Instant Gratification, Thy Name Is Kindle

Despite the literally 20 books-to-read I have at my bedside, I still look at bookstores. And I spotted this book right here "Allison Hewitt is Trapped: A Zombie Novel" by Madeline Roux. The back of the book explained that this was a book about a blog written by a graduate student that got trapped in the breakroom of the bookstore she worked in when the midden (zombies) struck the windmill (everything else).The various blog entries have comments from other survivors and it's that format that holds the whole thing together. But I get ahead of myself. I'm still in the bookstore. I look at the price: it's $29.95. That's too much to conscience considering I won't have a job in the week. So I use Google Goggles on my phone to search it, to be told it's not available to have on Kindle in Australia. Bugger. So I get home, have a quick search of torrent sites. No luck. I try Amazon again and suddenly I'm allowed to buy it in Kindle form. Go figure. $9.35. Sold.

Then I sat up until 2am reading it. It's that gripping. Having worked in a big chain bookstore, I could imagine that backroom with such detail that I suspected the author might have spent some time in Borders Bondi.

I can't spoil much, as like I said, the book ain't done. But something's bugging me. It's something I've noticed when other writers with have a character, in-story, decide to record what's happening, be it with a journal, or a blog, or a recording, or something: the writing style doesn't change. It should, really. A character commiting things to paper/computer will write differently from a fiction author painting a scene. The description might be toned down, word use might retreat to bare facts, instead or reporting word-for-word what someone said in quotations, it should be reported like "we discussed it, then moved on", etc. This book doesn't read like a blog:

it reads like a book. Because of this, I actually I find the initially-interesting blog format to be constraining. Would a character REALLY write down a hallucination-like dream in such detail in the middle of a life-or-death struggle? Oh no, our character is in danger and I'm really in the moment! Oh, wait. It's going to be okay, otherwise how would she blog it?

So yeah. Stuff like that keeps pulling me out of the story. But I like it, and will finish it.

also there is a cat named Sugar who keeps jumping up in front of the keyboard and blocking the keys with his tail and no matter how many times you sling a cat against a wall it never really stuns 'em does it