(no subject)
First of all: quick reminder for the people who are interested in 
fma_ladyfest but have not yet gotten around to signing up, the deadline is in one (1) week! SO MANY AWESOME PROMPTS ALREADY, so little time to go back to the sign-up post and spend all my day admiring them. Oh, the hardships of modding.
Second of all: here is a booklog that is very difficult, because how on earth do you talk about Holly Black's Red Glove without spoiling all of White Cat? I mean, the second book is all about the consequences and fallout of what happens in the first book, and the consequences and fallout and twisty issues of ethics and identity and loyalty are handled I think extremely well - I can say that much at least. And I can reiterate, in general terms, how fascinating this world of curse workers is - where being a memory-worker means that every time you charm someone else's memory you lose a little bit of your own, where being an emotion-worker means that if you work somebody else not only are your own emotions unstable, but you can never, ever be sure how they really feel about you. I said this in my review of White Cat too, but I love how much these books question identity. If a human being is made up of their memories and their emotions, then after those things have been messed with, can you call any part of their personality 'real'?
But this is still not saying anything new about Red Glove as opposed to White Cat. Family and friendships are still as complicated as you would expect when they involve extensive memory and emotion work, with associated trust issues, and also, the Mafia! Murders are still usually not what they look like! Cassel's school friends, Sam the cheesy-special-effects nerd and Danica the idealistic hippie, continue to be my personal favorites, and Cassel continues to be totally perplexed about how to deal with them! This book series continues to be one of the best I have read in the past year!
This book didn't feel as twisty to me as the last book - none of the pieces of the murder plot were particularly a shock, they fell into place fairly logically, though I will admit to believing Lila was Philip's murderer for a bit at the very beginning before the 'reveal' early on made it obvious that she couldn't be - but then, I don't think it needed to be a twisty book. As I said above, this is a book about fallout, and it dealt with that very carefully and well.
The one thing that did surprise me is the reveal about Danica, because of course we're set up to think that Sam and Danica are going to be relatively reliable constants to contrast against Cassel's family life, and then the rug is pulled out from under everyone. Unsurprisingly, I loved this, and how it played out for everyone involved, and the contrast between Danica's type of worker family and ethics ad Cassel's. (But I hope it doesn't mean we're going to get some kind of reveal or betrayal involving Sam in the last book to round out the unreliability of everyone - I'd like to keep one person who is what he seems.)
Cassel's teacher, by the way, whose name I can't remember but who looked extremely upset every time there was anti-worker bullying involved: totally a worker, y/y?
Fic I want for these books:
- the moment when Barron figures out that Cassel has screwed with his diaries, and their 'good brother' relationship is a lie
- Danica and Sam building back their relationship after the reveal (we never see Sam wondering if Danica has worked his feelings for her; I wonder if he ever did wonder that? I mean obviously Danica didn't, but it seems a logical thing to worry about)
- something in the first-person voice of the other Cassel, the one who thinks he is a cold-blooded killer - and, by thinking it, actually becomes a cold-blooded killer
- that key conversation between Danica and Lila that of course we only get secondhand, which is the one drawback of Cassel's POV!
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/239874.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.
fma_ladyfest but have not yet gotten around to signing up, the deadline is in one (1) week! SO MANY AWESOME PROMPTS ALREADY, so little time to go back to the sign-up post and spend all my day admiring them. Oh, the hardships of modding.
Second of all: here is a booklog that is very difficult, because how on earth do you talk about Holly Black's Red Glove without spoiling all of White Cat? I mean, the second book is all about the consequences and fallout of what happens in the first book, and the consequences and fallout and twisty issues of ethics and identity and loyalty are handled I think extremely well - I can say that much at least. And I can reiterate, in general terms, how fascinating this world of curse workers is - where being a memory-worker means that every time you charm someone else's memory you lose a little bit of your own, where being an emotion-worker means that if you work somebody else not only are your own emotions unstable, but you can never, ever be sure how they really feel about you. I said this in my review of White Cat too, but I love how much these books question identity. If a human being is made up of their memories and their emotions, then after those things have been messed with, can you call any part of their personality 'real'?
But this is still not saying anything new about Red Glove as opposed to White Cat. Family and friendships are still as complicated as you would expect when they involve extensive memory and emotion work, with associated trust issues, and also, the Mafia! Murders are still usually not what they look like! Cassel's school friends, Sam the cheesy-special-effects nerd and Danica the idealistic hippie, continue to be my personal favorites, and Cassel continues to be totally perplexed about how to deal with them! This book series continues to be one of the best I have read in the past year!
This book didn't feel as twisty to me as the last book - none of the pieces of the murder plot were particularly a shock, they fell into place fairly logically, though I will admit to believing Lila was Philip's murderer for a bit at the very beginning before the 'reveal' early on made it obvious that she couldn't be - but then, I don't think it needed to be a twisty book. As I said above, this is a book about fallout, and it dealt with that very carefully and well.
The one thing that did surprise me is the reveal about Danica, because of course we're set up to think that Sam and Danica are going to be relatively reliable constants to contrast against Cassel's family life, and then the rug is pulled out from under everyone. Unsurprisingly, I loved this, and how it played out for everyone involved, and the contrast between Danica's type of worker family and ethics ad Cassel's. (But I hope it doesn't mean we're going to get some kind of reveal or betrayal involving Sam in the last book to round out the unreliability of everyone - I'd like to keep one person who is what he seems.)
Cassel's teacher, by the way, whose name I can't remember but who looked extremely upset every time there was anti-worker bullying involved: totally a worker, y/y?
Fic I want for these books:
- the moment when Barron figures out that Cassel has screwed with his diaries, and their 'good brother' relationship is a lie
- Danica and Sam building back their relationship after the reveal (we never see Sam wondering if Danica has worked his feelings for her; I wonder if he ever did wonder that? I mean obviously Danica didn't, but it seems a logical thing to worry about)
- something in the first-person voice of the other Cassel, the one who thinks he is a cold-blooded killer - and, by thinking it, actually becomes a cold-blooded killer
- that key conversation between Danica and Lila that of course we only get secondhand, which is the one drawback of Cassel's POV!
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/239874.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.