read for NEWTs 2019 readathon: Defence Against the Dark Arts, A - a book that is black under the dust jacket

Here's the thing: I thought [b:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|386162|The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)|Douglas Adams|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1559986152l/386162._SX50_.jpg|3078186] was just alright and not my cup of tea. I also don't care about Eurovision. So no matter how much I adore Cat Valente's writing, this book was just out of my wheel house.

People who love this book - I get it! Valente is an incredible writer and she really gets to flex her satire and humor in this book. I laughed out loud at a lot of the various observations and mocking of humanity! The book is kind of goofy but sincere and it has so much heart.

The problem is the book is like... 80% gobbledy-gook. The writing structure of this book was just long paragraphs of run-on sentences describing events that happened in space in the past to inform the reader the background of what to know while also making fun of our world with jokes and humor but the sentence just kept going on with all these alien names and planets being dropped like it's no big deal up it's hard to keep track of and then your eyes glaze over and you're wondering did I even really read this paragraph because oh my word there is so much going on in this and how is this sentence still possibly happening?

And then, one quick sentence with a pithy thought.

And repeat. Over and over.

This book exhausted me. I missed out on the fun whimsy I experienced in with the Fairyland series which is still one of my favorites. I think this is just a miss for me, and I will still love Cat Valente and read more of her works.

Just not books that take so blatantly after Douglas Adams.