I love public libraries. I love the thrill perusing the shelves gives me. I have a plethora of childhood memories of me returning a fair pile of books and then walking out a few minutes later with another pile of books. Some of them were books I’ve already read before, but at least one of them was new. Now that I’m a college student, I’m not able to go to the library as much as I when I was a kid. But this summer, I am taking liberty of my library card, which is handily dangling on my key ring.

Libraries have a variety of books available, which means that they have both good and bad literature. Last week, I had the unfortunate pleasure of picking up and starting The Living Room by Robert Whitlow. While the novel has an interesting premise of a novelist whose dreams starts becoming reality, it is not written well in the slightest. I made it through 100 pages before finally giving up (and I don’t typically give up on books). A critic’s praise on the back cover says that Whitlow has “deft sleight of hand, wonderfully characterization, and carefully layered plots.” It seems like the author of this statement didn’t actually read the book because the characters are weak and one-dimensional, the language is often cliche and exaggerated. Whitlow doesn’t have deft sleight of hand in anything. The book has a Christian message, which I’m all for, except that it is constantly shoved at the reader, so much that its holding back the plot from continuing on.

For a contrast, I also read a terrific book at the same time that I could finish: A Thread of Sky by Deanna Fei. In her novel, she tells of three generations  of women who take a tour of  China. At the center of the novel is Irene, who emigrated from China when she was young and whose husband has just died, and her three daughters who all have varying emotions toward their mother as well as secrets of their own. Joining them are Irene’s sister and mother. Through the tour, they attempt somewhat unwillingly to reconnect with each other.

The novel is separated into chapters told in each woman’s perspective. Sometimes when an author attempts this narrative of style, they have a difficult time making every voice sound different. Fei does not seem to have this struggle, though sometimes the voices did sound slightly similar at times, if only because the characters are family and share some characteristics, whether they like it or not. What I loved most about the novel was its realism. Its dialogue was realistic and the events which happened also quite realistic. Fei did not try to make every thing seem beautiful and orderly, but she somehow told her story in a lyrical and striking fashion.

An author (it might have been Mark Twain) once wrote that to be a writer, one needs to read both awful and wonderful fiction (I am paraphrasing). I wholeheartedly agree with that statement. And while I don’t want to read bad literature, I will continue to take healthy doses (small doses, hopefully) of it because it could help me improve.