Comments | bookfails: A Discovery of Fails

alicetheowl in bookfails

A Discovery of Fails

Apr 13, 2011 22:28

You may have heard the hype about A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. If you did, I hope you also heard it's "a grown-up Twilight," and run screaming already. I was not smart enough to read the reviews before I picked it up, and so I have suffered, that you may avoid it like the plague.

( I wound up swearing at my car speakers as the audio book played. )

i think this author is overrated!!!, at least the cover is cool, character development fail, nonsparkly vampire fails, author last names g-l, like watching paint dry, there is a plot where somewhere

Comments 29

lots42 April 14 2011, 02:43:09 UTC

So basically he's the world's oldest scientist and he can't figure out library lending policies.

alicetheowl April 14 2011, 02:48:25 UTC

Apparently. There was an explanation in the book I was going to repeat here, but it's more pulling-convoluted-crap-out-of-her-ass. Like I said. Overwrought.

lady_fellshot April 14 2011, 05:15:39 UTC

Hey, I work around scientists and there's a running joke that the reason the fire alarm keeps going off is because the PhDs keep burning popcorn in the microwave. My co-workers and I have to constantly remind them that our little enclave requires lab coats. One of them not knowing library lending policies? Completely plausible. Sad yet true.

insanepurin April 14 2011, 02:55:03 UTC

(he has a signed copy of On the Origin of Species with a personal note of thanks for believing in him from Mr. Darwin)

Before this, I was like, "Uh huh, uh huh, sounds like your usual Twilight-inspired fail." Then just... *facepalm*

alicetheowl April 14 2011, 03:19:07 UTC

Heh. It is, indeed, a very special kind of fail. Knowing some famous thinkers makes some sense, but this guy has apparently been on intimate terms with every important historical figure, ever.

ravenskyewalker April 14 2011, 03:51:29 UTC

...yeah. I had actually been tempted to read this, just a little. Thanks for the warning.

alicetheowl April 14 2011, 20:30:43 UTC

Anytime. Apparently it's my mission in life to read the bad books that lots of people like, and then tear them apart.

merchendiver April 14 2011, 03:57:24 UTC

I didn't know anything about it and tried to listen to the audiobook. I got three chapters in. You are a braver soul than I.

lady_fellshot April 14 2011, 05:17:14 UTC

Completely off topic, but your icon is made of win.

alicetheowl April 14 2011, 20:32:07 UTC

Or perhaps just stupider. I was talking to my husband about how little I was enjoying it, and he gently suggested I listen to something else. I actually thought about it, and decided it HAD to get better.

Ugh. And he hasn't said "I told you so." Not once.

muse_books April 14 2011, 04:56:55 UTC

Glad to see this here. I did review it and slammed it for quite a few things including Diana Bishop being a total MarySue, the nose-twitching witchcraft, the cheesy romance and its anti-Gothic atmosphere.

I did pick up on Diana not exactly being the strong-minded individual she is suppose to be but then the nature of that soppy romance seems to be pure Mills & Boon (UK version of Harlequin Romance).

alicetheowl April 14 2011, 20:38:41 UTC

Yeah, we have a romance writer in my writers' group, and she's tried to explain to me the "alpha male" thing that makes me hate a lot of the books she loves, but I don't think it'll ever be anything to me but a reason to throw the book.