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I am pilgrim - Terry Hayes - help me bs my way through bookclub tomorrow night - please

8 replies

bigmouthstrikesagain · 03/09/2014 14:31

I run a bookclub - and tomorrow we are meeting after a long gap to discuss 'I am Pilgrim' - I agreed to this book as it was suggested by another member and I thought it about time the suggestions came from someone else and I have had it sitting on my tablet all summer - completely unable to get into it.

I am listening to it now as an audiobook version and it is just as bad as I feared... anyway I will do my best to listen/ read as much as possible before tomorrow evening but as it is 700 pages I may not finish.

It is exactly just the sort of book I hate - procedural, overly descriptive, detached and about international espionage and sex tinged crime... starting with a pornographic description of the murder of a woman that shock horror was done by another woman!!! meh... just cannot care about it. Blah blah book club is about getting out of your comfort zone blah blah but I don't wanna read it!

But as it is 'my' book club - in that I thought of it, run the fb page etc. etc. I feel obliged to read the books Hmm how do I bs having read it while skimming the last 50% in reality most likely...? Any ideas gratefully received any good ways to slate the book while not offending all the book club members who have read it and are already raving about it also desperately needed... help!

OP posts:
Stokey · 03/09/2014 15:50

The things that really annoyed me about it were:

Racial stereotyping - all Turks are lazy, all Arabs are terrorists
Bodrum is some sort of Turkish Monaco
Part of the story relies on a Mediterranean low tide - no tides in the Med
The main character is humourless and arrogant
Torture is fine by the US, not by other races

The murder story at the start is just incidental but gets brought back in in a series of implausible coincidences and while "solved" is not satisfactorily explained.

SPOILER

The one woman he talks to in Turkey is the woman he needs to find, the terrorist's sister.

I wasn't a fan either Grin

MarmosetMum · 23/09/2014 15:58

I know this thread is old but was wondering what the book club thought. I just finished it and hated it. I knew it wasn't going to be highbrow but jeez Dan Brown looks good after this.

The stereotyping was spectacular though I suppose it was written from the PoV of a character that would think like that but as a reader it was just nauseating...

Comito · 28/09/2014 17:44

Um, I just finished it and I utterly loved it. The points raised above are valid to an extent but I thought it was a great read.

BOFster · 30/09/2014 10:09

It was good as a schlocky thriller, but I'm really glad you brought up those points- I read it after finding nothing but solid reviews EVERYWHERE, and wondered if it was just me. If you'd get excited about a loooong James Bond film, this is perfect. I'm just surprised not to have read any serious reviewers even muttering about the West Is Best sabre-rattling, and the utter lack of character development: once radicalised, the one-dimensional "Saracen" moves through years of life events like qualifying as a doctor without ever modifying his views or developing any kind of compassion.

It rattled along at a cracking pace though, and I'm struggling to find my next book as a consequence because although I want a palate-cleanser and a complete change of genre, I'm finding it hard to engage with anything slower and more cerebral at the moment.

Comito · 01/10/2014 11:40

BOF, I've just started reading Sarah Waters' The Paying Guests. Very different pace.

BOFster · 02/10/2014 18:38

I rather fancy that one, thanks. I've got it on watch to catch it when the price drops, cheers.

AndIFeedEmGunpowder · 03/10/2014 18:53

Totally agree with the above points but I couldn't put it down. Blush. I do get excited by James Bond thrillers though.

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 04/10/2014 18:42

Oh I just say 'bloody hell, that was a crap book, I couldn't get into it at all' at my book clubGrin

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