Faintly incendiary thoughts about books.
My twelfth or thirteenth Nero Wolfe book (I don't remember the title because all the titles are stupid), by Rex Stout
Is Rex Stout always awesome? How is he always awesome? Did he, like, kill a stegosaurus with his bare hands and eat its heart?
(Is that why the name?)
I mean, he obviously didn't believe in second drafts, but I find this entirely forgivable in light of the steady awesomeness of the first ones.
Graceling, by Kristin Cashore
I'm only half-way through this, but there's one of those guys who exists only to be desirable and ambiguously dangerous and to fall in love with the girl. I guess they're not uncommon, but it's unusually explicit here! She asks him what he's thinking, and he lists nine things having to do with her; we are expected to believe he is being perfectly honest.
It occurs to me that this is basically exactly like...
New Moon, by Stephanie Meyer
...Edward Cullen! Whose idea of talking to Bella is asking her millions of questions about herself. Because the sixteen-year-old girl's opinions are the most interesting thing in the world to a guy who technically died a hundred years ago.
A lot of this book's plot is driven by Bella's attempts to induce hallucinations, which is an odd tack to take. You'd think she'd've thought to try some of the more traditional means of doing this at some point, but no - motorcycles and cliff-jumping it shall be.
I mainly read this because I liked Alice in the first book, and I still liked her here - but I think part of my ability to do so is her habit of being gone most of the time, and being somewhat reticent about what she's been doing when she comes back. It makes it possible to assume that she's got a busy, complicated life outside of rescuing Bella and being her mother figure, like you'd expect of an immortal clairvoyant vampire lady with a demonstrably difficult love life her own. I'm not sure if I should read any more of the series. I fear that I may be disillusioned about this idea.
Pride and Prejudice, by Leopard Solid, re-read number nine or something
Darcy doesn't have any thoughts that aren't about Elizabeth, either. We all realize that, right? He doesn't. He's a viewpoint character with a secret tragedy, and he still only ever thinks about Elizabeth.
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by NK Jemisin
And Nahadoth literally exists only in relation to the person he's in love with.
(Note that I'm not really complaining about this in any of these books; I find it somewhat restful.)
(Dreamwidth crosspost:
comments)
Is Rex Stout always awesome? How is he always awesome? Did he, like, kill a stegosaurus with his bare hands and eat its heart?
(Is that why the name?)
I mean, he obviously didn't believe in second drafts, but I find this entirely forgivable in light of the steady awesomeness of the first ones.
Graceling, by Kristin Cashore
I'm only half-way through this, but there's one of those guys who exists only to be desirable and ambiguously dangerous and to fall in love with the girl. I guess they're not uncommon, but it's unusually explicit here! She asks him what he's thinking, and he lists nine things having to do with her; we are expected to believe he is being perfectly honest.
It occurs to me that this is basically exactly like...
New Moon, by Stephanie Meyer
...Edward Cullen! Whose idea of talking to Bella is asking her millions of questions about herself. Because the sixteen-year-old girl's opinions are the most interesting thing in the world to a guy who technically died a hundred years ago.
A lot of this book's plot is driven by Bella's attempts to induce hallucinations, which is an odd tack to take. You'd think she'd've thought to try some of the more traditional means of doing this at some point, but no - motorcycles and cliff-jumping it shall be.
I mainly read this because I liked Alice in the first book, and I still liked her here - but I think part of my ability to do so is her habit of being gone most of the time, and being somewhat reticent about what she's been doing when she comes back. It makes it possible to assume that she's got a busy, complicated life outside of rescuing Bella and being her mother figure, like you'd expect of an immortal clairvoyant vampire lady with a demonstrably difficult love life her own. I'm not sure if I should read any more of the series. I fear that I may be disillusioned about this idea.
Pride and Prejudice, by Leopard Solid, re-read number nine or something
Darcy doesn't have any thoughts that aren't about Elizabeth, either. We all realize that, right? He doesn't. He's a viewpoint character with a secret tragedy, and he still only ever thinks about Elizabeth.
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by NK Jemisin
And Nahadoth literally exists only in relation to the person he's in love with.
(Note that I'm not really complaining about this in any of these books; I find it somewhat restful.)
(Dreamwidth crosspost:
comments)