Vent about the Book You're Reading

[Dark Squiggle]

Hunger Games was well written and a good idea, but not enough to make me want to read book 2. Harry Potter is a different story. I am one of those who cannot count the number of times he's read it. Yes the plotlines for books 1 & 2 are identical. Yes, 3 pulls a nasty scifi trick in fantasy with time travel. Yes 4's plot really is senseless with the whole cheating just to get him to touch the cup. Yes 5 & 6 are just fillers in which Rowling tried to make 'em a bit more adult. And no, 7 isn't even cohesive enough to say it has a plot. Yes 90% of the characters who get more then a page of screen time are mindnumbingly boring. However, there is some magic that makes the books really enjoyable except for the times when you can't ignore some really annoying bit. I think they deserve recognition, perhaps not worship like LotR, but I don't think LotR deserves worship either.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I have no problem with recognition for Potter as a YA, same goes for Hunger Games. And I get people growing up with these loving them forever, but the number of adults who went goofy over them as adults was disturbing, LOL.

It's not like they're abominations like Twilight, heh heh.

Yeah, I had to get that dig in.

Worship no book. That would be idolatry, heh heh.

We will have to agree to disagree on well-written with Hunger Games.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

I'm reading the first book of the Hunger Games. I am about half way through the book and I want to kill Katniss Everdeen! When is she finally going to get around to killing someone instead of hiding in trees, talk about food and not being seen and obsessing over some dude named Peeta who may or may not like her? Everything she thinks is rational and there's not so much as a naughty thought anywhere about anyone. However, I only read when I'm in the toilet so it's good to know that there's a fitting substitute.

Maybe my opinion might change by the time I get to the end of it?

I felt incredibly indifferent about THG.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

As for Harry Potter, i'm sickened by how the wizarding world is a cash cow now, but they're great despite having their flaws.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Overall, YA is a terrible scrap heap of the same plots over and over and wastes of paper with no worldbuilding. But that might just be all types of books. I have found middle grade to be a better category overall than YA.

YA has some gems though, for sure. Anybody read Six of Crows?

 

[Dark Squiggle]

Never heard of it. YA does have its gems. Anything by Cornelia Funke is good, and there are others.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

To be honest, i'm confused by the difference between YA as talked about by articles about writing, conventional wisdom, and the ideas of anyone over 30, and the YA I've read and seen trend on Goodreads. What people *think* of as YA is a much different beast and really, closer to children's/middle grade. Like, YA is supposedly intolerant of sex, more restricted in word counts than adult novels, etc. and yet more recent YA novels (published in the past few years) tend to be rather permissive about those things. What is real anymore?

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Oh yeah. Finished Dragonflight today. That was disappointing and gross. I had to force myself to finish it.

 

[Dark Squiggle]

Oh yeah. Finished Dragonflight today. That was disappointing and gross. I had to force myself to finish it.

I would never have done it. It hurts, but if a book is not teaching me or giving me enjoyment, away it goes.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

I would never have done it. It hurts, but if a book is not teaching me or giving me enjoyment, away it goes.

I'm usually like that, but this is considered such an essential classic in terms of dragons, that i wanted to be able to say i had completed it. Ya know. To get a mark on my Dragon Lover Card.

 

[Miles Lacey]

I'm wondering if my dislike of the Hunger Games is because I've been too heavily influenced by the movie franchise and I'm not the intended audience. I'm almost 50 but I bought The Hunger Games and Catching Fire because they were selling for $2 each at a second hand charity shop and I couldn't find anything else to read. Because the money went to a good cause I can at least feel good that the money I spent was put to good use.

As for the Harry Potter stories I never bought the books because they were basically "British public school" stories with fantastical elements, such as magic, tossed in to breathe life into a genre that has been going into terminal decline since the end of the Second World War. I read a lot of Enid Blyton and other books within that genre when I was a kid (because the books I had were mostly hand-me-down books from my sister) so as soon as I saw the first Harry Potter movie I knew exactly what to expect Thus, the story lines, the characters and the majority of what happens were pretty much what I expected - right down to the bloody tiresome moral puritanism, the token poor kid who is the central character and the snobbery of the rich kids with well connected rich parents that dominates these stories.

 

[Mythopoet]

Personally, I think as writers it's important that even when we really dislike a book that is quite popular, we should be able to look at it and discern the reasons that it appeals to its audience. That's really the best thing you can learn from a book you don't enjoy.

I never read The Hunger Games. To me it was just a rehash of very old themes. But I've always tended to read A LOT more classic literature in various genres than my peers. Most younger people don't like reading old books because the books don't speak their language and often don't appeal to their values anymore. So to the YA audience at the time Hunger Games was published, this was a very unique and exciting book to read for most young people. It's easy for older reader or more "well read" readers to look at it and say "eh, this is just a rehash of several books I've read before". Well, to be honest, you could say exactly the same for most of Shakespeare's work. The Hunger Games hit its mark extremely well and that's really all a book needs to do.

I am actually a fan of Harry Potter, having read the whole series multiple times and owning all the movies. I didn't read any of them until I was an adult. I can understand if the HP books don't appeal to you personally, but if you're completely astounded by their success with people of all ages you might have a problem. HP has a rich world, a large cast of characters to appeal to different readers, plots full of mystery and adventure, a story arc running through all the books that makes the whole much deeper, and simply put, they are fun and do not take themselves too seriously. Quibble as you might over the details, taken as a whole as a work of fiction, HP had everything it needed to appeal to a large range of people. It's pointless to complain about prose or structure because most readers don't care about those things. They just want to be entertained. I certainly found the books highly entertaining.

To be honest, i'm confused by the difference between YA as talked about by articles about writing, conventional wisdom, and the ideas of anyone over 30, and the YA I've read and seen trend on Goodreads. What people *think* of as YA is a much different beast and really, closer to children's/middle grade. Like, YA is supposedly intolerant of sex, more restricted in word counts than adult novels, etc. and yet more recent YA novels (published in the past few years) tend to be rather permissive about those things. What is real anymore?

Technically, from a marketing stand point (which is what these labels are for), YA's target audience is teens and young adults so anyone from about 13 to 24. The fact that older people are also drawn to YA books says more about books aimed at adults than the YA itself.

 

[Chessie2]

I have no problem with recognition for Potter as a YA, same goes for Hunger Games. And I get people growing up with these loving them forever, but the number of adults who went goofy over them as adults was disturbing, LOL.

It's not like they're abominations like Twilight, heh heh.

Yeah, I had to get that dig in.

Worship no book. That would be idolatry, heh heh.

We will have to agree to disagree on well-written with Hunger Games.

Oh, Lordy. I recall sitting at a bistro with my sister that was located across the street from Nordstrom. In the shop's display window they had set up outfits that Bella wore in the movie (this was when the first one came out). My then twenty-something sibling went gaga: "Oh, look! Those outfits are so cute! I'm going to buy the flannel one!"

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

I'm reading Maskerade again. I keep getting confused when I read the witches' Discworld books. I never know if I'm supposed to agree with Granny Weatherwax half the time or criticize her for being manipulative. That's really the only Discworld quibble I have, actually.

 

[Mythopoet]

I'm reading Maskerade again. I keep getting confused when I read the witches' Discworld books. I never know if I'm supposed to agree with Granny Weatherwax half the time or criticize her for being manipulative. That's really the only Discworld quibble I have, actually.

Both, I think. The 3 witches represent 3 different ways of doing things and in the end none of them are "right" or "wrong". They're meant more to be nuanced and inspire you to think. At least, I think that's what it's going for.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Im reading Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erickson and its so great to have a book that actually treats women as human beings and not as things to have sex with, abuse in any number of ways, or produce babies. like no one makes a big deal about the women in this book being women.

Which makes me think: i really wish for more books where women were allowed to be just people. Because a lot of "strong female"/girl power type novels end up making a big deal out of MC's female-ness and end up putting other female characters down in favor of this oNE SPECIAL FEMALE'S bad-ass-ness. also they just make her good at everything and make her super sexual and have every male character drooling over how pretty she is and im just like why can't we have a woman be average.

questions: why have i read so many misogynistic books lately and more WHY are the misogynistic books i've read often written by women??? i know a big deal is made about male authors buuuuut

with that out of the way wow this book has a LOT of characters and sometimes you have to read like 70 pages to get back to the one you were on which can be frustrating because i feel like i want to get to know one character in particular but its just. spread out among lots of characters.

So far this whole thing has felt kind of like a prologue for a much bigger story. Like, the whole book. All prologue it almost feels. I like the book but it's not "getting anywhere" in the usual sense and i feel like that's because this first book is to set up the....numerous sequels, which are like 1,000 page monsters lol. We'll see.

 

[ThinkerX]

Im reading Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erickson and its so great to have a book that actually treats women as human beings and not as things to have sex with, abuse in any number of ways, or produce babies. like no one makes a big deal about the women in this book being women.

Which makes me think: i really wish for more books where women were allowed to be just people. Because a lot of "strong female"/girl power type novels end up making a big deal out of MC's female-ness and end up putting other female characters down in favor of this oNE SPECIAL FEMALE'S bad-ass-ness. also they just make her good at everything and make her super sexual and have every male character drooling over how pretty she is and im just like why can't we have a woman be average.

questions: why have i read so many misogynistic books lately and more WHY are the misogynistic books i've read often written by women??? i know a big deal is made about male authors buuuuut

with that out of the way wow this book has a LOT of characters and sometimes you have to read like 70 pages to get back to the one you were on which can be frustrating because i feel like i want to get to know one character in particular but its just. spread out among lots of characters.

So far this whole thing has felt kind of like a prologue for a much bigger story. Like, the whole book. All prologue it almost feels. I like the book but it's not "getting anywhere" in the usual sense and i feel like that's because this first book is to set up the....numerous sequels, which are like 1,000 page monsters lol. We'll see.

I'm going to assume 'Dragon' is entranced with the devastatingly lethal female 'recruit.' Is she aware 'Gardens of the Moon' part of a ten book series? That series owes an awful lot to AD&D. Apparently the author (an anthropologist) was fond of the 'assassin' class.

Feists 'Magician' series impressed me a lot in my younger days. Somehow, I missed the lack of credible female characters in the earlier books, but I found the series pretty good right up to 'Shard's of a Broken Crown.' Past that, his muse died and it showed. Still some good scenes and interesting characters, but the spark wasn't there. Like 'Gardens of the Moon,' it began as a roleplaying game.

'Name of the Wind' possibly impressed me more than it should have. I accepted the beginning in the Inn as a storytelling device, and recognized from the outset that the narrator wasn't being entirely honest with his audience. Essentially, a vastly embellished autobiography - and the narrator admits as much more than once. I did have issues with the existence of the magical academy as compared to the dearth of magicians elsewhere, and the political structure of the setting had...serious issues. To me, that setup was an invite to either unending border wars or a conqueror swooping in from elsewhere.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

I'm going to assume 'Dragon' is entranced with the devastatingly lethal female 'recruit.' Is she aware 'Gardens of the Moon' part of a ten book series? That series owes an awful lot to AD&D. Apparently the author (an anthropologist) was fond of the 'assassin' class.

Feists 'Magician' series impressed me a lot in my younger days. Somehow, I missed the lack of credible female characters in the earlier books, but I found the series pretty good right up to 'Shard's of a Broken Crown.' Past that, his muse died and it showed. Still some good scenes and interesting characters, but the spark wasn't there. Like 'Gardens of the Moon,' it began as a roleplaying game.

'Name of the Wind' possibly impressed me more than it should have. I accepted the beginning in the Inn as a storytelling device, and recognized from the outset that the narrator wasn't being entirely honest with his audience. Essentially, a vastly embellished autobiography - and the narrator admits as much more than once. I did have issues with the existence of the magical academy as compared to the dearth of magicians elsewhere, and the political structure of the setting had...serious issues. To me, that setup was an invite to either unending border wars or a conqueror swooping in from elsewhere.

Ha!! I noticed that, though. The author keeps dropping "thief" and "mage" and "warrior" as if they were D&D classes. He seems to have each of his characters sorted into one.

and yeah it's a long series yikes

 

[Svrtnsse]

Is she aware 'Gardens of the Moon' part of a ten book series? That series owes an awful lot to AD&D.

I'm sure someone else can confirm/deny this, but from what I've heard, the series is based on an RPG campaign the author and his friends were playing.

 

[Chessie2]

It's an amazing book and I spilled coffee all over it like an idiot. Now I owe the local library $$.