(no subject)
I'm going to talk about books too.
Yes, again.
Or maybe I'm just going to say that I'm dissappointed in Edward Bloor. He's written some really cool YA, coming of age stories, usually involving the kids realising their parents or other Adults of Merit are actually full of Fail and that you can't count on anybody but yourself. Usually people die. Crusader and Tangerine both rocked my socks, even though I read Tangerine when I was deep into my faery phase and it's about boys and soccor and nothing magical whatsoever and the only girl really is his mum. And I still loved it.
But now I'm reading Taken, which is about kidnapping as an industry and it boasts intruige and, well, you had me at kidnapping. But it's seriously sloppy, storytelling-wise. Charity wakes up in an ambulance to find out she's been kidnapped. Since she lives in a society where kidnapping rich kids is an industry, like I said, she knows what she's supposed to do. She's had kidnapping 'training'. She's very, very familiar with it all, she's even written essays about it for school. But. She wakes up in the ambulance, with her laptop (vidscreen), and pretty much straight away rolls over and pulls up her essay on the topic to read through. Not cos she needs to remember, but because we need it. It's just a really awkward storytelling device.
The the first whole HALF of the book is told like that, detailling her life through either things she'd written on her computer that she brings up and reads again so the reader can read them too, or through remembering. The flashbacks are at least a little smoother than the inserted articles and everything but the first half of the book goes entirely like this:
Woke up. Still in the ambulance. Blah blah kidnapping training blah blah. Close my eyes and remember in detail every scene that happened to be for the past four days blah blah. I'm not really a spoiled little rich girl! I think for myself! Oh... guards asleep and door is open... No, better not run for it. I'll remember my life instead. Oh look, CHristmas. And I'm still in the ambulance and nothing has changed and the plots not moving and Alison is getting pissed off.
FINALLY things start moving, about half way through the books. But then it's like: OMG Alfred's dead! Oh, no, wait, he isn't.
OMG Dad's dead! Oh, no wait, he's not either.
I'm half expecting her mum to come back from the dead too.
AND I'm like DAMMIT, STAY DEAD! PEOPLE DIE IN ALL YOUR OTHER BOOKS FOR REAL! *mutter* DISSAPPOINTED (SELF-APPOINTED!)
So yeah. Not gripped.
And sadly, the library doesn't have Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby which is about a girl who finds a life and friends on the Buffy boards and it looks brilliant. Gonna see if I can make them buy it. And Red Sonja, and Hack/Slash, and anything else that looks good.
That's all. It's Gossip Girl and brownie time now.
Yes, again.
Or maybe I'm just going to say that I'm dissappointed in Edward Bloor. He's written some really cool YA, coming of age stories, usually involving the kids realising their parents or other Adults of Merit are actually full of Fail and that you can't count on anybody but yourself. Usually people die. Crusader and Tangerine both rocked my socks, even though I read Tangerine when I was deep into my faery phase and it's about boys and soccor and nothing magical whatsoever and the only girl really is his mum. And I still loved it.
But now I'm reading Taken, which is about kidnapping as an industry and it boasts intruige and, well, you had me at kidnapping. But it's seriously sloppy, storytelling-wise. Charity wakes up in an ambulance to find out she's been kidnapped. Since she lives in a society where kidnapping rich kids is an industry, like I said, she knows what she's supposed to do. She's had kidnapping 'training'. She's very, very familiar with it all, she's even written essays about it for school. But. She wakes up in the ambulance, with her laptop (vidscreen), and pretty much straight away rolls over and pulls up her essay on the topic to read through. Not cos she needs to remember, but because we need it. It's just a really awkward storytelling device.
The the first whole HALF of the book is told like that, detailling her life through either things she'd written on her computer that she brings up and reads again so the reader can read them too, or through remembering. The flashbacks are at least a little smoother than the inserted articles and everything but the first half of the book goes entirely like this:
Woke up. Still in the ambulance. Blah blah kidnapping training blah blah. Close my eyes and remember in detail every scene that happened to be for the past four days blah blah. I'm not really a spoiled little rich girl! I think for myself! Oh... guards asleep and door is open... No, better not run for it. I'll remember my life instead. Oh look, CHristmas. And I'm still in the ambulance and nothing has changed and the plots not moving and Alison is getting pissed off.
FINALLY things start moving, about half way through the books. But then it's like: OMG Alfred's dead! Oh, no, wait, he isn't.
OMG Dad's dead! Oh, no wait, he's not either.
I'm half expecting her mum to come back from the dead too.
AND I'm like DAMMIT, STAY DEAD! PEOPLE DIE IN ALL YOUR OTHER BOOKS FOR REAL! *mutter* DISSAPPOINTED (SELF-APPOINTED!)
So yeah. Not gripped.
And sadly, the library doesn't have Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby which is about a girl who finds a life and friends on the Buffy boards and it looks brilliant. Gonna see if I can make them buy it. And Red Sonja, and Hack/Slash, and anything else that looks good.
That's all. It's Gossip Girl and brownie time now.