Night of Many Dreams, by Gail Tsukiyama (1998)
Here is an unusual thing: a book I thought I liked while I was reading it--but it turned out I was mistaken.
I kept reading this book about two sisters, despite some made-for-TV dialogue ("You gave them direction, but they've had to find their own way. We all do.") and some overworked writing (too many adjectives, too many adverbs, trying too hard to use "interesting" words), because I thought I was interested in the stories of their lives. Toward the end it occurred to me we weren't going anywhere that hadn't been clear from the very beginning. And when the story ended, I wondered why it had even been written.
Him, Her, Him Again, The End of Him, by Patricia Marx (2007)
It is immediately clear that this book is written by someone who considers herself very witty indeed and has been told far too often by friends and relatives that she's so funny. The humor is forced into every line, until I wished the author would stop trying so hard and just write some plot for a change, or perhaps write a character who wasn't a highly unlikable caricature.
Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers, by Amy Stewart (2007)
After reading this book about the flower industry, I liked flowers more and also less than before. On one hand, the author pushes aside the marketed symbolism to show us the profitable product beneath--and she reveals the various poisons and unpleasant working conditions and deceptions that go into a bouquet. On the other hand, the author loves flowers, and the way she describes them makes me love them too. By the time I finished the book, I wanted more flowers in the house--and also didn't.
I had a few gripes about the sections where we are made to feel bad about the mistreatment of flower industry employees. She mentioned the salary of a worker in another country, putting the amount in U.S. dollars without saying how much that would be in the other country (clearly people are not able to pay rent and groceries on $6/day, so surely a U.S. dollar pays for more there than it does here). BUT--I so appreciated the way the author presents the point of view that the consumer is not in charge of working conditions, the employer is. A consumer might choose to take such issues into consideration when choosing where to spend money, but it is not the consumer's responsibility to puchase health insurance or police sexual harrassement.
I thought this was a great, thorough study of all the issues surrounding flowers, and I don't know how she made it so interesting considering how informative it was.