Reading roundup
Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes! I think I've thanked everyone individually, but if I've missed you accidentally -- THANK YOU! :D I will do a post about the birthday later (it was fun!), but for now:
33. Justine Larbalestier, Liar -- back when this book first came out and the various YA authors whose blogs I follow were talking about how ( Read more... )
33. Justine Larbalestier, Liar -- back when this book first came out and the various YA authors whose blogs I follow were talking about how ( Read more... )
I can never help myself when I see links to spoilers either XD The only thing that saved me in the case of Liar is that nobody on my f-list wrote or linked to spoilery reviews.
How I got to Larbalestier's blog/spoiler thread is, actually, I googled the whitewashing cover, because I remembered that too. And it was so much more blatant and puzzling than I had expected. Supposedly the publisher claimed that they used a white girl on the cover because they thought Micah was lying about being black/bi-racial. What. I cannot understand how anybody who actually read the book, or knew what it was about, and possessed rudimentary reading skills could reach that conclusion. But it doesn't make sense as a cynical intentional whitewashing either, because say it gets somebody to pick up the book who wouldn't have otherwise (I have to say, the original cover was super boring and the reissued one, with a plausibly bi-racial girl on the cover, is striking and lovely), they are going to realize on the first page that they're not reading about a white girl. I just... don't get it at all.
I will say that I liked "The King of Norway" more than the other story by the same author (in the Dragon anthology). It was cute... but not strong enough to open the book, for my taste.
I don't have a point of comparison viz Mieville's other stuff (but I was just reading the Perdido worldbuiling page on Wikipedia and just that is making my head hurt, omg), but I would happily recommend The City and the City. It's noirish, and therefore I think faster paced (and less pointless) than his other stuff, from what I've been able to gather. And, yep, critically acclaimed -- and I think with a wider audience in mind. What I really liked about TCatC, what made it work for me, was the juncture of weirdness and realism, but nothing felt weird just for the sake of being weird. Anyway, it's a good book, and it's got some depth and it's also relatively fun, so, yeah.
I'll be very curious to hear what you think of both City and Liar!
Clearly I lied when I said I quit reading. *eats Anna's summaries up with a spoon*
*cracks up* AWWW! :D
Powerful charismatic assholes with a sense of humour -- I'm all over that in fiction. bawwwww you and me both, bb. *looks for her Jaime icon
Pretty much, yep! :D
I read 2/3 of the Gemma Doyle books (and do intend to finish eventually, but I've heard the ending is sort of... disappointing). I like them (and don't care they aren't period accurate or whatever), especially Felicity. (Charismatic assholes = not gender specific :) But, oddly, I find I tend to like her modern-day-set stuff even better. Not that I've read a lot of it, just a few short stories, this one and another one that was't even fantasy. I guess I do subconsciously feel her style is better suited to modernity, dunno.
Heh, Mortal Instruments -- another trilogy I've read 2/3 of so far. They are addictive reads! I find Clary and Jace and their ~star-crossed love~ kinda tedious, but I do like Simon a lot. And Alec. And they're definitely a wild ride, if not, you know, transcendent literature.
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