of his — as in, I dropped it a few years ago after I couldn’t even hit the halfway mark (but my least favourite Lewis is hands down his science fiction trilogy).
I picked it up again during my crazy-but-very-minimal book purge and clean out over the weekend and decided that, considering that I hadn’t been crazy about it before, it would be my next Toilet Book. Maybe the years have changed my mind or maybe it’s just easier to swallow in four-five page chunks, but I’m enjoying it more than I did the first time around. And, now, I’ve no idea where it’s gone …
Yeahhh …
Speaking of The Phantom Tollbooth, though: The Phantom Tollbooth is a story I vaguely remember from childhood; I remember seeing the animated film and being rather confused; and, somehow, in one way or another, the book filtered into my consciousness a few months ago. I finally picked it up a few weeks ago and started reading it, and I have to admit that I was disappointed in the same way I am with a lot of young adult fiction (which is one reason why I avoid YA fiction in general).
The Phantom Tollbooth was primed with potential as a concept and stuffed to the brim with clever ideas and plays on words. It could have been amazing, brilliant even, but I felt like it walked down the trap that a lot of well conceptualised young adult fiction does and failed to deliver, only barely grazing its strengths and pulling itself down as though to be better understood and appreciated by a younger audience. Of course, these are only my thoughts, but it’s a disappointment I come across consistently in high concept young people books I actually pick up to read (i.e. City of Ember).
The only young adult books I thoroughly enjoyed and weren’t disappointed by where the Uglies series by Westerfeld. Of course, they had their weak points, but, overall, I’ve never been so engrossed by young adult fiction as I was when I was basically absorbing the Uglies series — pity that Peeps wasn’t nearly as good. I hear Leviathan is good, though, even better than Uglies, so I suppose I shall be checking that one out soon.
Maybe I’ll have to fall back on Leviathan as my Toilet Book if Till We Have Faces doesn’t pop up soon … although, if Westerfeld delivers, Leviathan will be taken quickly off the Toilet Books shelf, and I’ll be needing another Toilet Book again …