Column: ‘Blind dating’ books doesn’t go as planned

WCC’s Bailey Library hosted “Blind Date with a Book” leading up to Valentine’s Day. Willow Symonds

By Willow Symonds
Staff Writer

As an avid reader, I made sure to take advantage of the Bailey Library’s “Blind Date with a Book,” even though romance is not my genre. Still, the point of a blind date is for new experiences, right?
And if those experiences themselves don’t become cherished memories, at least they’ll make for good stories. Over the course of a week, I checked out three paper-wrapped books, knowing nothing but the teaser hints tagged onto the front. Here’s how each blind date went.

First date: ‘Warm Bodies’ by Isaac Marion (2011), where “a zombie yearns for a better life.”

I originally thought the ‘zombie’ mentioned in the tag might be metaphorical – but no, the walking corpse of a man really IS looking for love.

Isaac Marion isn’t the first author to retell Romeo and Juliet with a supernatural twist, which isn’t even much of a ‘twist’ anymore. It became its own cliche not long after Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight” came out in 2005.

I’ve met too many paranormal-romance novels that used the genre as nothing but a marketing gimmick, and I worried “Warm Bodies” would suffer from the same problem. I’m happy to report that this book mostly stands on its own. The world felt fully realized, and the characters had actual arc progressions beyond “fall in love.”

Even if the writing and the story takes itself too seriously at times, it doesn’t make fun of itself for existing, either, which is another route this type of book often goes in. I didn’t fall in love with “Warm Bodies,” but I’d be happy to go on another date sometime (AKA, watching the 2013 movie adaptation).

Favorite quote: “Deep under our feet Earth holds its molten breath, while the bones of countless generations watch us and wait” (page 205), as this feels uniquely worded and shows why I mostly enjoyed the writing.

Weirdest moment: The skeleton army felt like villains from a superhero comic. This story doesn’t seem to care too much about why zombies really exist other than sending the reader messages about human greed… and then “skellys” pop out from time to time and make everyone theorize about extraterrestrial influence.

Second date: ‘On Love’ by Luc Ferry (2013), with “a new way to look at love.”

Most people desperately try to find at least one thing in common with their blind date. In this case, I didn’t need to look too hard to find that connection.

If I hadn’t taken Philosophy 101 last semester, I would’ve gone running for the hills of my normal fiction reads as soon as I’d slogged through the Introduction. Luckily, I went into this date knowing I’d at least have SOMETHING in common with this modern French philosopher.

Many people consider political and religious talk a first date no-no, but I appreciate knowing people’s core values right away instead of being blind-sided by extremist views after proposing marriage.

I’d assumed the author’s philosophy would mostly touch on romantic love.

Instead, I read entire chapters about why French children are struggling in schools and why the author hates modern art (it’s because snobs call it “beautiful” when the artists only meant for it to be subversive and ugly). The passages themselves weren’t uninteresting, but I kept thinking, “Huh, I wasn’t expecting to read this on Valentine’s Day.”

I doubt I ever would’ve picked this book up on my own accord, so I’m glad the library chose it for me. I could pat myself on the back every time I understood what he meant by “Kantian ethics,” and if I’m not falling in love this February, I might as well remind myself how great I am at memorizing random trivia.

Favorite quote: “The revolution of love is also an ethical and political revolution” (page 82), which summarizes why our values have changed so much in the past few centuries.

Weirdest moment: Every time the author’s friend Claude Capelier interrupted his stream of consciousness, which felt like when your date’s friend pulls up a chair at your two-person table, joins the conversation, and never leaves.

Third date: ‘The Prudence of Love: How Possessing the Virtue of Love Benefits the Lover’ by Eric J. Silverman (2010), full of “short stories examining lives of suburbanites seeking solace and gratification.”

I unwrapped the last book almost a week after Valentine’s Day, expecting slice-of-life fiction that could be really pretentious but could also have some great short stories. Instead, I greeted a… philosophy textbook?

The table of contents didn’t show anything fictional or suburban.

“Am I being catfished?” I thought. “Can a book catfish someone?”

With each line I skimmed in the first few pages, my eyes glazed over, probably trying to save my brain cells from death by boredom.

I did the literary equivalent of having an epiphany while sitting across from my blind date and saying, “I’m so sorry for wasting your time, but I think there’s been a mistake – your cover art is cool, though,” and then rushing out of there, back to campus, to the library where “The Prudence of Love” belongs.

Sure, Feb. 14 may have passed, but could they still have their booth available? Maybe I could correct this mistake and finally find my written soulmate, or at least find the book I expected for this third date. If this collection of short stories was stuck with a label calling it a “boring ethics book that has never left the library,” then maybe I could be its knight in shining armor and rescue it from its wrongful imprisonment.

I rushed through the doors like an ex crashing a wedding before the love of their life is gone forever, only to find the pink-adorned table… no longer there. No more fairy lights, no more lollipops. Only a dim, empty space where something brighter should be, much like the void in my chest I attempted to fill with romance novels – to no avail.

Either way, “The Prudence of Love” has an almost perfect rating on Goodreads, even if only two people rated it such, so I guess there really is someone for everyone.