Thoughts on Fangirl
At first this was going to be a comment on ikel89's readthrough, but then, uh .... *waves downward* that happened. So it gets its own post. :D I may figure this LJ thing out yet ...
On the whole I quite enjoyed this book! It was a nice, breezy read; most of the drama was not of the "unnecessary bullshit" variety, the characters themselves were mostly fun ( Read more... )
I did find that the closer I thought about it when trying to pull together these bullet points, the less impressed I was by some of the author's narrative choices.
We agree on I think all of these questionable choices (except I didn't notice the inconsistent anxiety manifestation thing, which I'll defer to you on), and yet, weirdly, my overall impression of the book seems to be much more positive than yours and K's. It might be a right thing at the right time kind of deal, it might be just that I really love college stories and it has been a long time since I read any, or just clicking with the prose -- I seem to have really clicked with the prose.
Like, she'd make a point of how she always took basically the same path, which was a familiar pattern for me -- but then she just randomly wanders around the English building enough to find a nice ( ... )
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SAME! It was the family stuff, meaning Cath and her dad, since Wren was largely absent, that elevated the book beyond "cute YA + HP fandom nostalgia" for me.
I was also, actually, glad that their dad didn't seem to appreciably reconcile with her, either - and that he was shown as not wanting to have to deal with it, and actually not having to.
Yes, this was also really nice! I loved his line to Wren when she said she'd tell Laura he said hi: "That's probably not necessary."
* That said, that just made it additionally irritating that we never find out for sure whether she met her self-imposed deadline or not!
This was really frustrating! And in general the ending felt oddly rushed for reasons I don't understand...
I also get the feeling that the entire discussion was there to attempt to set up a meta moral about how happy endings are harder, but more satisfying, than giving up. :P No! This is a story about writing fanfic! Have her briefly consider the ( ... )
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Bring it on. :D I'm not always great at mustering enough focus to respond in a timely fashion, but I always enjoy reading commentary. :D (And I uh ... apparently still have plenty of words left about Fangirl myself. :D)
weirdly, my overall impression of the book seems to be much more positive than yours and K'sHaha, I actually enjoyed it quite a lot. :D The nice thing about reading with friends is that even the things that had me howling, I could just go wail at K about. And, well. A certain amount of complaining is almost as fun as not having anything to complain about. :DD ( ... )
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Just going CATH AND HER DAD <3333 again here, don't mind me. :D
(Though I was actually pretty pleased even by the Wren-related scenes over Christmas, at least from the perspective of Cath and her dad's reactions / interactions. Just wish that Wren had been less one-dimensionally petulant, and that she hadn't done quite as thorough and not-well-supported about-face in the spring semester.)
And in general the ending felt oddly rushed for reasons I don't understand...
*nods* Agreed. I wonder if maybe part of it was that a good chunk of it was devoted to the Cath/Levi relationship? Which, good for them, but maybe that was why the rest of the plot felt ... lighter? More sidelined than previously?
then was completely dropped (apparently?)I got the vague impression that Cath eventually agreed with Wren? But wouldn't swear to it ( ... )
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Or, as CP shows, even if I have managed to completely overlook that on reading for reasons of reading the emotional high, the reread totally brings too many things into sharp focus *sigh* at least with bullshit like CC you know where you stand.
My condolences to your husband. :'D
*replays fond memories of trashtalking everything and anything with the said husband, who firmly thinks he doesn't deserve this* :D <3
"excuse me while I, the author's mouthpiece, climb on my soapbox" moment. :D pfft yeah, that was very rehearsed. also, +1 to Prof Piper not being swayed argument ( ... )
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This is an accurate summary, yes XD
"stomach monster" in OotP
excuse me, it was a chest monster
Ahaha, I didn't even notice it was a monster dwelling in the wrong body part until this point XD
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Also :O :O :O I can't believe I've been ranting about the wrong body part! for *looks up publishing date* 13 YEARS now!
(lol I had also forgotten that OotP was NEARLY 800 PAGES, no wonder it felt like a slog. :') )
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No worries about this! I love having rambling multi-threaded conversations like this while they last, so both replies days/weeks/whatever later and having said conversations naturally peter out are totally cool with me :)
The nice thing about reading with friends is that even the things that had me howling, I could just go wail at K about.
Yess, that is a great thing about synch reading!
A certain amount of complaining is almost as fun as not having anything to complain about. :DD
That is also true! As is the comment about critical thinking, and I find that, yeah, it's not that there are books where there is nothing at all to complain about, but more that some books manage to break through a barrier where the things that might normally annoy me or are objectively not as good are left far, far below while I'm floating on a euphoric cloud of squee. :)
* The author's occasional tendency towards ending paragraphs of narration with ellipses grated on ( ... )
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Agreed! Sadly, even those feel like they're getting harder to find. These days usually "On balance, I really enjoyed that, despite all these problems" is usually as far as I get.
SO SATISFYING when I find a book that blows all that away, though. :)
Haha, I had to go back and see how prevalent this was. I have a tendency to do that myself, I'm afraid, so it just feels normal to me XDNot at all prevalent, which just made the complaint feel more petty. :D ( ... )
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Indeed! For me, I think the last one that just went straight to clouds of squee was Rivers of London/Midnight Riot, and Naomi Novik's Uprooted came fairly close, but it's such a personal and subjective thing, I know the same has not necessarily been true for the friends I rec'd them to, though it was for some, and there's no better feeling in the world :)
My guess, though, is that consciously or unconsciously she was drawing mostly on her own fandom roots (likely in the ff.net / LJ era) rather than trying to base it on serious research of The Current State of Fandom Interactions in 2011. :D
Yeah, I think that's very likely, with a hand-wve that it could still be plausible four years later -- it definitely feels more natural/organic to the LJ/FFN/pre-Tumblr era.
Luckily Robin Hobb is not one of them (I pushed my way through her first trilogy and was ... not engaged. Came to it 10 years too late, maybe),I liked Hobb's first trilogy (the FitzChivalry books) well ( ... )
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Uprooted is actually coming up pretty soon on my reading list! I enjoyed the first 4-5 Temeraire books (before I got distracted and wandered away) and I've heard good things, so I've got hopes. :)
I have a deep love of Martha Wells' Raksura books that I think comes close to that level of squee, but it's been several years since I read them, so the intensity has worn down somewhat.
N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season also blew me away, both with my enjoyment of reading it and my writer's appreciation of HOW U STRUCTURE LIKE THAT TEACH ME YOUR SECRETSSSS. (It's also the only book other than Warchild in which second person POV has actually worked for me.)
(P.S. Warchild <3)
But I guess i feel less sad about my waning interest in her books given that I know her attitude towards fanfic is ( ... )
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This is really interesting to me! K read the book and was bugged by Peter's "unrepentant sexuality" too, but I never even noticed it. Or, like, I noticed it, but must've just filed it under "normal young guy, check". Though possibly I was just too distracted by Nightingale and my embarrassingly sudden crush on him :P
I enjoy the Temeraire series, but I do think the books kind of go downhill after book 5, so if you've read Victory of Eagles, you're probably not missing much. Uprooted was different, and better, which came as a pleasant surprise. I hope you enjoy it, if/when you do read it!
I have a deep love of Martha Wells' Raksura books that I think comes close to that level of squee, This was another one that came close for me when I read it, two years ago. Well, I only read "Cloud Roads" so far; I want to continue, but my library doesn't have the later books, and they're pricey on Amazon, so I' ( ... )
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Hopefully the "sure, go ahead" was implicit in my friending you just now, but - Sure, go ahead. :D (Tho I warn you, my journal has spent most of its existence in pretty deep mothballs. :D)
Or, like, I noticed it, but must've just filed it under "normal young guy, check".
*Nods* My intellectual reaction was "this is a presumably fairly accurate representation of an allosexual young man, which we don't see terribly often. (As opposed to e.g. tropey things about barmaids or whatev.) That's kind of cool", but on the other, my gut reaction was pretty solidly in the UGH CAN WE MOVE ON range. :')
I want to continue, but my library doesn't have the later books, and they're pricey on Amazon, so I've been keeping an eye on them in the hopes of a sale
Argh, I have a feeling there just was one, too, in celebration of NEW RAKSURA BOOK IN THREE DAYS I AM SO EXCITE. :D <3 ( ... )
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(Conversely, my LJ tends to be long posts all over, but I'm totally cool with people skipping over the RL stuff or the fannish stuff or reading and not commenting or periodically showing up after months-long absence to engage in tl;dr on ancient posts -- it's all good! :)
Ooh, yes, I would definitely appreciate a tip-off about a Martha Wells sale! And am going to go friend her on Tumblr, but my Tumblr presence is super-sporadic so that's probably not actually going to be that much help.
Let's see, I bought Element of Fire, Death of the Necromancer, and the first of the Fall of Ile-Rien books, which had all been recommended to me at various times. I actually hadn't heard of the Emilie books, though I see them among her books now. We'll see how it all goes!
Stone's complete lack of fucks to give is glorious and beautiful Yes. Yes it is! Chime is my second favorite, and then prooobably Jade -- she seems to have inherited some of Stone's snark, which I ( ... )
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Haha, yes, that was a great touch! Reagan in general was just awesomely fun throughout.
Just going CATH AND HER DAD <3333 again here, don't mind me. :D
I am so with you! And I agree that Wren in the family context was pretty well done, but, the more I talk about Wren, the more I wish there's been a companion book from Wren's POV that would give her an arc with actual depth and subtlety and stuff.
I wonder if maybe part of it was that a good chunk of it was devoted to the Cath/Levi relationship? Which, good for them, but maybe that was why the rest of the plot felt ... lighter? More sidelined than previously?This is an excellent point, and I think you're right. And, heck, maybe it's even intentional, because it is certainly plausible that an 18-year-old in her first serious relationship would be focused on THAT more than the other things. But seeing as the other things were what I'd liked best about the book in the first ( ... )
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I think that would definitely have been an interesting addition (and agree with the point I think you made ...somewhere. About her being offscreen basically the entire time meaning that there's plenty of room for different content).
I also suspect that it's a book that I'd have bounced off with a vengeance unless very carefully done. Because while I can see myself very easily sympathizing with the "I'm not going to break" attitude you postulated, her level of self-destructiveness would probably not mesh as well for me, and her chosen poisons being sex, alcohol, and parties would be actively off-putting. :D
(It would have been nice to see to what extent she was still interested in / invested in / involved in fandom, though. I wonder if there was maybe a certain level of wanting to back away from fandom because Cath being so famed in it made it feel like "her thing"? And if that was part of why she ( ... )
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