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Wednesday Reading Meme
Jul. 9th, 2014 11:29 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Jo Walton’s My Real Children, which I found thoroughly underwhelming. What am I missing? Everyone else in the universe clearly loved this book, but I felt that it spent far too much time reciting events that happened rather than showing them to us. Yes, it covers a large time span, but the earlier chapters showed specific scenes that encapsulated that part of Patricia's life rather than just reciting events, so I don't see why the later chapters couldn't do the same.
But possibly it just wasn't the book for me, because I didn’t get the point of having two different timelines that split off with Patricia’s decision to marry or not marry Mark. That this decision would have a huge effect on her personal life seems painfully obvious and not worth hanging a book on; that it would create such hugely different worlds on the macro scale seems inexplicable, and saying “butterfly effect!” feels like a handwave rather than an explanation.
I also didn't think much of the ending.
( Spoilers )
What I’m Reading Now
Pamela Dean’s The Dubious Hills, which I have mixed feelings about. Dean's writing is lovely as always, but I'm not sure about the world-building. So the conceit of the book is that in the Dubious Hills, there's only one person in a community who knows a thing: there's one person who knows pain, one who knows character, one who knows teaching, one who knows death...
And everyone else only knows what that one person tells them about pain - so our heroine Arry, who knows pain, often greets people by telling them "You have a headache," because unless she tells them they just won't know.
And somehow this mechanism has prevented war for decades. I'm having a hard time following the train of reasoning behind this. If only one person actually understands pain (and one other person understands death), wouldn't that make it easier for everyone else to go make wars?
I'm about halfway through the book, so possibly everything will yet become clear.
What I Plan to Read Next
Peaches, by Jodi Lynn Anderson. I’ve been meaning to read this for...going on a decade now. It looks like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants gone southern (admittedly, the fact that the author of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants blurbed it probably contributes to this impression), so hopefully I will like it!
Jo Walton’s My Real Children, which I found thoroughly underwhelming. What am I missing? Everyone else in the universe clearly loved this book, but I felt that it spent far too much time reciting events that happened rather than showing them to us. Yes, it covers a large time span, but the earlier chapters showed specific scenes that encapsulated that part of Patricia's life rather than just reciting events, so I don't see why the later chapters couldn't do the same.
But possibly it just wasn't the book for me, because I didn’t get the point of having two different timelines that split off with Patricia’s decision to marry or not marry Mark. That this decision would have a huge effect on her personal life seems painfully obvious and not worth hanging a book on; that it would create such hugely different worlds on the macro scale seems inexplicable, and saying “butterfly effect!” feels like a handwave rather than an explanation.
I also didn't think much of the ending.
( Spoilers )
What I’m Reading Now
Pamela Dean’s The Dubious Hills, which I have mixed feelings about. Dean's writing is lovely as always, but I'm not sure about the world-building. So the conceit of the book is that in the Dubious Hills, there's only one person in a community who knows a thing: there's one person who knows pain, one who knows character, one who knows teaching, one who knows death...
And everyone else only knows what that one person tells them about pain - so our heroine Arry, who knows pain, often greets people by telling them "You have a headache," because unless she tells them they just won't know.
And somehow this mechanism has prevented war for decades. I'm having a hard time following the train of reasoning behind this. If only one person actually understands pain (and one other person understands death), wouldn't that make it easier for everyone else to go make wars?
I'm about halfway through the book, so possibly everything will yet become clear.
What I Plan to Read Next
Peaches, by Jodi Lynn Anderson. I’ve been meaning to read this for...going on a decade now. It looks like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants gone southern (admittedly, the fact that the author of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants blurbed it probably contributes to this impression), so hopefully I will like it!
