Reading Roundup

[hamsterwoman]

Ben Aaronovitch needs to write more books or something... Since finishing Broken Homes, and before that Whispers Under Ground, I've been casting aout desultorily and, I think, enjoying everything I read less for not being about Peter Grant... Be that as it may, I did manage to finish a couple of books, though my average for the year so far is

Comments

[nutmeg3]

You've put your finger on one of my huge problems with Alexia / the Parasol Protectorate. The woman is stone cold stupid, especially in Book 2, where Carriger also contravenes one of the major rules of her world-building: the hero lays his wolfy head in Alexia's lap, she pets him without gloves and he stays a wolf. That was the final straw after a book full of straws.

I think I've said this before, but I need to check out Ben Aaronovitch.

[hamsterwoman]

Characters who are supposed to be smart but who act like idiots for the sake of the plot (or relationship drama) are a pet peeve of mine, which made it hard to enjoy the silly, fun aspects of the Parasol Protectorate books.

The worldbuilding inconsistency didn't help either -- I very clearly remember the moment you mention and read over that paragraph several times to make sure she wasn't wearing gloves, but, nope. Which left me wondering whether the author/editor didn't notice (pretty sad) or if she knew it was violating her wouldbuilding rules but wanted to keep in the scene because who cares...

That was the final straw after a book full of straws.

That's a good way of putting it, hee!

And, I very highly recommend Aaronovitch's books. Since I read them myself earlier this year, I think I've given them as a gift to every book-loving friend who's had a birthday in the interim, because they're just that much fun.

[nutmeg3]

I downloaded the first of the London books for Kindle, and I'm looking forward to reading it before I die of old age.

[hamsterwoman]

*cheers you on in this endeavor* :)

[isiscolo]

I'm carefully not reading your spoilers, because I haven't read Bitterblue, but I felt like part of the point of the first two books was to have a protagonist who was Mary-Sue-perfect but still had flaws serious enough to make her life difficult and dangerous and unpleasant. Like Cashore was taking it on as a challenge (which I feel she succeeded at).

(I'm about 3/4 through the audiobook version of Fire.)

[hamsterwoman]

See, I think Fire really succeeds on this level -- it's clearly a deconstruction of the "beautiful and everybody loves her" Mary-Sue type, and I think it works beautifully as that -- sort of taking the concept to its logical conclusion and exploring all the downsides. Plus, I found Fire to be a really likeable protagonist in her own right, someone I could respect and whose dilemmas I found affecting.

Graceling may have been trying for something similar, but didn't work for me as a deconstruction or subversion at all, because Katsa never made sense to me as a character. Her obliviousness to certain things and general lack of subtlety made very little sense to me in the context of her other role where she was masterminding the covert Council. Her prejudice against mind-readers didn't seem to match the rest of her personality, either. Oh, and the way everyone seems to love her for reasons that I had a hard time understanding, because I didn't find anything likeable in her, at least in the way she behaves early on. Basically, her

[loupnoir]

canistillgetthenewabromovich? Please? I'm in search of something fun, and that would be just the ticket.

[hamsterwoman]

Of course! :) I'm out of town right now and the files are on the other computer, so it will be a couple of days. I think I have it in MOBI and the new Kindle format -- would MOBI work for you? And your email is still [lastname]@wildblue.net, right?

[loupnoir]

My tablet can definitely handle MOBI. Not sure about the latest and greatest Kindle.

You've got the correct email address.

So looking forward to this. I'm ready for a fun read.

[hamsterwoman]

Sent! Hopefully it gets to you OK, and you can read it, and also enjoy the book! (I thought it was one of the better ones, if not the best, in the series yet :)

[aome]

I'm kind of surprised that you still enjoyed the story, despite all the things that didn't work for you. Not sure what you'll make of The Runaway King! I will say that there's no "twist" in the 2nd book - and I say that only because I kept waiting for it to be revealed, and it never happened, so you don't have to analyze everyone's actions for hidden messages. (Incidentally, although I know you're not prone to re-reading, and probably even less so for books you found problematic, but I found it fun to re-read the pre-twist bits to view everything Sage says or does in that new light. Gave everything an entirely different meaning, of course, from what I had initially perceived.)

[hamsterwoman]

Actually -- and I realize this isn't very evident from my write-up itself, because a lot of it is spent on nitpicks -- I didn't find the book problematic at all :) The things that didn't work for me also didn't bother me or interfere with my enjoyment, for whatever reason. I think partly it may be that I'm willing to cut a fair bit of slack to a first time novel and a midgrade book, and partly it's just that the protagonist and narration and central twist are so fun, nothing else matters much. Like, the things it does well -- Jaron himself and the foreshadowing -- it does really well, and that's all I needed to be able to enjoy it.

(I think maybe what I would really like is a grown-up version of this story, with the setting and secondary characters much more fleshed out and with depths and stories of their own, and with believable and complex motivations for everyone and everything, But in the absence of that, the kidlit version is plenty entertaining without being War and Peace -- so, thank you once again: it was a very fun read,

[aome]

Yes, they do.

I like the quandry caused by Imogen. Jaron is clearly starting to develop affection for her in Prince - beyond just friendship, I think - but she's a maid and he's King. Even just elevating her, the way he did at the end of Prince, doesn't really solve the situation. And he's supposed to wed the princess, anyway. I think Imogen is better for him emotionally and yet probably not, socially. Kind of a sad situation, but I like her character anyway.

[hamsterwoman]

Oh good, I'm curious to see how Jaron and Tobias's relationship continues to develop.

Yes, I would agree that Imogen is much better for Jaron emotionally, given that the princess seems to have really loved (or at least cared for) his brother, and that would just forever remind him that he's "plan B", not just in the sense of kingship but even in his own marriage, if that goes off as planned. I strongly suspect Jaron and Imogen will be the endgame couple, given how prominent she was in book 1 and that there's not really anything else she's being set up to do. (But, honestly, I think I would be more interested in Jaron and his dead brother's fiance having to make the best of a political marriage. Though I suspect some of that can happen anyway, even if they don't ultimately marry because Jaron figures out some way to be with Imogen.)