Yong (4/26): The Quality of Life Report by Meghan Daum

This book had so much potential. Meghan Daum is my favorite columnist at the LA Times. I love Nebraska. And the fantasy of leaving the big city and moving to one of the small towns I've driven through is one I've, if not considered seriously, at least entertained on numerous occasions, wondered if I had it in me to pull it off. So a novel by Daum in which the protagonist does just that sounded like money in the bank. Honey, this check bounced like a bad perm on the moon.

I started this book in Michigan and forcing myself through it's uncompelling pages still saw me finishing it in Canada, not far from the A&P in the picture where I went grocery shopping with my friends in Brampton, Ontario. My supposed book binge was monkey-wrenched by characters so uniformly implausible they weren't people so much as caricatures of stereotypes of people. The last forty (of 307) pages were good. But the rest...I can't fathom how a writer of such intelligent, witty, perceptive, and deeply human columns could fall so, so flat.

So forget the book. But do check out her columns (http://www.meghandaum.com/latimes_column_2008.htm).