today i read a shitty book

the kite runner, by khaled hosseini. well, it wasn't entirely shitty. it was just shitty in that it was written in the by-now-predictable genre of pop ethnic identity fiction, with a small dose of vague foreign politics thrown in for weight. the major characters weren't always believeable, the minor characters often flat stereotypes, and the writing was neither interesting nor beautiful. i was disappointed because it came highly recommended: my town librarian, who has known me since before i could read, told me that it was the best book she'd ever read. i thought that meant a lot coming from a librarian, but unfortunately, my estimation of the librarian has fallen. now that i think about it, the three people who recommended the book to me were all middle-aged white ladies. i hadn't thought to be a racist, ageist consumer of fiction, but it looks like maybe i should think about it, considering the genre is targeted at introducing various "foreign" cultures to some imagined, sluggish, monolithic, whitebread audience. how irritating is literature marketing?