Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Why I'm Mad at My Favorite Author

I love to read. I love nothing better in the winter to curl up under a blanket, eat warm food and read a good book. My favorite author for over two decades now has been the New York Times Bestselling author- Stuart Woods.


I can remember being at my mom's work when I was about 14 reading the book Choke.


Surprisingly, I wasn't a big reader till then. My poor mother would buy me book after book because I would like the cover art and then I would never read them. That all changed the day I read Choke. I loved the book and started reading all of his books that he had out at the time. I also expanded my reading and kept going.I've read now, every Stuart Woods book that he's written including his autobiography, Blue Water, Green Skipper. That's saying a lot... definitely if you aren't into sailing.


Since I had a baby earlier in the year in February, I got a little behind on my reading and I've been playing catch up. I'm about 8 books behind in Stuart Woods books and I've been slowly catching up. I'm currently reading Indecent Exposure and I've noticed something in the last few books which started to really annoy me. Just hear me out...


The main character in his book is Stone Barrington. He started out as a NYPD police detective but took a bullet to the knee so we went to night law school, passed the bar, got a lawyer job and worked his way up from there. That's all good and well. That's a relatable kind of guy. As the books have went on, he's started become the 1% and I'm sorry but I can't relate to having lunch on a yacht with the President, Former President and the Secretary of State. I also can't relate to having half a billion dollars, private planes, houses in multiple states and a son who's a movie producer. That made me a little sad.


When I first started reading those books Stone and his main friend Dino were both down to earth, somewhat relatable characters. Dino is still a little relatable but he's become an afterthought in the books who seems just around for short phone conversations and dinner dates. What happened to the days when they were actually friends and would have good ol' capers together? I miss the old Stone Barrington who didn't have millions of dollars at his disposal, who didn't hang out with the Presidents and white house staff constantly, who went out and found himself involved in normal affairs and crazy antics.


Maybe it's a sign of the times? Is this what people want to read? About someone else being a half billionaire? I miss the old Stone and Dino. I miss Stone going out a solving crazy things that happen and getting Dino in on it. I guess nothing can ever stay the same.


I've got about 8 more books to read to be completely caught up so maybe in one of these he'll go back to being semi normal.