Charlotte Street: A Cheap Ripoff of High Fidelity

If there were any justice in this world, someone would have called out Charlotte Street for the cheap ripoff of High Fidelity it is.

What blurred lines?

Unfortunately, there is no justice. Instead we have people saying that Danny Wallace was "influenced" by High Fidelity, or "drew inspiration" from it, or that Charlotte Street is "reminiscent" of High Fidelity. But believe you me, this is a cheap ripoff if I ever saw one. If this were a song, it would be on Rob From High Fidelity's List of Five Hit Songs That Were Cheap Ripoffs of Genius Originals.

Charlotte Street isn't even a clever cover or reimagining like Clueless (Emma), or 10 Things I Hate About You (Taming of the Shrew), or Arctic Monkey's cover of Drake's Going 
Home, or anything by Weird Al; no, it's just a cheap ripoff, like My Sweet Lord, or Blurred Lines, or Led Zeppelin's entire catalogue (let's see if anyone is actually reading this). The damned book even has the same "twists" as High Fidelity. What it doesn't have that High Fidelity does is insight, wit, character development, and excellent writing; and what it does have that High Fidelity doesn't is two-dimensional characters, a pointless road trip, a stupid scene at a wedding, and a pat happy ending.

If the book had been tremendously good or spectacularly bad, I may not have regretted buying it, but it's a mediocre book that appears to have been written for the purpose of being made into a movie script. It has all the depth and charm of The Help, but with less suspense because you've already read this book.

Charlotte Street angers me more and more as I think about it. I wish I could ask for my money back.