Bookses
So I actually finished two whole books recently (it's been a "down" period for readage lately), Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and Moon Called. Both left me with mixed feelings~
Percy Jackson was a really weird book to read, proooobably because I read it after seeing the movie, which might not have been such a good idea. And in a radical change for most movies based on a book, I think the movie might actually have been better this time. Or at least, more 'mature' and therefore more suited to someone my age.
Although admittedly...neither are really targeted at the 20+ demographic ^^;
But I can't help it! Greek mythology is my thiiiing, I love it and the trailer for The Lightning Thief really had me sold on this interesting, modern take on Greek mythology, and if that's how we're judging the quality of the series, the movie really has the book beat. The book reads like a Greek Mythology for Kids guidebook, like someone wanted to introduce/help kids relate to Greek mythology as a subject, which is probably what it was intended to do. It'd be a great book series for the classroom. The trouble, of course, with kids books is that they leave all the good parts out or water it down to make it kid-appropriate. Of course, this shouldn't be a suprise given it's a KIDS BOOK LOL DUH, but the movie gave me hope for a more mature, YA venture, and what I ended up with was more in the JF region.
The blurbs on the cover make mention of 'clever updates to classic myths', but they're less 'clever' and more 'silly'. I mean, they distract the three-headed guard dog of the Underworld, Cerberus, with a great big rubber ball. Poseidon wears Bermuda shorts for God's sake, that right there tells you all you need to know about how this book handles its mythology.
I was hoping for the more Desperate-Housewife-Persephone-level 'updates'. That gag alone saved an otherwise mediocre movie for me. Well, that and the washed-up-rockstar-Hades. That was great.
Although, I did kind of enjoy Hades rant about overcrowding and Underworld traffic. That was unexpected given the circumstances, and pretty funny.
Anyway, I suppose in the end, you have a fairly decent adventure book meant for children, not twenty-year-olds. This is not one of those for-all-age-groups children's books.
Makes me miss the Harry Potter days of yore, before they traded in Quidditch for Emo and everything went all to shit.
Then there was the book for which I am somewhere in the actual target audience...
Moon Called is one of those strange books that put me off ever so slightly while I was reading it, yet had me doing so before, during, and after work, neglecting my poor, poor internet for some reason I really can't comprehend. Looking back from this side of the book (this side being the end), the story wasn't that great. Even while reading the book itself I had the feeling of being jerked around from place to place by an author who was more interested in showing off her world and characters than telling a coherent story, and to this end constructed a plot that was convoluted and confusing and in the end, rather pointless.
It's sort of odd, because I got the distinct feeling throughout the book that its MAIN CHARACTER, Mercy, was totally unnecessary to the main plot. Absolutely no part of the Master Plan was really meant to involve her, which isn't to say that a Master Plan always has to be about screwing over/exalting the main character, but in this case, it felt like the author had to keep finding reasons for Mercy to be around. Mercy herself had to insist to the other characters that she was sticking around when the action occurred, because by everyone's admission, she's quite useless in battle. Well, useless in comparison to the wolves on steroids who make up most of the main cast. And then in other parts of the story, she just sort of involves herself in other people's business to keep the story rolling when shit's not happening. At any rate, most of the time, the heroine ends up being a tag-a-long in her own story.
This strikes me as even more odd, because, after reflecting more on the Master Plan itself, I'd come to the conclusion that it was so pointlessly complicated and needlessly violent to achieve a rather simple end result that it could only possibly have come about in one of two ways.
A) The author started writing without having any idea where she was going to end up, and once she got there, looked back on the broken, random, confusing mess she'd constructed and just left it that way, or
2) Drew four dots on a piece of paper, each representing a location symbolic of one of the four 'worlds' in this particular universe, drew a random path connecting them, and then constructed a plot following this diagram.
Anyway, it's just sort of hard to believe she created this plot featuring this main character, and yet still somehow managed to make her not-important to the story. That takes an odd kind of writing talent.
At any rate, that's not even what bothered me reading the book. What bothered me was that you have this actually really interesting main character in Mercy, this woman who is very smart and capable with a strong, defiant personality, and then you stick her in this world where almost everyone is stronger/more powerful than she is. So, because of this and the ridiculously outdated rules of this world, she has to be submissive and respectful to these dominant characters (yes, men, mostly), otherwise she could, by their rules, be killed or punished. And this is okay with them. And, for the most part, with her. I mean, okay, she has a few throwaway lines like "Well if I ruled the werewolves, women wouldn't have to put up with this", but for the most part, it's treated with an OH ITS OK BECAUSE THEY'RE OLD and its in their nature attitude. Even the male leads have this control-freak issue. You get less of a sense that they could love Mercy (in fact, in one instance, we're specifically told one doesn't), than that they want to possess her because she's a challenge. Mercy's acts of defiance and determination to do what she wants are mostly treated with patronizing condescension. Like "Oh, look, isn't it cute, Mercy's being difficult again."
missdeep has mentioned having issues along these lines with this particular series before, but I wasn't sure I would pick it up myself, being a fairly oblivious-type reader xD AND YET HERE WE ARE.
I guess what it comes down to is it bugging me that nobody in this book seemed to have any real respect for its heroine. What is charming and likable about Mercy is that she has an abundance of respect for herself, being a strong and independent and capable woman without falling into cliche Anita-Blake-esque invincible badass maneating whore syndrome, but the vast majority of the people around her treat her like a stubborn child. It makes for REALLY IRRITATING READING.
And yet, I finished Moon Called at work, came home, and read the first few pages of Blood Bound before cooking or turning on my computer. Go figure.
On the other hand, perhaps all this shit I've been complaining about is a good thing. I actually kind of liked that, so far, Mercy isn't THE SPECIAL ONE destined to do something AMAZING and EPIC (although they sort of hinted at that, but fingers crossed it doesn't go anywhere stupid). I just wish we could get a little respect for the heroine from, at the very least, the leading men, and maybe a little more coherent a story from the author.
LOL long rant. Guess we'll see how Blood Bound goes.
Percy Jackson was a really weird book to read, proooobably because I read it after seeing the movie, which might not have been such a good idea. And in a radical change for most movies based on a book, I think the movie might actually have been better this time. Or at least, more 'mature' and therefore more suited to someone my age.
Although admittedly...neither are really targeted at the 20+ demographic ^^;
But I can't help it! Greek mythology is my thiiiing, I love it and the trailer for The Lightning Thief really had me sold on this interesting, modern take on Greek mythology, and if that's how we're judging the quality of the series, the movie really has the book beat. The book reads like a Greek Mythology for Kids guidebook, like someone wanted to introduce/help kids relate to Greek mythology as a subject, which is probably what it was intended to do. It'd be a great book series for the classroom. The trouble, of course, with kids books is that they leave all the good parts out or water it down to make it kid-appropriate. Of course, this shouldn't be a suprise given it's a KIDS BOOK LOL DUH, but the movie gave me hope for a more mature, YA venture, and what I ended up with was more in the JF region.
The blurbs on the cover make mention of 'clever updates to classic myths', but they're less 'clever' and more 'silly'. I mean, they distract the three-headed guard dog of the Underworld, Cerberus, with a great big rubber ball. Poseidon wears Bermuda shorts for God's sake, that right there tells you all you need to know about how this book handles its mythology.
I was hoping for the more Desperate-Housewife-Persephone-level 'updates'. That gag alone saved an otherwise mediocre movie for me. Well, that and the washed-up-rockstar-Hades. That was great.
Although, I did kind of enjoy Hades rant about overcrowding and Underworld traffic. That was unexpected given the circumstances, and pretty funny.
Anyway, I suppose in the end, you have a fairly decent adventure book meant for children, not twenty-year-olds. This is not one of those for-all-age-groups children's books.
Makes me miss the Harry Potter days of yore, before they traded in Quidditch for Emo and everything went all to shit.
Then there was the book for which I am somewhere in the actual target audience...
Moon Called is one of those strange books that put me off ever so slightly while I was reading it, yet had me doing so before, during, and after work, neglecting my poor, poor internet for some reason I really can't comprehend. Looking back from this side of the book (this side being the end), the story wasn't that great. Even while reading the book itself I had the feeling of being jerked around from place to place by an author who was more interested in showing off her world and characters than telling a coherent story, and to this end constructed a plot that was convoluted and confusing and in the end, rather pointless.
It's sort of odd, because I got the distinct feeling throughout the book that its MAIN CHARACTER, Mercy, was totally unnecessary to the main plot. Absolutely no part of the Master Plan was really meant to involve her, which isn't to say that a Master Plan always has to be about screwing over/exalting the main character, but in this case, it felt like the author had to keep finding reasons for Mercy to be around. Mercy herself had to insist to the other characters that she was sticking around when the action occurred, because by everyone's admission, she's quite useless in battle. Well, useless in comparison to the wolves on steroids who make up most of the main cast. And then in other parts of the story, she just sort of involves herself in other people's business to keep the story rolling when shit's not happening. At any rate, most of the time, the heroine ends up being a tag-a-long in her own story.
This strikes me as even more odd, because, after reflecting more on the Master Plan itself, I'd come to the conclusion that it was so pointlessly complicated and needlessly violent to achieve a rather simple end result that it could only possibly have come about in one of two ways.
A) The author started writing without having any idea where she was going to end up, and once she got there, looked back on the broken, random, confusing mess she'd constructed and just left it that way, or
2) Drew four dots on a piece of paper, each representing a location symbolic of one of the four 'worlds' in this particular universe, drew a random path connecting them, and then constructed a plot following this diagram.
Anyway, it's just sort of hard to believe she created this plot featuring this main character, and yet still somehow managed to make her not-important to the story. That takes an odd kind of writing talent.
At any rate, that's not even what bothered me reading the book. What bothered me was that you have this actually really interesting main character in Mercy, this woman who is very smart and capable with a strong, defiant personality, and then you stick her in this world where almost everyone is stronger/more powerful than she is. So, because of this and the ridiculously outdated rules of this world, she has to be submissive and respectful to these dominant characters (yes, men, mostly), otherwise she could, by their rules, be killed or punished. And this is okay with them. And, for the most part, with her. I mean, okay, she has a few throwaway lines like "Well if I ruled the werewolves, women wouldn't have to put up with this", but for the most part, it's treated with an OH ITS OK BECAUSE THEY'RE OLD and its in their nature attitude. Even the male leads have this control-freak issue. You get less of a sense that they could love Mercy (in fact, in one instance, we're specifically told one doesn't), than that they want to possess her because she's a challenge. Mercy's acts of defiance and determination to do what she wants are mostly treated with patronizing condescension. Like "Oh, look, isn't it cute, Mercy's being difficult again."
missdeep has mentioned having issues along these lines with this particular series before, but I wasn't sure I would pick it up myself, being a fairly oblivious-type reader xD AND YET HERE WE ARE.
I guess what it comes down to is it bugging me that nobody in this book seemed to have any real respect for its heroine. What is charming and likable about Mercy is that she has an abundance of respect for herself, being a strong and independent and capable woman without falling into cliche Anita-Blake-esque invincible badass maneating whore syndrome, but the vast majority of the people around her treat her like a stubborn child. It makes for REALLY IRRITATING READING.
And yet, I finished Moon Called at work, came home, and read the first few pages of Blood Bound before cooking or turning on my computer. Go figure.
On the other hand, perhaps all this shit I've been complaining about is a good thing. I actually kind of liked that, so far, Mercy isn't THE SPECIAL ONE destined to do something AMAZING and EPIC (although they sort of hinted at that, but fingers crossed it doesn't go anywhere stupid). I just wish we could get a little respect for the heroine from, at the very least, the leading men, and maybe a little more coherent a story from the author.
LOL long rant. Guess we'll see how Blood Bound goes.