Bookishness
I am currently reading A Clockwork Heart. I don't think anybody recommended it to me, but I picked it up because it was steampunkish (a genre I've been wanting to wet my toes in) and it seemed to have a decent rating on Amazon.
Okay. The steampunk is cool. Gears. Metal wings (oh god the metal wings!) -- I dig that part of the culture.
But there is way too much romance for the steampunk to salvage. I don't mind romance - I'm one that can enjoy a good snog on paper or the telly, I can even put up with a lot of drama because there's a tiny part of me that enjoys it all. But if there is one thing I cannot abide is ill done romance. Clumsy romance. Romance where this chick is head over heels with these guys even though she doesn't even know them.
It's not even believable that she'd risk her life because she loves these guys. Because anybody would risk their job, their life, and, more importantly, their freedom (what little of it they have) for people she's known less than a week.
Right?
To compound the issue, the world is heavily classed - meaning the different classes -- excuse me, castes -- don't really mingle or connect or even marry. But since she's a glorified post man, she gets to "mingle" (I use the word loosely) with the different castes -- even though the highest castes make no attempt to separate themselves from the lowly commoners (and that includes glorified post deliverers thanks).
I find it utterly unbelievable that she would become attached to people of the highest caste overnight, even if one of them has denied his caste and lives like a commoner (because, as the character herself noted, he didn't hesitate to use his caste privilege when it suited him).
I don't know, I think to overcome extreme culture stratification like the castes (which has been going on for generations by the way) would take more than a daring rescue (when that's like...part of her job anyway), a dinner and a party (which formed the initial driving attraction which lead her to risk her job and quasi freedom), and intricate murder mysteries.
I'm not saying that the culture couldn't be overcome -- it would just take a helluva lot more reason than the author gave. As it is, the romance is so one dimensional and fucking girly -- it's like high school that's been steampunkified.
To give you an idea on just how much this book sucks, it's about the same amount of pages as The Hunger Games, which I read in an entire Friday. I started reading "Clockwork Heart" on...Monday...probably, yet I still have about 100 pages to read.
Then I'm going to re-read Watership Down. It makes me twitch excitedly just thinking about re-reading that book again. Should I curse "Clockwork Heart" for being insufferably dull or curse myself for being too stubborn to put a book down before I finish it?
Okay. The steampunk is cool. Gears. Metal wings (oh god the metal wings!) -- I dig that part of the culture.
But there is way too much romance for the steampunk to salvage. I don't mind romance - I'm one that can enjoy a good snog on paper or the telly, I can even put up with a lot of drama because there's a tiny part of me that enjoys it all. But if there is one thing I cannot abide is ill done romance. Clumsy romance. Romance where this chick is head over heels with these guys even though she doesn't even know them.
It's not even believable that she'd risk her life because she loves these guys. Because anybody would risk their job, their life, and, more importantly, their freedom (what little of it they have) for people she's known less than a week.
Right?
To compound the issue, the world is heavily classed - meaning the different classes -- excuse me, castes -- don't really mingle or connect or even marry. But since she's a glorified post man, she gets to "mingle" (I use the word loosely) with the different castes -- even though the highest castes make no attempt to separate themselves from the lowly commoners (and that includes glorified post deliverers thanks).
I find it utterly unbelievable that she would become attached to people of the highest caste overnight, even if one of them has denied his caste and lives like a commoner (because, as the character herself noted, he didn't hesitate to use his caste privilege when it suited him).
I don't know, I think to overcome extreme culture stratification like the castes (which has been going on for generations by the way) would take more than a daring rescue (when that's like...part of her job anyway), a dinner and a party (which formed the initial driving attraction which lead her to risk her job and quasi freedom), and intricate murder mysteries.
I'm not saying that the culture couldn't be overcome -- it would just take a helluva lot more reason than the author gave. As it is, the romance is so one dimensional and fucking girly -- it's like high school that's been steampunkified.
To give you an idea on just how much this book sucks, it's about the same amount of pages as The Hunger Games, which I read in an entire Friday. I started reading "Clockwork Heart" on...Monday...probably, yet I still have about 100 pages to read.
Then I'm going to re-read Watership Down. It makes me twitch excitedly just thinking about re-reading that book again. Should I curse "Clockwork Heart" for being insufferably dull or curse myself for being too stubborn to put a book down before I finish it?