Not in a hierarchical way

But I DO have standards. And by "not hierarchical" I mean, my standards are not higher than someone else's, or lower, or whatever. They're just mine, see?

For instance I'll never read a Dan Brown book because a Trusted Resource told me they are incredibly badly written, along the lines of the Left Behind series, one of which I actually read once but it was because I was teaching a class called Heaven and Hell, okay? It was for work!

Oh good golly those books are so very very badly written. YIKES.

So anyway.

On the other hand, I read and adore a lot of things that your standard judger of literary quality wouldn't maybe find so very high on the list. Also I might punch out a judger of literary quality who said bad things about Meg Cabot or, I don't know, Stargate Atlantis. Which I realize is a tv show, but it's the same thing, see?

Here are my standards:

1) Things have to happen. I cannot stress this enough. There has to be a STORY. You have to be able to tell WHAT THE STORY IS. In Everything Is Illuminated, there is *definitely* a story. Chaucer rocks the story. (Shakespeare, not so much. Story-challenged, that guy.) In Stargate Atlantis episodes, there is definitely a story. Meg Cabot is an absolute master of the story. And so on!

2) The language/writing/style can't HURT. By which I mean, the writing style doesn't have to be elevated or fancy--I am a huge fan of accessible style--but it can't be bad. BOY is that a hard thing to get across to people sometimes. Left Behind? Accessible, yet so bad it hurts. Everything Is Illuminated? Accessible, glorious, rich, delicious, beautiful. Meg Cabot? Accessible, hilarious, fast-paced, sharp-tongued, brilliant. Stargate Atlantis? Accessible, funny, stressful, dramatic, heartbreaking, sarcastic, fantastic.

3) Characters you love. Even if you love to hate them, or want to smack them upside the head. You engage with them, one way or another. If your character is defined by his or her clothes, just stop right there. Yikes.

4) Ideas! Big ideas that you can really wrestle with and think about. If the author can wrap up the big idea with the story itself, oh boy, brilliant! As in, you are forced to decide what you think about the big idea because that is tied up in what you want to happen in the story. And the jackpot is when you really care about the big idea because it's what the character you're totally engaged with has to decide in order to resolve the big story. With awesome writing style! Yeah! Wooooooo!

There. That's all I want. Is that so much to ask?

Actually I came here to post a link to Maureen Johnson's play by play of the latest Dan Brown book, because it's so good and so brilliantly funny I couldn't NOT share it with someone.

You can tell just from the outline that this is a terrible, terrible, terrible book. Good heavens. But as soon as I thought that, I had to go and define what makes a GOOD book, or how much of a cheat is that? You can't just barge around making huge judgy statements like that without explaining yourself and backing it up. Hello!

So there you go!

Soon I will come back and stomp around and yell about Little, Big, the book that is making me so mad right now. Because a) there is no story whatsoever, and b) fairies and elves and mystical whatnot, man. If I'd known, I never would have cracked this cover open. Sure it's full of gorgeous writing but that is NOT ENOUGH.

Oh, I started stomping early. Well, sometimes it can't be contained. Raaaaaar!