A New York Magazine blog took a stab at revitalizing the book review with a new feature this week, the Vulture Reading Room.
Led by New York book critic, Sam Anderson, the feature has five literary folks take shots at the same book. The inaugural feature ponders Charlotte Roche’s scandalous novel “Wetlands,” which Anderson dubbed “the most obscene book club [book] in the long history of book clubbing.”
Here’s more from novelist Kate Christensen, one of the five reviewers: “I wanted to find it hilarious, transgressive, honest, and interesting, but I can barely force myself to go on reading it. I’m stuck on page 141. Not because I’m squeamish, which I am not in any way, but because it’s so searingly awful, as you’ve all already and very eloquently and hilariously pointed out: tawdry, pointless, boring, badly written … eccch.”