memishly

[isiscolo]

What I just finished reading: Son, by Lois Lowry, the fourth (and final) book of 'The Giver Quartet'. I was rather disappointed; it does tie the first three books together, and it tidies up some loose ends, but there are way too many worldbuilding plotholes, pointless sub-plots, unexplained out-of-place mystical events, and, well, words. And the

Comments

[amanuensis1]

The Giver has sequels? Eep, I thought that was part of the charm of the book, that it had an open ending and would never have a conclusion.

[isiscolo]

Huh, I thought the ending wasn't particularly charming - I interpreted it as naturally Jonas and Gabe had died! But yeah, when I saw there were sequels I was surprised and thought I might read them sometime, though I wasn't particularly interested until I read the Giver fic written for this year's Yuletide (which I recced here) and it inspired me to read the others.

I liked the second book, Gathering Blue, the best - it's got a female protagonist I really liked, and it reveals interesting things about the setting. It's got no overt connection to The Giver, though. I thought the third book, which started tying things together, was okay but not great.

[starfishchick]

A clear "no" for Anna Karenina, then? (This is the Keira Knightly version?)

[isiscolo]

Yeah, Keira Knightly and Jude Law, and I hated it. It's done in a formal, stylized manner, like a stage play (occasionally the characters are literally on a stage, and then the camera moves and the stage-set expands and becomes rooms or a street scene), which I think contributes to the sense of...lack of emotion? I never felt particularly connected to any of the characters or their feelings, which seemed completely inexplicable to me. Anna and Vronsky have a formal encounter, he follows her, she refuses him, and then suddenly they're in bed together and she's declaring she loves him. It also would have helped to have read the book, because it was very confusing in places. Overall, boring (though pretty).

[starfishchick]

Yeah, the previews and everything LOOKED SO PRETTY but I haven't read the book so I probably would be confused.

[isiscolo]

It is astonishingly pretty! But BORING.

[lobelia321]

Hi, honeybunny Isis. And that address may tell you that I'm going to ask for a favour, pretty please. Well, niceties aside: I am looking for betas for my 140,000 words plus HP fic so was wondering if you would like to and be able to and have time and could be a beta? I'm happy to send you a sample to see if you even like it, and I should warn that it's Dudley/Draco for much of it (although there is also a helping of Draco/Harry).

I would send 6-16k a week, starting in around 2-3 weeks. Or I could send the whole thing as a wodge...

But please: if you can't do it or just aren't in a Harry Potter place: NO PROBS AT ALL!!!!

:-)

[isiscolo]

I haven't been into HP for ages now and I don't think I could possibly manage a beta read of an ordinary short story, let along a novel-monster! But I wish you luck with it.

[lobelia321]

Ah, see, it's the recent fanfic flamingo that is the story of my life: "Discover new OTP! Five seasons too late." Except I discovered this lot in 2004...

Thanks for the luck, hon!!! *sends tentacular greetings*