Beautiful Ruins: DNF

I'm really not sure by what standard Fresh Air's Maureen Corrigan judged Jess Walter's 2012 novel a "literary miracle," but not only did I not find it to be a literary miracle, I didn't even think it was particularly literary.

I found the characters flat and insipid, and the writing, as my friend Mary Ellen noted, like the binding of the book itself, tawdry.

The form, which many reviewers find avant-garde, felt slap-dash, and using Richard Burton and Liz Taylor as characters seemed just lazy.

I didn't finish it. Life's too short.