Being Dead

I've been so busy lately, filling out job applications and thinking about going to summer school this year. But, I've managed to finish another book. I have about three others that I'm about half way through. The one I've read completely is Being Dead by Jim Crace. After reading it, I'm not sure at all how this one managed to sneak its way onto my list. Well, I guess I actually do know. Most of the books on my list came from different websites where people suggested books that everyone MUST read. Very, very strange suggestion whoever this came from.

First, the book is SUPER graphic in its description of death and the decomposition of the body. I mean, I read a book on body farms and it didn't go into even half the detail this book did. I don't think I'll be giving too much detail away, since the title is Being Dead. The main characters in the novel are dead. You meet them as they are being murdered. But, this isn't Law and Order, so that's that with the murder. We don't hear if they ever find or catch the guy or anything. This is actually okay with me, because I'm not really too into crime novels. The story then goes to when the two main characters first met. It isn't a linear story, even from there. It goes back and forth between Joseph and Celice's meeting, death, and a few hours before their murder. Then, you have the story of their daughter thrown in for a couple of chapters.

Anyways, onto my opinion of it. I didn't really like it. It just seemed kind of forced, in a really weird way. (The weird way isn't good.) Sort of like the author thought, "Hmm, death is shocking. Let me create a story surrounded by death and make it not shocking." The book, boiled down to its barest form is a story about two boring people and their sooo crazy, outrageous, bald rebel daughter. It's not even a damn love story. These two dull as shit people meet on a marine biologist trip to a coastal city. Four guys, two girls. Of course, three of the men and one of the girls are so contrived and fake with only one thing in mind (the opposite sex, in case you didn't know). And, of course the one girl is dimwitted and bats her eyelashes at everything and has an annoying laugh and is pretty, blah blah blah. The author makes them out to be these completely horrid, fake people ("OMG, they paid for hookers") to make the irritatingly boring main characters seem good in any light. So, of course the empowered, but not as beautiful Celice ends up with the different, and not explicitly "only there for the pussy" guy, Joseph. Blah, blah: there's some prostitutes, pretty people ignoring the ugly ones, weird ass sea-crickets (or something, I don't know). During this week or whatever, Joseph and Celice fall in love (duh) and then something awful and traumatic happens that scars Celice forever.
While the author tells you this story, he goes back and mentions how Celice and Joseph are rotting, GASP, in the same place that they first had sex: on the beach, in a dune or something. They were hit in the head with a cinderblock or something like that (apologies for saying "or something" after every sentence, I can't help it) and were touching when they died. Anyways, when they get older, they drift apart a little. Joseph is neurotic, but content for the most part with his life; but, Celice is bored with everything and craves adventure still. Yeah, you probably could have guessed all this by reading the back cover. But, the secretary (who hates her boss, durr) is worried when her jerk boss doesn't show up for a meeting and calls their crazy rebel daughter who is so crazy rebellious and doesn't care. BUT, she does care and gets worried as well, quits her job, and goes and visits her parents house. I'm not going into more detail about the daughter, because, frankly (lol) she's an annoying stereotype (boring, grounded parents = crazy ass kids, especially if they're an only child), worse than the parents.
So, Celice and Joseph, right before they died, go back to the place where the traumatic event occurred, are relieved by it and then go meet their maker, on the beach dune or something (fourth time? I've said this) after having sex (which was short and passion-less, "OMG, just like their lives, but soooo different from their first time and their deaths"). Their daughter, when she finds out what happened to them, turns their death into something selfish, but then genuinely misses them, like 3/4 of a page later.

In the end, it's a story about how they were so boring in life, but weird, exciting, passionate, whatever in death. They loved each other, even though they slept in separate rooms and didn't really connect much, because Joseph touched Celice's leg when they died. Yeah, you could of wrote a short story and cut the fat. But, don't let my bitchy review sway you if you were thinking about reading it. My boyfriend loved it, but then again, he enjoys reading books like Dune and stuff (I have no idea what that could possibly mean).

I know I don't do book ratings or whatever, but this is about a 4/10. I didn't like it, duh.