when authors go wrong
Meg Rosoff finally wrote a book I didn't like.
Preface: How I Live Now was the first book I ever read by Rosoff, and I've read it every 1-2 years since then. It is so damn good--everything I ever wanted from a YA novel, yet with a plot so off-kilter that I've never QUITE seen it done that way before. What I Was is also fucking amazing in the same regard. I don't recall Just in Case being similarly mindblowing, but I do remember that I couldn't put it down. So I have come to expect a LOT from Rosoff.
So when I discovered she'd released THREE WHOLE NEW BOOKS since I last checked in, I was extra super excited! The Bride's Farewell had a compelling blurb: young bride runs away on the morning of her wedding day. Adventures ensue! ...sort of.
And now, spoilers ensue for the entire book and the ending.
This book is fucking boring except for a couple of scenes. For the most part, NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENS! Most of the plot is about main character Pell traveling through rural England trying to find people who don't want to be found. Most of the traveling, she does alone, or with a dog, or with a young boy who doesn't EVER SPEAK. Being stuck for days of the timeline in her interior monologue is not at all compelling. The writing is so vague that I don't actually know what's REALLY HAPPENING most of the time. I feel like I'm looking through fog 90% of the time! Meg Rosoff, where did your talent for perfect, delicious description go?!
When people do manage to talk to each other, the dialogue is clunky as hell. I've read a lot of books set in England in "eighteen hundred and fifty something," and mostly they have managed not to read as though Renaissance Faire actors have invaded the pages.
The word "enough" is repeated so often--multiple times per page, sometimes--that I wanted to scream by the halfway point. Horses are "intelligent enough," people are "kind enough," &c. &c. I DON'T CARE. TELL ME SOMETHING INTERESTING. At least THREE people, we're told, have "wide, open faces." (One of these three people eventually attempts to molest Pell, which is one of the very few scenes that made my adrenaline bother to spike.)
The most interesting thing about Pell is that she doesn't fucking want to get married. Like, seriously, you guys, this girl doesn't have any need for a man in her life! She has a knife and will shank any motherfucker who tries anything! Men just make you get pregnant a lot and then get drunk and push you around! That's what she learned in her family, after all! And that's why she ends up shacking up with a poacher who's still married to someone else and HAS A KID WITH THEM, and he and Pell live happily ever after!
...which wasn't a very satisfying ending for me, given that the whole damn reason I read it was because LADIES ON THEIR OWN HELL YEAH. :|
I've got another of the three new books (There Is No Dog) and I am kind of dreading it now. I don't want to hate a SECOND book of hers, jeez.
Have any of you read this book? What did you think? (Can you convince me it was better than I thought?)
And if you haven't read it--has an author you like ever gone waaaay off the rails in terms of a story they wrote?
eta: according to Wikipedia (I KNOW, I KNOW), the book was "named one of the ten best books for young adults that were published in the U.S. for the adult market" and "made the 2011 Carnegie Medal shortlist." WHAT IS IT THAT I'M NOT SEEING? o__O
eta2: oh dear, There Is No Dog looks like a bad Good Omens fanfic. I CAN'T. D:
Preface: How I Live Now was the first book I ever read by Rosoff, and I've read it every 1-2 years since then. It is so damn good--everything I ever wanted from a YA novel, yet with a plot so off-kilter that I've never QUITE seen it done that way before. What I Was is also fucking amazing in the same regard. I don't recall Just in Case being similarly mindblowing, but I do remember that I couldn't put it down. So I have come to expect a LOT from Rosoff.
So when I discovered she'd released THREE WHOLE NEW BOOKS since I last checked in, I was extra super excited! The Bride's Farewell had a compelling blurb: young bride runs away on the morning of her wedding day. Adventures ensue! ...sort of.
And now, spoilers ensue for the entire book and the ending.
This book is fucking boring except for a couple of scenes. For the most part, NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENS! Most of the plot is about main character Pell traveling through rural England trying to find people who don't want to be found. Most of the traveling, she does alone, or with a dog, or with a young boy who doesn't EVER SPEAK. Being stuck for days of the timeline in her interior monologue is not at all compelling. The writing is so vague that I don't actually know what's REALLY HAPPENING most of the time. I feel like I'm looking through fog 90% of the time! Meg Rosoff, where did your talent for perfect, delicious description go?!
When people do manage to talk to each other, the dialogue is clunky as hell. I've read a lot of books set in England in "eighteen hundred and fifty something," and mostly they have managed not to read as though Renaissance Faire actors have invaded the pages.
The word "enough" is repeated so often--multiple times per page, sometimes--that I wanted to scream by the halfway point. Horses are "intelligent enough," people are "kind enough," &c. &c. I DON'T CARE. TELL ME SOMETHING INTERESTING. At least THREE people, we're told, have "wide, open faces." (One of these three people eventually attempts to molest Pell, which is one of the very few scenes that made my adrenaline bother to spike.)
The most interesting thing about Pell is that she doesn't fucking want to get married. Like, seriously, you guys, this girl doesn't have any need for a man in her life! She has a knife and will shank any motherfucker who tries anything! Men just make you get pregnant a lot and then get drunk and push you around! That's what she learned in her family, after all! And that's why she ends up shacking up with a poacher who's still married to someone else and HAS A KID WITH THEM, and he and Pell live happily ever after!
...which wasn't a very satisfying ending for me, given that the whole damn reason I read it was because LADIES ON THEIR OWN HELL YEAH. :|
I've got another of the three new books (There Is No Dog) and I am kind of dreading it now. I don't want to hate a SECOND book of hers, jeez.
Have any of you read this book? What did you think? (Can you convince me it was better than I thought?)
And if you haven't read it--has an author you like ever gone waaaay off the rails in terms of a story they wrote?
eta: according to Wikipedia (I KNOW, I KNOW), the book was "named one of the ten best books for young adults that were published in the U.S. for the adult market" and "made the 2011 Carnegie Medal shortlist." WHAT IS IT THAT I'M NOT SEEING? o__O
eta2: oh dear, There Is No Dog looks like a bad Good Omens fanfic. I CAN'T. D: