Reading roundup: WicDiv, Fangirl, more Whyborne and Griffin/SPECTR

[hamsterwoman]

19. Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matthew Wilson, The Wicked + The Divine, volume 1 -- this was a book L borrowed from Awesome Friend Allie (or, more likely to say, that Awesome Friend Allie pressed on her in an effort to get L into comics), and L read it and confessed to me she enjoyed it (with a great dose of chagrin, 'cos she knew there would

Comments

[_profiterole_]

I haven't read WicDiv 3 yet, but my opinion on WicDiv 1 and 2 is that it's so much wasted potential. All these God characters could be super interesting, but they've got nothing to do except insulting each other and having sex with their fans. Also, the diversity is off the charts, but all my favourite LGBT characters are dead (as usual... fuck this trope! >_>). This series definitely doesn't live up to the hype.

[hamsterwoman]

I am wondering if WicDiv is going to have some kind of payoff or what. It is a really neat set-up, and the individual bits are very cool (I can even give a pass on the gods insulting each other and having sex with their fans thing, because that is kind of a lot of what gods do in real mythology, too), but I don't have a sense of the coherent whole at all...

And, yeah, while the diversity is really impressive (both ethnic and LGBT spectrum), it is definitely also true that my favorite LGBT characters have been killed off (Luci and Inanna; and I'm not sure if Laura is bi or just, like, god-sexual, but if she counts, then her, too).

I'm not sure if the series is playing this trope or (as seems likely) if EVERYONE is going to end up dead, and therefore all the LGBT characters are going to be killed off by virtue of there being LGBT characters here, but it's still annoying, because all my favorites are gone, either killed or transformed (like Cass).

[_profiterole_]

Yeah, it also has neat scenes about fan culture, social media, conventions... But it's not doing much with it.

I'm definitely counting Laura as bi.

I expected them to die at the end of the 2 years, not hunted down one after the other like that. The time limit made me think of The Summer Prince, who lives for a year after being chosen. This book did so much with art and many other themes. WicDiv is:
EXPECTATION: The Summer Prince
REALITY: A shiny Game of Thrones :/

[hamsterwoman]

REALITY: A shiny Game of Thrones :/

Yeah, actually, L, who knows I like ASOIAF, told me (after I finished WicDiv 2) that her friend told her that this series is known as the ASOIAF of comics or something like that, due to the "nobody's safe" / protagonist death thing.

But I don't know that I'm getting much out of that besides shock value, right now... though I'm still intrigued by the premise. I'm not sure who I have left to like, though, character-wise!

I was also not expecting this gradual attrition, although the introduction does support that, I guess, with some surviving members of the old pantheon but everybody else being already dead.

[ikel89]

Oh wow, that IS a long write-up, even quotes excluding :D But most important question first, lest I forget all about it, commenting on specific points - how long do you plan on putting off reading Carry On? :D :D :D

(*googles it* there is fic, but of the 540 works on AO3, looks like only 35 or so are about the actual characters, and the rest are Simon Snow related)
I glanced once at the archive, randomly stumbled into a nice, very canon-like Carry On fic, and didn’t feel like reading on much more. If you say there is no Reagan ot3 fic, I am disappoint in the fandom and don’t want to look at the archive in more detail :P

I liked Cath and Arthur’s jokes, with a lot of references (though I barely caught half of it) and not a little self-deprecation, but that was about the only part that I seriously enjoyed, being too cautious about the rest.

This is what it looks like when a sane person taps her fingersWhoa.. I had completely missed this sentence, it’s a very good one, and drives the point, too

[ikel89]

Drawbacks

[hamsterwoman]

I had a lot of thoughts and feelings about this one, apparently!

But most important question first, lest I forget all about it, commenting on specific points - how long do you plan on putting off reading Carry On? :D :D :D

Haha, well, I enjoyed this as a respite from the paranormal Victorian romance that I appear to be otherwise mainlining, so maybe after Watchmaker and the next Whyborne & Griffin I'll do Carry On as a palate cleanser again... I'm honestly not sure how well it will work for me -- I couldn't shake the Drarry flashbacks in the snippets after all -- but I plan to give it a try.

Alas, I could find no trace of +Reagan OT3, just lots of questionable Cath/Levi shmoop, but there is this one Cath/Reagan story that was actually pretty good, except I'm annoyed that the author broke up Cath and Levi (it was a gift, so I assume that part was written to the recipient's tastes, but still).

Whoa.. I had completely missed this sentence, it’s a very good one, and drives the point, too.Yes, that one struck me! I also marked downt

[hamsterwoman]

And her original story - did she steal Nick’s second person thing? XD

LOL But, yeah, I really didn't get any sense of what was so great about it... Like, at all.

And her original story - did she steal Nick’s second person thing? XD

Heh. That is a fair point.

I thought at first that Cather was an homage to Willa Cather -- and maybe it is, either/both in-novel and from the author, 'cos apparently Cather lived in Nebraska and went to the university at Lincoln (I didn't know that until I just looked it up). But as far as author-homage names go, I don't think it's a great one for a girl...

HARRY POTTER MENTION YES. Literally why?? It was so confusing and unnecessary. Was it done to say that lol Simon’s books are not REALLY harry potter? this is such a questionable move..I would like someone to explain this to me, yes, please! On my own, all I'm left with is a pile of WHYYYY

[lookfar]

I really liked Fangirl, for lots of reasons. First of all - fic about fanfic writer! How strange that felt. As if writing fanfic was some sort of legitimate Thing. And then the weirdness of the Simon Snow parts; they were like those purple dinosaurs with green bellies that weren't Barney because they weren't licensed. Uncanny Valley material.

I just finished Carry On, actually. A real pageturner, and again, that Uncanny Valley feeling, but I didn't care as much about it as other Rowell books. It felt like off-brand Harry Potter and I couldn't quite figure out how it got published, except as a companion to Fangirl.

If you liked Fangirl, I'd recommend Tell the Wolves I'm Home, another almost-YA novel about teenage sisters and very good.

You've read Eleanor and Park, I assume.

[lookfar]

Also, I really liked thinking about how Rowell was writing about her own feelings about writing.

[hamsterwoman]

the Simon Snow parts; they were like those purple dinosaurs with green bellies that weren't Barney because they weren't licensed

Haha, this is a great analogy!

It felt like off-brand Harry Potter and I couldn't quite figure out how it got published, except as a companion to Fangirl.

I haven't read it (yet), so wouldn't feel right to pass judgement, but I've wondered about this, honestly. And also what the purpose of it is. Just to have a "children's book" with canonical slash? It seems like such a strange exercise!

Reading a book about fanfic was odd, in a nice way -- seeing a lot of the arguments I've seen live around fandom. A cozy feeling, actually, like being in on an inside joke. And yes, sort of meta, in Rowell writing-about-writing way.

This was actually my first Rowell book, so I've not read Eleanor and Park yet, but given how much I liked the prose in this one, I think I do want to check that out (although what I've heard of it sounds fairly depressing?)

I also hadn't heard about Tell the Wolves I'm Home, but that's

[lookfar]

I really liked the way Rowell named the dad's bipolar disorder but in a way that made it clear that this is something they deal with, it's part of their life. It adds challenges, it's a bummer, but he's their dad, not A Bipolar, and it wasn't a book about mental illness or bipolar disorder, but a book about some people. I guess I'm saying I appreciated that it was treated in a destigmatizing way without minimizing the costs to them. I think that's what happens when something is really accepted; it's part of the whole picture. And you got the feeling that this had been tough on the girls, but it hadn't been a life-ruiner or a tragedy.

Eleanor and Park is probably my favorite YA book ever. I read it twice, which is really unusual for me. It's not depressing - gah, if you want depressing, try The Fault in Our Stars - but it has depressing features. No one is finally crushed under the bootheel of life, so that's good. It made me want to write a YA novel.

[a_phoenixdragon]

*Drive-by SQUISH*

[hamsterwoman]

:)

[etrangere]

i need to get back into reading W+D. I've jsut read as much as you and I'm never quite certain whether i like it or not.

[hamsterwoman]

I find that I like it on the micro level -- a lot of the characters, a lot of the quotes, a lot of the artistic touches and real world commentary -- but on the macro level, I'm also not sure, because I don't feel like I know what the whole thing is about/where it's going.

I've definitely learned not to get too attached to the characters, though!

[etrangere]

Oh also I've been reading the spectr series too -- except i started a bit earlier and ended up latter just today ^^ don't have much to say about it there's bits of interesting bits of world building but I find them extraordinarily lacking of emotion/chemistry. Like all the romantic/sex scene feel so perfunctionary I don't ever feel anything about them? The character make sense as built, but the writing don't convey it very efficiently I find? Although I found the whole working on the body cohabitation thing endearing, and also Tiffany awesome.

[hamsterwoman]

John and Caleb don't really grab me as characters (I do like Gray, though; I think he feels kind of like an AI-learning-to-be-human trope, which is one I like). I like them as a couple, but not for chemistry reasons -- mostly for "being actual functional grown-ups" reasons. Which is maybe a low bar, IDK, but I find it refreshing compared to other fictional couples I've been reading recently, I guess.

Although I found the whole working on the body cohabitation thing endearing, and also Tiffany awesome.

Agreed on both of these! The body cohabitation was not something I expected to find as adorable as I do. And Tiffany really grew on me, though I still prefer Kaniyar, I think.

Are you planning to continue with series 2?