1. You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead by Marike Hardy.

I think my project in 2012 will be to record all the books I read in a year. I've always wanted to do that. I think I'll do it here. I was going to do it on Facebook, but I think that might piss people off. I burned through a lot of Facebook social capital last year harassing people to vote for some baby photos in a competition. Sorry, world. This way, I can also write a little something (if I so choose) about my book as well.

Over Christmas I read Gimme Shelter by Mary Elizabeth Williams and The Secret Life of France by Lucy Wadham, but I can't quite remember if I finished in them in the new year, or earlier.

The first book I definitely started and finished in 2012 was You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead by Marike Hardy. It was not great. She's a pretty hacky, clichéd writer, and her stories just irritated me so much. She has a habit of frequently using two sentence structures that I really dislike. One is so describe something, usually a person or group of people doing something, by writing a short sentence that includes two, sort of, typical but unconnected actions, viz, her friends as uncaring stoners: "We opened another beer and turned our backs to the water" (p 240). The other is to describe something (usually a person) by saying they are "all" something, viz, herself as a fourteen year old: "all hotpants and teetering teenage platform shoes" (p 88); her muso mates: "all skinny denim and Beatle boots from Rocco" (p 233); a young footballer: "all stick arms and milky-spindle legs" (p 84).

Look, here's both kinds together! The Fitzroy Lions: "They moved as a pack, all fleshy arrogance and pride. They slapped each other's arses and spat on the grass" (p 83).

That second one is used fairly frequently in blogs- especially fashion blogs- as a short hand way of creating an impression of a person or style, which I get under the pressure of online writing. But jeez, it annoys me in edited, published work. I think I first encountered it in Maggie Alderson's column for the Herald a bit over ten years ago.

Mostly I disliked YBSWID because of my irritation with the character of Marieke Hardy. The chapter where she described three years as a groupie for the band Dallas Crane ("The Bubble") was the worst. I just kept wanting to say "how OLD are you?" It is not cute to be a groupie in your thirties. A little googling leads me to believe the end of the Bubble was about 2007. Maybe 2009. And she was born in 1976. So she was maybe aged 31 or 33 by the end? Either way, far too bloody old. That behaviour is for 20 year olds. Stop being sad.

Her front cover coy side-eye, miserable little boudoir pics in the back cover, and that dreadful, cultivated "fun-feminist" ironic stripper thing she's doing I also find very grim and unappealing.

Or maybe I'm just a grumpy old square with no idea of how to live a bohemian life. A grumpy old square who probably shouldn't read from the "blogs into books" genre.

Let me try something marginally more serious next time. I should warn however, that if anyone ever reads this, I promise to be honest, and if you think of me as a smart person, you will be astounded at the crap I read.