The Reading Promise

Well, that was a dud. I have been a fan of memoirs when I started reading books by the likes of David Sedaris, who could be funny and insightful at the same time. When I saw that there was a book about a girl who goes on a reading journey with her father, I was intrigued. It started off great, initially, with the father advocating for reading to your children every night. Yet, despite a strong first five minutes, this audiobook descended into mediocrity fast.

The first problem was the two leads. I never felt any warmth between them, with a writing style that featured unrealistic dialogue and an odd cadence to the sentences. At times, it felt like this was written by a kid, not an adult exploring the nostalgia of childhood. The father and the daughter seem to know each other well, as one would expect, but it feels like we are told this instead of shown it in the worst way possible. Sedaris, for example, would have a brother or sister say something that turned out to be funny, then provide an explanation, or insight into the character of the sibling that would show why they said or did the funny thing. Here we have no such skill, and the scenes where Alice and her father bond comes off as forced and childish.

Then there is the books premise versus delivery. One would think, with a story like this, where the father and daughter reading every night non stop for over 1000 nights, it would be interesting, and that there could be some stories with nice tie in to the book they were reading. This does not happen. We get only a random quote at the beginning of a story that may or may not be easily identifiable with the story that will proceed it. Say for example, we get a quote from a Hardy Boys book when she is seven, and then something from a YA novel when she is a teenager. But the problem is they choose the least obvious quotes to attach a story to. This means that if the reader is not familiar with the book, then they will not know how this random quote matches to the scene in question. If this were about more on the nose, such as how she used a specific story she had read or was reading, I might have cared, but that often came and went so quickly in terms of a reference, it was like if you blinked, you missed it. This made the whole premise seem like a moot point at best, and a terrible excuse for a memoir at worst.

Overall, this story simply did not engage me. It didn't offer me any nostalgia of childhood or reading. If it weren't for that it should have been able to be funny like Sedaris, in such a way that, because his life can be shown as so different from mine, I can laugh at the odd experiences he finds. This didn't happen here either. Despite the beginning five minutes, where the father advocates for a reading household, and reading to your child, it was uninteresting. I give it a two out of five. Get it from the library, along with another book you want to read. That way, if you get bored with this, you can go to the other one.