Though this author did have some beautifully lyrical and imaginative words and phrases, I didn't care too much for this, for two reasons: it's a love story and it's not prose.

When I checked it out from the library, I didn't realize it was in poetry form. Poetry isn't usually my thing, though I do have a couple of authors I like. W.H. Auden is one of them. ( )

3.5*

This was an audiobook I picked up on a whim not knowing what it was about.

As it turns out, The Beautifully Worthless is a work of poetic fiction that describes a road trip in letters to the protagonist's girlfriend.

Unsatisfied with her life the protagonist sets out with her dog to find a town in Idaho that she has read about. On the way she ponders about her life, her expectations, her interaction with others. It's a melancholy description of her experiences and her anxieties.

If I had known what the book was about, I probably would not have picked it up. However, I was pleasantly surprised by it. In parts it reminded me of Kerouac and Ginsberg - but not in a way that describes similarity between Liebegott's work and that of the two Beats. I've never been able to get into Ginsburg. He always seemed too pompous to me. And Kerouac seemed too self-indulgent. No, the link I struck between those two and Liebegott's book was one of difference: I wish Kerouac and Ginsberg had written with the same warmth and flair as Liebegott.

Anyway, I'm curious to read another of her books. ( )