Books read recently

[etrangere]

Been a while, right?

So having a Kobo did work very well to help get back on the voracious book reading bandwaggon.

I started with Dominion by Celia Friedman,

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

I know the term is disfavor now, but I genuinely thought Katsa was a bit of a Mary-Sue, because she was randomly good at things it didn't seem logical for her to be good at, with people who had more experience deferring to her, everybody liked her (though it was hard for me to se why) but she was oblivious to it, she was so good but thought of herself as evil because of her Grace. It was just a lot of fairly hamhanded stuff piled on top of each other, which made it harder for me to enjoy the things I did like, like her relationship with Po once they'd sorted themselves out and her refusal to marry even though they loved each other. (I did like Po in Graceling quite a bit; Briggan in Fire, though, was total catnip for me XD)

She did a good job at making Archer's good qualities exist despite the fact that he was mostly an overly possessive asshole.

Yep, and Fire and the text acknowledged him to be a possessive asshole, but you could also see why Fire still loved him, and also why breaking off the relationship with him was the only sane thing to do.

I didn't think the idea in Graceling was all that striking? It's like, just the notion that some people have some sort of power,

Yeah, you're right -- the idea in Fire is far more interesting. I guess what I meant more was that it was clear Cashore had given some thought to the idea of Graces, and added some neat twists to it (NGL, I think "Graceling!" every time I see a cat or character or whatever with two different colored eyes, which suggests to me Cashore did something right with that) while everything else was almost laughably bare bones (like the names of the countries, which sound like someone spent all of 30 seconds looking at a compass/map). But actually even with the concept of Graces there were some things in Graceling that I don't think made any sense, like Leck's (? bad guy's, anyway) Grace being somehow transitive while nobody else's seemed to be. I didn't trip up on stuff like that in Fire, which was refreshing.

[etrangere]

(I did like Po in Graceling quite a bit; Briggan in Fire, though, was total catnip for me XD)
Hahaha, I'm the opposite. Liked Briggan a great deal, but Po was the one who was total catnip.

But actually even with the concept of Graces there were some things in Graceling that I don't think made any sense, like Leck's (? bad guy's, anyway) Grace being somehow transitive while nobody else's seemed to be.
Yeah, that was a bit weird :/ Very "It's Magical, shut up!" as we say in French.