The Books I Read in 2010: Nightlight and Coraline
Let's see if I can't make this an on-going thing! A few spoilers within, nothing huge, but you've been warned.
First up, Nightlight, by the Harvard Lampoon. A parody of Twilight, this one had some very amusing moments and notions and one-liners, but on the whole was...weird. Spastic, uneven, all over the place, and kind of like a slew of sentences thrown together. Belle Goose's first-person narration is responsible for most of this, and while I get that they're poking fun at the first-person and sometimes mood-swing-tastic narration of Bella Swan, here's it just strange and gets old fast. The most interesting chunk is when Belle finally meets some vampires, but then it's over again real fast and shunts itself into an ending that makes very little sense. Which, again, does kind of parallel the source material, but this just doesn't quite live up to what I would've expected from the Harvard Lampoon. It was, however, a quicker read than the original even, being a very slim volume indeed (which says a lot about how much fluff was in Twilight!), so it was over fast.
Second, the much better slim volume of Coraline by Neil Gaiman. I've owned this for over a year and only now got around to reading it. It went quickly, being a "children's story" in theory, and I really enjoyed it. Coraline's a fun kid to read and travel through a story with, and like a children's story should and does, it gets to the point very quickly. Coraline travels through a locked door to a twisted up version of her home, twisted up versions of her parents greet her, and while some things seem much better here, she comes to realize that her real home is just what she wants after all. She's a wise one, this kid, knowing that if we got everything we wanted with no challenge at all, it wouldn't be very fun, would it? The creepy other world and particularly the other mother unsettled me just while I was reading, and I can't wait to see the movie version now, finally. I'd also love to check out the graphic novel; I very much enjoyed Sandman when I read that a few years back, so I've got high hopes for this book, which even in writing has some fantastic visuals incorporated into the descriptions. The other mother's hands, the button-eyes, the creepy spider webs covering the melted together facades of Coraline's neighbors. I would have trouble retrieving that marble, I can promise you.
In conclusions, as expected, Twilight sucks and Neil Gaiman rules. Who's surprised? :)
Next in the docket is Tithe by Holly Black, which claims to be a modern fairy tale. So far, I'm liking it.
Current totals:
Books: 2
First up, Nightlight, by the Harvard Lampoon. A parody of Twilight, this one had some very amusing moments and notions and one-liners, but on the whole was...weird. Spastic, uneven, all over the place, and kind of like a slew of sentences thrown together. Belle Goose's first-person narration is responsible for most of this, and while I get that they're poking fun at the first-person and sometimes mood-swing-tastic narration of Bella Swan, here's it just strange and gets old fast. The most interesting chunk is when Belle finally meets some vampires, but then it's over again real fast and shunts itself into an ending that makes very little sense. Which, again, does kind of parallel the source material, but this just doesn't quite live up to what I would've expected from the Harvard Lampoon. It was, however, a quicker read than the original even, being a very slim volume indeed (which says a lot about how much fluff was in Twilight!), so it was over fast.
Second, the much better slim volume of Coraline by Neil Gaiman. I've owned this for over a year and only now got around to reading it. It went quickly, being a "children's story" in theory, and I really enjoyed it. Coraline's a fun kid to read and travel through a story with, and like a children's story should and does, it gets to the point very quickly. Coraline travels through a locked door to a twisted up version of her home, twisted up versions of her parents greet her, and while some things seem much better here, she comes to realize that her real home is just what she wants after all. She's a wise one, this kid, knowing that if we got everything we wanted with no challenge at all, it wouldn't be very fun, would it? The creepy other world and particularly the other mother unsettled me just while I was reading, and I can't wait to see the movie version now, finally. I'd also love to check out the graphic novel; I very much enjoyed Sandman when I read that a few years back, so I've got high hopes for this book, which even in writing has some fantastic visuals incorporated into the descriptions. The other mother's hands, the button-eyes, the creepy spider webs covering the melted together facades of Coraline's neighbors. I would have trouble retrieving that marble, I can promise you.
In conclusions, as expected, Twilight sucks and Neil Gaiman rules. Who's surprised? :)
Next in the docket is Tithe by Holly Black, which claims to be a modern fairy tale. So far, I'm liking it.
Current totals:
Books: 2