Reading roundup (ARRR)

[hamsterwoman]

This is actually a Reading Roundup post, but since today is Talk Like a Pirate Day, certain duties must be discharged:

Ahoy, mateys, arrr, avast, etc.

I'd never encountered this before, so thanks to gehayi for linking it: Talk Like a Pirate Day Song by Tom Smith.

Click to view

I actually found it not only clever (the rhymes!) and funny (giggled out loud a few

Comments

[lunasariel]

I love Holly Black, but I admit to not having read much of her beyond her Modern Tales of Faerie and one read-through of the original Spiderwick Chronicles when they first came out, but I'm glad to hear that she's still putting out some good work!

And I like the random little details of real life that have nothing to do with the magic, like Sam's sister in Bryn Mawr "driving my parents crazy because she has a girlfriend covered in tattoos".
That's one thing I've always liked about Holly Black: that she's able to interject all these little bits of realism, for lack of a better word, into these fantastical settings, that really bring everything to life.

There, I found the world-building pretty interesting, and the characters. In this series, not so much.
I completely agree about Kim Harrison's worldbuilding (at least in her Hollows books)! It's complex, but it never feels tedious or like it could have been cut. I used to follow the Hollows pretty closely, but Rachel eventually got on my nerves, so I haven't read the latest few. But I remember them at least being exciting, so I'm sorry to hear that her newer stuff isn't quite as good.

Maybe she is sort of muting her writing for teens?
I smell editorial interference! When I was a teen, I remember pretty much skipping over a lot of "teen" books because they were basically defanged (if you'll pardon the pun) (was that even a pun? I know that the Hollows had vampires, but idk if Something Deadly and her other teen books do) versions of novels written for adults. I know that they have to be careful in case some preteens or younger kids get their hands on teen or YA books, but it wouldn't kill them to treat teens like adults for once. Wait... XD

[hamsterwoman]

If you enjoy Holly Black's other writing, I think White Cat/Red Glove are well worth checking out! I liked Tithe and sequels a lot, and was disappointed to find out that she wasn't going to be writing more Modern Faerie Tales and was going to work on these Curse Worker books instead, but I have to say the new books are good. Probably better than Tithe et al -- all the same strength, neat touches of realism, grittiness, interesting teenage protagonists, plus worldbuilding that's more original and more coherent, more nuanced themes.

I read a couple of books of Hollows, in very strange order (something like 6, 1, 2, 5), but I enjoyed them anyway, mostly for Trent and Ivy/the Tamwoods. I never felt swept up enough to go out of my way to find the missing books, and my library stopped ordering the new ones, I guess, but I wouldn't mind catching up.

I smell editorial interference!

Could be! It was certainly pretty bloodless... Dunno if her hands were tied as far as writing the more interesting stuff or (less charitably) is somebody told her, "Hey, paranormal YA is hot right now!" and she kind of phoned in paranormal YA...