i feel like less-than for not having loved it

Maybe all of that that commercial, YA, and paranormal reading has finally gotten to me.  I read Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs and didn't love it.

I hang my head in shame.

Maybe I need to give back my elitist card.

Did I find it interesting? Mostly? Engaging? I guess. Beautifully worded? Of course. A striking commentary on post-9/11 America? Yes.

But. But... For the first third of the book I did not realize that the narrative was supposed to be written by Tassie (the MC) as an older woman. So I was incredibly frustrated by how wise and mature and paced the narrative voice was. Beautiful but inappropriate to a 20 year-old. I got over that about 120 pages in, but there should have been some earlier signpost for me.

Also, I hated Tassie. And not in that way where it is fun to hate characters. In that way where I didn't give a crap about her at all. I didn't like her and so having to watch her live her life for a few hundred pages made me hate her.

The vegetation. So much description of vegetation--natural, cultivated, and cooked. You could have cut 30 pages from the book by editing down the vegetation.

So what did I like?

The stories. All three. Mary-Emma's, Reynaldo's and her brother's. They wove together beautifully. The parts of the book that really told their stories made me so happy. I sank into the book at those moments.

And now, I feel like a literary snob failure. Like having read Stephenie Meyer and Charlaine Harris and Carrie Ryan has destroyed my capacity to appreciate "real literature" (though I don't believe that). I was supposed to love this book.