a book that i have read
I've read Graceling by Kristin Cashore.
I am pretty sure the rushed romance is the death blow to this book. Here's what happens. I'm riding along on the first two hundred pages, pretty happy, reasonably pretty positive about the romance that is going to happen (I mean, you predict these things and you want to see them. You're not upset when they happen despite their predictability...usually), when all of a sudden the romance comes barreling full force out of nowhere and smacks me in the face like a brick. Suddenly the guy is all "I love you" and the girl is all "but I don't want a husband" and he plays the "I'll give myself to you however you'll take me, no strings, if that's what you want" card that she freaking accepts and before you know it they're having sex on some moss somewhere while using herbal oral contraception.
What the fuck is that? No, really. That was, like, two and a half pages in the middle of a 471 page book. This author managed to take all that build up (I will follow pent up sexual frustration between two characters to the end of the earth...it's like my heroin) and crash it.
Then she does it again with the antagonist, which is my other big hang up. I love antagonists. I have this weird, irrational love for them. Weird, irrational, and probably a little wrong. What I don't like are antagonists who have no point and are so blindly evil for no reason other than blind evil. This antagonist is greedy and power hungry. Check and check in terms of normal antagonist fare. I mean, we could have stopped there. BUT NO. This guy is not just greedy and power hungry. He's a pedophile, seems to have no problems with incest, thinks nothing of killing his wife, and he cuts up small children and fluffy little animals for fun. And he has these small children run an animal shelter for the fluffy animals he cuts up.
What the fuck is that? Seriously. The fuck. Is that. I mean, I'm having a hard enough time wrapping my brain around a king who runs an animal shelter staffed by children. That's...weird. Even if he was a totally happy, normal, balanced, safe human being and not a manipulative, knife-happy, crazy psycho. It's weird.
AND THEN. The Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken moment. Male hero and horse go plummeting face first into a lake, or something, and I just groaned. Because, you guys, I've seen that movie way too many times and I know what falling face first into a big pool of water with a horse does to a person. What I don't get at all is why it happened. Why would you separate the two, dump the guy off in a cabin somewhere, and then submit everyone else to the girl and some kid spending two months or whatever trying to get to the island kingdom of peachy keen and happy go lucky? And then resolve things randomly with the evil guy who kills kittens and small children, only to have to go back to the cabin and spend another sixty pages of soap opera about how this guy is dealing with this Wild Hearts issue? Only to have him pull more of a Wild Hearts plot and be totally fine. Hey, he can do everything he could before! Dive horses, see whatever he needs to thanks to his Grace...I'm having a hard time figuring out what he's having an issue with in the first place.
I clearly have issues with this book. I think I am just annoyed that it's another book that doesn't live up to the hype.
Although, this is a hilarious book trailer. I start laughing right at the :48 second mark.
I am pretty sure the rushed romance is the death blow to this book. Here's what happens. I'm riding along on the first two hundred pages, pretty happy, reasonably pretty positive about the romance that is going to happen (I mean, you predict these things and you want to see them. You're not upset when they happen despite their predictability...usually), when all of a sudden the romance comes barreling full force out of nowhere and smacks me in the face like a brick. Suddenly the guy is all "I love you" and the girl is all "but I don't want a husband" and he plays the "I'll give myself to you however you'll take me, no strings, if that's what you want" card that she freaking accepts and before you know it they're having sex on some moss somewhere while using herbal oral contraception.
What the fuck is that? No, really. That was, like, two and a half pages in the middle of a 471 page book. This author managed to take all that build up (I will follow pent up sexual frustration between two characters to the end of the earth...it's like my heroin) and crash it.
Then she does it again with the antagonist, which is my other big hang up. I love antagonists. I have this weird, irrational love for them. Weird, irrational, and probably a little wrong. What I don't like are antagonists who have no point and are so blindly evil for no reason other than blind evil. This antagonist is greedy and power hungry. Check and check in terms of normal antagonist fare. I mean, we could have stopped there. BUT NO. This guy is not just greedy and power hungry. He's a pedophile, seems to have no problems with incest, thinks nothing of killing his wife, and he cuts up small children and fluffy little animals for fun. And he has these small children run an animal shelter for the fluffy animals he cuts up.
What the fuck is that? Seriously. The fuck. Is that. I mean, I'm having a hard enough time wrapping my brain around a king who runs an animal shelter staffed by children. That's...weird. Even if he was a totally happy, normal, balanced, safe human being and not a manipulative, knife-happy, crazy psycho. It's weird.
AND THEN. The Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken moment. Male hero and horse go plummeting face first into a lake, or something, and I just groaned. Because, you guys, I've seen that movie way too many times and I know what falling face first into a big pool of water with a horse does to a person. What I don't get at all is why it happened. Why would you separate the two, dump the guy off in a cabin somewhere, and then submit everyone else to the girl and some kid spending two months or whatever trying to get to the island kingdom of peachy keen and happy go lucky? And then resolve things randomly with the evil guy who kills kittens and small children, only to have to go back to the cabin and spend another sixty pages of soap opera about how this guy is dealing with this Wild Hearts issue? Only to have him pull more of a Wild Hearts plot and be totally fine. Hey, he can do everything he could before! Dive horses, see whatever he needs to thanks to his Grace...I'm having a hard time figuring out what he's having an issue with in the first place.
I clearly have issues with this book. I think I am just annoyed that it's another book that doesn't live up to the hype.
Although, this is a hilarious book trailer. I start laughing right at the :48 second mark.
Click to view