How do you feel about books written in "verse"?

[SuperReaderGirl]

I recently finished To be Perfectly Honest: A Novel Based on an Untrue Story by Sonya Sones (it's YA contemporary fiction - the title caught my eye on the shelf in the library) and really enjoyed it. It's not the first novel I've read that was written in verse and was not the best example for verse novels, but it got me thinking about how they're written and why I do enjoy them. The writing, in this particular book, could easily have been written in regular paragraphs. The sentences were mostly full sentences and the words not particularly poetic, it was just their position on the page that was different. It made the words feel different somehow as I took them in. They had more weight to them somehow and hit my mind more poignantly as I read.

Anyone else have any experience reading novels in verse? Thoughts?

 

[Peder]

Hi SRG,
Actually I'm intrigues by stories written in verse.
I have read a number of the ancient classics in poetic verse and, though they take a little getting used to, I have found the stories themselves very interesting, even if conveyed in a different format. I think it may be that straight narrative is best for moving the action along and describing what happens; while a verse form, with its more flexible sentence structure and parsing (meaning long run-on thoughts, for example) might fit more easily with describing overall scenes where many details or thoughts need to be collected in one place. The verse form, at least when I attempt it, seems more appropriate to conversational modes of expressing thoughts. But, these are just one persons's thoughts, and shooting somewhat from the hip.
The book you mention sounds intriguing in itself and I'm going to see about downloading it or, at least, adding it to my TBR list. Glad to see your YA recommendation.
Cheers

PS Looking at the first few pages definitely confirms my interest. I think I have a few others around here in same style -- unread, so far, of course
Many thanks!

 

[SuperReaderGirl]

Hi SRG,
Actually I'm intrigues by stories written in verse.
I have read a number of the ancient classics in poetic verse and, though they take a little getting used to, I have found the stories themselves very interesting, even if conveyed in a different format. I think it may be that straight narrative is best for moving the action along and describing what happens; while a verse form, with its more flexible sentence structure and parsing (meaning long run-on thoughts, for example) might fit more easily with describing overall scenes where many details or thoughts need to be collected in one place. The verse form, at least when I attempt it, seems more appropriate to conversational modes of expressing thoughts. But, these are just one persons's thoughts, and shooting somewhat from the hip.
The book you mention sounds intriguing in itself and I'm going to see about downloading it or, at least, adding it to my TBR list. Glad to see your YA recommendation.
Cheers

PS Looking at the first few pages definitely confirms my interest. I think I have a few others around here in same style -- unread, so far, of course
Many thanks!

I'm so glad you're finding a book I read interesting! To Be Perfectly Honest is definitely not the best example of verse writing, it just struck me as interesting how differently I would have read the book had the words been positioned differently on the pages.

Keep in mind that a lot of verse novels are deeply emotional and can be extremely sad, but so far, of the verse novels I've read, my favorites have been
Glimpse by Carol Lynch Williams
The Day Before by Lisa Schroeder
I Heart You, You Haunt Me by Lisa Schroeder
The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson (This book isn't all verse, but has small bits of verse/prose interspersed throughout the story written by the main character)

What are the verse novels you have around waiting to be read, Peder?

 

[Peder]

Hi SRG,
Actually this has been a fairly miscellaneous month regarding poetry.
To Be Perfectly Honest is still waiting on the wish list. Oh shame!
OTOH I did read By Grand Central Terminal I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart. Prose poetry, at least. Doomed love and sad story.
Just today I have been looking at Coney Island of The Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Collected poems, very uneven. But The Long Street was quite appealing.
I've also been browsing poets looking for the poems that stand out in my memory, for inclusion on my blog thread. Just a few more to locate.
But the several Ellen Hopkins we have are still on the shelves somewhere, I know not where. Yet.
All of that has served as sort of miscellaneous relaxation, plus some writing, after finishing The Map Thief by Michael Blanding.

From which I guess I am not averse to poetry. Or to narrative in verse style either.
Will start getting to the Hopkins, and at least order To Be Perfectly Honest. Sometime.
None of the others you mention are familiar to me.

 

[Peder]

SuperReaderGirl, I finally got around to reading an excerpt from To Be Perfectly Honest on Kindle. I had thought to buy it, but the price suggested I look at the sample first. It certainly has a different twist for a novel which, in fact, left my willingness to suspend disbelief completely hacked to shreds. But the story line (more like an anti-novel) did not leave me with curiosity enough to pay the high asking price for a kindle book. Sonya Sones has other novels, and they may have been sufficiently well received for this one to ask a higher price ($9.78). But not from this reader. Sorry.

 

[SuperReaderGirl]

No worries! I wouldn't pay that for an e-book either, and borrow most of the things I read from the library.