A Disappointing Week for TV and Books

Well, this has been a disappointing week on the TV and book front.

Castle had so much potential this week and there were a couple of funny moments, like when the old lady said she’d shoot the pretty one first and Esposito and Ryan both looked at each other like, hmmm . . . which one of us is the pretty one? And the tiger was a surprise. But the ending was so well-worn with the Beckett tease and no forward movement in the relationship. It’s like they’re just recycling parts of scripts we’ve seen before. Move it along, people!

Hawaii Five-O did the same thing--we just saw the re-run of the Nick Lachey episode last week and this was pretty much a script recycle of that one. Kids kidnapped, running against time trying to get the ransom, then a happy reunion at the end with the kids/parents. Bo-ring. Seen it. And there wasn’t even any funny banter to counteract the boring. *sigh*

Usually when there’s nothing to catch my interest on TV I can always lose myself in a book, but the two books I started this week were also a disappointment. The first one starts out with a conversation between a brother and a sister. A boring one. I kept reading, thinking it would get better, but this conversation went on forever and was just as boring on page six as it was on page one. Although that did make it easy to put it down and start another book.

My hopes were high for the next book, and it had come recommended, but the beginning chapter was more or less a history lesson, which seriously put me to sleep. I love it when I learn something from a book I’ve read, but usually that has to be woven into the story and not just paragraph after paragraph of research that the author liked and wanted to put in as background. Especially in the first chapter. It was a real testimony to me in the value of hooks. Hook me as a reader so I will keep reading, because when your first chapter is boring, and I have to slog through it, more than likely I will put it down and may or may not come back to it.

Are you guys reading anything good that you can recommend? Any fun Christmas stories out there?