A number of people (okay, nobody, but zero is a number, and if it isn't it should be) have contacted me to ask if War And Peace were nominated for a Quill Book Award in the Teen/Young Adult category, as Life As We Knew It is, which one would be more likely to win.
Not having read both of these books, and thus freed from the obligation of using literary merit as a criterion, I will employ the same highly objective system, previously demonstrated in blogs just past, to determine the answer.
Number Of Amazon Reviews
Currently War And Peace has 276 Amazon reviews, while Life As We Knew It has 28. So on the face of it, War And Peace wins in that category.
But wait! War And Peace was published in 1869, while Life As We Knew It was published in 2006. So War And Peace has had 137 years to accumulate reviews on Amazon, while sweet innocent Life As We Knew It has had less than a year.
Dividing 276 by 137, one sees that War And Peace is averaging a mere 2 reviews a year, while Life As We Knew It is averaging 28. Thus, 137 years from now, one can assume that Life As We Knew It will have 3836 Amazon reviews, while poor little War And Peace will be limping along with a mere 552 reviews.
Length of Book
Life As We Knew It is 337 pages long. War And Peace is 1424 pages long.
However, the primary reason why War And Peace is so long is because of the names of the characters, Ivan Ivanisovich Junior and Napolean Napoleanovich The First. But the characters in Life As We Knew It, Matt, Mom, Jon, and I, all have very short names.
Through the miracles of modern computers, I changed all the characters' names in War And Peace to Matt. Having done so, War And Peace is now 297 pages long, making it a little harder to follow the plot, but much more desirable for book reports.
The Misery And Suffering Quotient
Listed in the order of misery and suffering:
The Mattonic Wars plus some unhappy serfs (War And Peace)
Tsunamis and earthquakes and volcanos and epidemics and not having a date for the prom (Life As We Knew It)
Ha! I win again!!
Be sure to tune in next time when Life As We Knew It takes on the tag team of Madame Bovary and The Winston-Salem North Carolina Yellow Pages!
5 comments:
LOL "War and Peace"---jeezzzzzzzz Sue, can't wait to read what your next piece is about. I am so fortunate to actually know this witty, witty lady and she has me in stitches all the time.
The mystery of Bittersweet is solved. Ask your computer programmer what it was all about.
Charlie Brown missed out on the New Year's Eve Party which was attended by the Little Red Haired Girl, because he had to read War and Peace for a book report. Now THAT was a tragedy. He shoulda picked one of your books.
But War and Peace did not win the Quill (too long!) and we hope that LAWKI does! Red Carpet events are way cool!
The mystery of Bittersweet is solved. Ask your computer programmer what it was all about.
What Mystery?
What is Miranda's last name in Life as we knew it?
-a big fan
Does mom have a real name? Also what is the familys last names?? Love this book and doing a report on it that is due tomorrow. Heellpp mee!
Post a Comment