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February books
Mar. 6th, 2013 08:29 pmFirst, I read ( The Reckoning by Kelley Armstrong )
I read very little in February. That was partly because Tet was in February - Vietnamese New Year - and I always read more when I have work. It was also because I slogged through 150 pages of Amanda Downum’s The Drowning City before I gave up.
I’m actually rather pleased that I gave it up; I’m one of those people who will read any amount of dross rather than not finish a book. This, like my love of rereading, probably has its roots in the fact that I was a passionate, devouring bookworm a long time before I was allowed to go to the library by myself. (The joy of getting out a whole twelve books, all mine for three weeks, from when I was ten or so... God it was heady.) So I reread and I read stuff too young or too old for me and I would never not finish a book - particularly because if you’re going through a book every three days or so it doesn’t matter as much if you’re not enjoying it.
But the internet is much better competition for my attention than telly ever was. So I am going to try to be the sort of person who says NO. The Drowning City is probably quite a good book; it didn’t annoy me or strike me as badly written. It just didn’t engage me, it was full of description which created atmosphere but also bored me, and I didn’t care much about the intrigue even though I liked quite a lot of the characters. I might go back, because it strikes me as a me-problem rather than a book-problem. But I wasn’t especially pleased that a book about a city in an Indian-analogue country, colonised by an Arabic-analogue empire, had as its main character a white girl. Her role as a spy from another nation was interesting and she wasn’t the only viewpoint character, but come on, really? I also found the mention of everything smelling of eucalyptus, with lots of eucalyptus trees about, really threw me. It was very early on, while I was sorting out the world in my head, and just... really? India now does in fact have plenty of eucalyptus, but it really confused me: is this a faintly renaissance-y medieval-y age in which they’ve discovered Australia?
Also “the Necromancer Chronicles” is a silly name.
Anyway, I opened this book (on my Kindle) saw I had more than half to go of this fairly short book, and felt a sinking feeling. At which point I decided to sod this for a lark and read Her Majesty’s Will instead, since it had been recommended by one of my flist. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
selenak, I think? Lemme know and I’ll credit!)
This was absolutely the right thing to do, because THIS book was pure joy.
( Her Majesty’s Will by David Blixt )
I read very little in February. That was partly because Tet was in February - Vietnamese New Year - and I always read more when I have work. It was also because I slogged through 150 pages of Amanda Downum’s The Drowning City before I gave up.
I’m actually rather pleased that I gave it up; I’m one of those people who will read any amount of dross rather than not finish a book. This, like my love of rereading, probably has its roots in the fact that I was a passionate, devouring bookworm a long time before I was allowed to go to the library by myself. (The joy of getting out a whole twelve books, all mine for three weeks, from when I was ten or so... God it was heady.) So I reread and I read stuff too young or too old for me and I would never not finish a book - particularly because if you’re going through a book every three days or so it doesn’t matter as much if you’re not enjoying it.
But the internet is much better competition for my attention than telly ever was. So I am going to try to be the sort of person who says NO. The Drowning City is probably quite a good book; it didn’t annoy me or strike me as badly written. It just didn’t engage me, it was full of description which created atmosphere but also bored me, and I didn’t care much about the intrigue even though I liked quite a lot of the characters. I might go back, because it strikes me as a me-problem rather than a book-problem. But I wasn’t especially pleased that a book about a city in an Indian-analogue country, colonised by an Arabic-analogue empire, had as its main character a white girl. Her role as a spy from another nation was interesting and she wasn’t the only viewpoint character, but come on, really? I also found the mention of everything smelling of eucalyptus, with lots of eucalyptus trees about, really threw me. It was very early on, while I was sorting out the world in my head, and just... really? India now does in fact have plenty of eucalyptus, but it really confused me: is this a faintly renaissance-y medieval-y age in which they’ve discovered Australia?
Also “the Necromancer Chronicles” is a silly name.
Anyway, I opened this book (on my Kindle) saw I had more than half to go of this fairly short book, and felt a sinking feeling. At which point I decided to sod this for a lark and read Her Majesty’s Will instead, since it had been recommended by one of my flist. (
selenak, I think? Lemme know and I’ll credit!)This was absolutely the right thing to do, because THIS book was pure joy.
( Her Majesty’s Will by David Blixt )
