Reading Roundup
28. Melina Marchetta, Froi of the Exiles -- well, this is a neat trick that I don't think any sequel has managed till now -- it retroactively made me like the first book less. Which is not to say that I hated Froi -- I didn't, and am in the middle of reading Quintana. But I had liked Finnikin a lot for the subversion of tropes I'm sick of seeing
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At this point I don't think I can comment at all on how bad the actual writing was - I read CP too quickly and too long ago. But I remember just how poorly edited book three was, even though it's overall better than book 1 was. Anyway, even with all the redundant descriptions of Herondales that thrive on obsolescent adjectives, I think the book had more serious problems - aka plot, or more accurately, its holes and general scarcity.
okay so i fail at diplomacy don't judge me SORRY
Tessa's powers - along with the whole pendant thing - have been very problematic from the start. When you have an overpowered character - and she IS one, mind you, especially given that she undergoes her jedi training THE FIRST thing in those books, it's not even a quest - it's hard to have them as a main character and not be boring. So the authors are forced to come up with contrived reasons why they can't use these powers, and well, CC doesn't do it well. I think some of the most obnoxiously vague excuses try to be addressed in book two, but that's not really helpful, in the final analysis. Because similar to Will's altruism, when all is said and done, they are mostly cop-outs.
why would you want to deprive yourself of trained warriors and/or perfectly good breeding stock?
VERY good point, though it didn't occur to me then. It's either the Ascention is too common, or Shadowhunters are too dumb to live good at things that - don't require long-term planning:)
the way everyone who was a shade of gray character in the previous one ended up being on the side of the bad guys
Again, I think book 3 tried to address that, but not always successfully. (anyway, I don't remember the details too well now, except the general feeling of GAH;)
And don't hold your breath re:Gabriel - NO ONE escapes the ~luminous~ therapy.
except Jem, and the "Jem is my one sin" actually did its work in my case
Point is, I really wanted to be taken with their ~parabatai~ co-dependence etc, but I didn't buy it. Or, if I started buying it, CC would go and crush it by making them act like idiots.
Also, I feel oddly gleeful about CC gratuituously misusing Syndey Carton references (and Heathcliff, good grief) - even though I am still a big failure with Dickens pact, it's good to know XD
Gideon might actually be a huge dork (at least that might have been the intent) - more on that in book3 - but it's actually lost to me in the overall efforts to glamorize and dramatize the characters needlessly. Like, I don't buy it - the person who would insert gratuituous Spanish out of adorkability and the one who plays pranks in book 3 is not the same person who's Gideon in my head. It doesn't look organic for some reason (but maybe you'll have a different opinion, who knows).
I didn't see you mention Cecily, though? XD Isn't your mind ready to embrace their not-so-subtly subtexty interactions with Will? :DD
(just read the third book and be ahmazed at the glorious cop-out that is the epilogue)
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I would agree with that, and the thing that makes this most mystifying to me is that Tessa's powers are thus hampered to a point where I don't even understand why she needs to have them. Like, being able to assume someone's appearance is fine -- Polyjuice potion leaves plenty of room for drama because you still have to "pass" -- but why the mind-reading? So far it's only been used for psychic communication with Camille (which could've been handwaved some other way, since she's a vampire), and glimpses of suspicious stuff, which can also be foreshadowed in other ways. Possibly it's going to be critical in book 3, but any plot point to which this is a resolution is going to be boring, I'm pretty sure, because it's such a cop-out way of resolving anything... (And as for the powers being the key to why Mortmain wants her -- if that's even the case -- that's easy enough to justify in other ways, too, e.g. with capabilities she has but doesn't realize she has or whatever.)
It's either the Ascention is too common, or Shadowhunters are too dumb to live good at things that - don't require long-term planning:)
LOL But, yeah, I didn't get a good sense of whether Ascention was common or not. The sense I got -- which is probably all from my head and not anything in the books -- was like giur (converting to Judaism), esp. Orthodox -- it's a path that's open to those who are really, really determined to do it, but is a huge hassle and generally people don't undertake it unless they have a really good reason, so it's not a significant way of increasing numbers in the community. But I am probably totally making up the parallels, so, who the hell knows.
Again, I think book 3 tried to address that, but not always successfully.
I am cautiously optimistic to hear that! I think I saw from somebody's review that Jessamine shows up again (if briefly) and gets some kind of resolution, and of course the Lightwood thing has to come to a head, so...
I really wanted to be taken with their ~parabatai~ co-dependence etc, but I didn't buy it. Or, if I started buying it, CC would go and crush it by making them act like idiots
Yes, the two of them do give me this "I should be all over shipping this, and yet I'm not" feeling, and there's probably a lot going into that -- both of them, but especially Will, behave in ways that serve drama rather than character, and Will's tortured-Byronic-hero-but-not-really thing, and Jem's angelic-ness (I was poking around my book posts the other night and ended up on Unspoken, and now thinking of Jem makes me think that if anyone has succeeded in creating a genderbent version of a Victorian heroine, it's actually CC, because Jem is very much a male version of the saintly consumptive maiden, so tragic and so gentle and so good), and of course the focus is wrenched towards Tessa and the love triangle that I also don't believe in. I really wish I could believe in the Will and Jem parabatai-ness more, because it was one of the things I liked and thought was criminally underplayed with Alec and Jace in the first set of books, so having it be a more central relationship in TID had given me hope, but, alas, earwax. And this is why I'm still totally incensed over the "and it's het!" thing with the new series... XP
Also, I feel oddly gleeful about CC gratuituously misusing Syndey Carton references (and Heathcliff, good grief)
I don't know that it's misusing exactly, because I'm sure people do think that way about them, but let's just say it does not make me respect Tessa's taste in people *or* literary astuteness :P
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Oh, interesting! The books could certainly use more dorkiness, outside of Henry's rather caricaturish variety (which I still find charming, but it's not the same thing). What you say about glamorizing and dramatizing makes a lot of sense, and is unfortunate... The lack of glamour and the dorkiness was what had made Simon my favorite in TMI -- and also what's making me reluctant to read the sequel trilogy, because I kind of feel like that's the trajectory that's happening to him.
Cecily was only onscreen for like two pages in book 2 -- once when Will sees her in York and at the very end when she arrives to be trained as a Shadowhunter (*dramatic pause*), so I haven't seen very much subtext yet, but I'm sure it will be there. (Meanwhile, there wa Tessa-playing-Jessamine and Nate messing with her for the brother/sister incest vibes. Although I guess they're really only cousins, if that.)
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