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Wednesday Reading Meme
Sep. 17th, 2014 09:15 amWhat I’ve Finished Reading
Jaleigh Johnson’s The Mark of the Dragonfly, which never quite gelled for me, unfortunately. The premise of a world where objects from other worlds fall out of the sky intrigued me, but the book doesn’t end up doing much with it - the objects don’t seem to have had any real effect on the world’s culture, except as curios. Moreover, the pacing is off, and I felt the romance was shoe-horned in. (I often feel this, especially in YA books. Nothing is so damaging to YA as a genre as the fact that romance has become absolutely required.)
Not that a boy who can turn into a dragon...bat...creature isn’t cool, but I felt like we were told rather than shown why they liked each other. Moreover, it distracted from Piper’s friendship with Anna. Which we were also told rather than shown to a certain extent, but at least I haven’t been told about this sort of relationship five thousand times before.
Also William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, because I am a glutton for punishment. Why do all of Faulkner’s characters have such issues with women? And they all have different issues with women. You have Quentin’s weirdly incestuous obsession with his sister - it’s not so much that he actually wants to bang her, he just wants to make sure that no one else ever touches her ever again. If only they go down to hell together, where they will be cut off from the rest of humanity by eternal flame!
But this is positively cuddly in comparison to Jason, who I am pretty sure is a sociopath. He sees himself as the only sane man in a family of lunatics and the only person in the world who is of any value, and therefore finds it easy to justify to himself when he does things like have his mentally challenged brother Benjy castrated (!!!) or steal all the money his sister sends for the upkeep of her illegitimate daughter.
It’s all so unpleasant. Is there a minimum unpleasantness number that books have to reach before they're allowed to be American classics?
What I’m Reading Now
Rosemary Sutcliff’s Rider on a White Horse. Yes! After hauling this around for the last five months, I’ve finally started reading it! Um, probably because its due date is finally approaching. I’ve only gotten a couple of chapters in, but I’m really enjoying it so far. Why did you put it off so long, self?
What I Plan to Read Next
The Goblin Emperor.
Jaleigh Johnson’s The Mark of the Dragonfly, which never quite gelled for me, unfortunately. The premise of a world where objects from other worlds fall out of the sky intrigued me, but the book doesn’t end up doing much with it - the objects don’t seem to have had any real effect on the world’s culture, except as curios. Moreover, the pacing is off, and I felt the romance was shoe-horned in. (I often feel this, especially in YA books. Nothing is so damaging to YA as a genre as the fact that romance has become absolutely required.)
Not that a boy who can turn into a dragon...bat...creature isn’t cool, but I felt like we were told rather than shown why they liked each other. Moreover, it distracted from Piper’s friendship with Anna. Which we were also told rather than shown to a certain extent, but at least I haven’t been told about this sort of relationship five thousand times before.
Also William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, because I am a glutton for punishment. Why do all of Faulkner’s characters have such issues with women? And they all have different issues with women. You have Quentin’s weirdly incestuous obsession with his sister - it’s not so much that he actually wants to bang her, he just wants to make sure that no one else ever touches her ever again. If only they go down to hell together, where they will be cut off from the rest of humanity by eternal flame!
But this is positively cuddly in comparison to Jason, who I am pretty sure is a sociopath. He sees himself as the only sane man in a family of lunatics and the only person in the world who is of any value, and therefore finds it easy to justify to himself when he does things like have his mentally challenged brother Benjy castrated (!!!) or steal all the money his sister sends for the upkeep of her illegitimate daughter.
It’s all so unpleasant. Is there a minimum unpleasantness number that books have to reach before they're allowed to be American classics?
What I’m Reading Now
Rosemary Sutcliff’s Rider on a White Horse. Yes! After hauling this around for the last five months, I’ve finally started reading it! Um, probably because its due date is finally approaching. I’ve only gotten a couple of chapters in, but I’m really enjoying it so far. Why did you put it off so long, self?
What I Plan to Read Next
The Goblin Emperor.
