Wed Reading Meme...
Mar. 16th, 2016 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatOptimum is having cable related issues tonight, the DVR went out after I finished watching Lucifer. Oh well, at least it waited until after I finished watching the episode, and came back in time to tape Nashville.
1. What you just finished reading?
A truly atrocious romance novel that I'm not sure that I can finish or want to bother finishing. I started scanning it at the 50% mark. It may just be that I've finally burned out on the genre, because my mother had enjoyed it. (She's currently finishing Hamilton by Ron Chernow , which she tells me is in tiny print, 700 pages of text, and reads like a textbook, but is fascinating. Now this is story just begging for fictional historical novelization. It already go a Broadway musical adaptation. I think they should do a film version.)
The previous novel by the same writer, entitled the Highwayman, was quite enjoyable and actually did work. This novel, entitled The Hunter, feels like a poor rewrite of the previous novel, with underdeveloped characters, cliche scenarios, and lots of redundant descriptive prose. I swear if the heroine informs me how big or large the hero is one more time, I'll strangle her. Yes, we know, that the hero is big hunk of yummy flesh, you can stop telling us about it. (After the half-way mark, my mother just rewrote the story as she read it in her head, she also skimmed most of it, which actually explains 98% of the four-star ratings on Good Reads, come to think of it.)
The scenario is your typical by the book Beauty and the Beast trope. The Beast is a cold-blooded hitman, who has been hired to kill a lovely young actress named Millie LaCoeur. (Okay maybe not so typical.) But before the hero does the deed, he makes the mistake of watching her die as Desdemona on stage. Then he dances with her, and she tells him if he doesn't kiss her she'll die... so he kisses her, then tries to strangle her, and just can't. Confused by this twisted turn of events, he trails her back to her home, and while she's taking a bath, attempts to strangle her again, but alas, he's overcome by lust and kisses her passionately instead. (Gee, if all killers were so lusty.) Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your pov, before events can proceed much further, our heroine's little boy, Jakub arrives on the scene. And our hero vanishes, torn up inside.
Turns out the cold-blooded killer was an abused little boy who grew up in Newgate Prison. After his mother was raped and murdered in front of him, he was trained by the best assassin in the prison, Wu Wing, who was imprisoned for embezzlement. (The author does have a sense of humor, although it is subtle and rarely raises it's head in this book, unlike the last one.) So he has a weakness for small boys and their mother's -- it may be his achillees heel. Although he's worked hard to turn himself into an emotionaless killing machine. Killing without thinking twice. (It should be noted that most of his victims were deserving scum. Funny how that's always the case in these stories, isn't it? But many weren't -- hello contract killer aka assassin.)
Not to be outdone, he attempts to kill her a third time -- this round when she's naked in a public bath. Instead he kisses her. And finally just gives up on the whole killing thing, going for the whole seduction bit instead. Luckily for him, he has the body of Mr. Universe. He's huge, all muscle, and over six foot, and looks like an avenging angel or God, with a broken nose and lots of scar tissue on his torso. We're given this description about 1000 times in multiple ways - but that's the gist. And, oh yes, he's well hung. They always are in these books. And appear to be hard for an eternity. And women complain about men being shallow and into great physiques.
Now, my suspension of disbelief sort of jumped out the window when she described an assassin, who can climb buildings, fade into shadows, silent, and do complex martial arts as having the physique of a body builder or boxer. I'm sorry, no. Whole different type of physique and muscle development.
The heroine...swoons for this guy. Even though he tried to kill her three times. But what the hey, he saved her son's life. The first time is a bit awkward, and of course, she's a virgin, so he's beside himself with the fact that he treated her otherwise. (Considering she was pretending to be the mother of Jakub...he certainly had reason to think otherwise.) Note, this isn't a boddice ripper, there's no rape in this book or attempted rape. Thank heavens.
And the guy falls for the heroine...which redeems him, (sort of, the writer never quite does attempting to be realistic) and he changes the course of his life for her (again, sort of).
After they have lots of boring sex, worry if it will ever work, break up, feel lost without each other, worry that neither is good enough for the other...and if the other can handle their lives,
and find the villain who hired the hero to kill the heroine in the first place. (Spoiler alert - it's Jakub's father's nasty jealous barren wife. How's that for a mouthful. I figured it out the moment I met the woman in the book. Someone else did the same plot in another book I read recently, so it shouted out to me.) YAWN. I suppose I should be offended by the plot, but I've read far worse. This is sort of tame, just poorly written and constructed.
2. What I'm reading next?
Something better I hope. I've been in a ridiculous reading slump of late. Possibly because I've finally burned out on the romance genre. A side-effect of being a binge reader is burning out whatever you are binging on, eventually.
I want a good thriller. A page turner. That's funny. With lots of banter. Good romance. And a heist!
So, ahem, I went and got three books on the Kindle.
* Johannes Cabal - The Detective (Johannes Cabal 2) - which is a steampunk, mystery adventure, where the necromancer has met his match in a witty female con artist. There's a dead body of course. And lives are in peril. All told in a dry witty style.
* The Heist by Janet Evanovich and someone whose name I forget. It's about an FBI Agent and a Con-Artist who go on an adventure hunting a thief. Involves pirates, bullets, and lots of bantering, also whether they'll kill each other first. (Evanouvich isn't great, but I like her sense of humor, so am giving it a whirl.) It's the first in a series, which doesn't bode well. The reviewers on good reads gave it mixed reviews -- one was odd, they'd read all the Stephanie Plum novels in a week (seriously? Apparently there's binging, and then there is binging.), and decided the character got on their nerves after a while, and the characters never moved forward, and the plots got recycled. (I figured that out after reading five of them. She had to read 18, to figure it out? Alrighty-then. I think people shouldn't speed read, it's bad for their brains.)
* The Palace Job (Rogue's of the Republic #1) - another start of a series. Ugh, you would not believe how hard it is to find genre books that aren't part of a series nowadays. I blame evil marketing people who want to copy JK Rowling's success. ( It's rare to find good books in series. They start out well enough, but usually fall apart around the fifth or sixth book. Sort of like TV shows, come to think of it. Getting over the fifth season/book seems to be an issue across the board.) This one is about...oh, I'll just let Good Reads tell you about it:
The most powerful man in the republic framed her, threw her in prison, and stole a priceless elven manuscript from her family.
With the help of a crack team that includes an illusionist, a unicorn, a death priestess, a talking warhammer, and a lad with a prophetic birthmark, Loch must find a way into the floating fortress of Heaven's Spire–and get past the magic-hunting golems and infernal sorcerers standing between her and the vault that holds her family's treasure.
It'd be tricky enough without the military coup and unfolding of an ancient evil prophecy–but now the determined and honourable Justicar Pyvic has been assigned to take her in.
Apparently the wit is something between Terry Prachett and JK Rowling, so we'll see how well I like it. Prachett doesn't tend to work for me -- I don't have the sort of brain that appreciates puns.
I find them dumb and just cringe. It may well be genetic, apparently no one in my immediate family appreciates puns -- we're all dry wit humorists, or into absurd situations and biting sardonic humor.
But I may try it first. I don't know. Decisions decisions. Been sucking at decisions of late.
Eeny Meeny ...
1. What you just finished reading?
A truly atrocious romance novel that I'm not sure that I can finish or want to bother finishing. I started scanning it at the 50% mark. It may just be that I've finally burned out on the genre, because my mother had enjoyed it. (She's currently finishing Hamilton by Ron Chernow , which she tells me is in tiny print, 700 pages of text, and reads like a textbook, but is fascinating. Now this is story just begging for fictional historical novelization. It already go a Broadway musical adaptation. I think they should do a film version.)
The previous novel by the same writer, entitled the Highwayman, was quite enjoyable and actually did work. This novel, entitled The Hunter, feels like a poor rewrite of the previous novel, with underdeveloped characters, cliche scenarios, and lots of redundant descriptive prose. I swear if the heroine informs me how big or large the hero is one more time, I'll strangle her. Yes, we know, that the hero is big hunk of yummy flesh, you can stop telling us about it. (After the half-way mark, my mother just rewrote the story as she read it in her head, she also skimmed most of it, which actually explains 98% of the four-star ratings on Good Reads, come to think of it.)
The scenario is your typical by the book Beauty and the Beast trope. The Beast is a cold-blooded hitman, who has been hired to kill a lovely young actress named Millie LaCoeur. (Okay maybe not so typical.) But before the hero does the deed, he makes the mistake of watching her die as Desdemona on stage. Then he dances with her, and she tells him if he doesn't kiss her she'll die... so he kisses her, then tries to strangle her, and just can't. Confused by this twisted turn of events, he trails her back to her home, and while she's taking a bath, attempts to strangle her again, but alas, he's overcome by lust and kisses her passionately instead. (Gee, if all killers were so lusty.) Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your pov, before events can proceed much further, our heroine's little boy, Jakub arrives on the scene. And our hero vanishes, torn up inside.
Turns out the cold-blooded killer was an abused little boy who grew up in Newgate Prison. After his mother was raped and murdered in front of him, he was trained by the best assassin in the prison, Wu Wing, who was imprisoned for embezzlement. (The author does have a sense of humor, although it is subtle and rarely raises it's head in this book, unlike the last one.) So he has a weakness for small boys and their mother's -- it may be his achillees heel. Although he's worked hard to turn himself into an emotionaless killing machine. Killing without thinking twice. (It should be noted that most of his victims were deserving scum. Funny how that's always the case in these stories, isn't it? But many weren't -- hello contract killer aka assassin.)
Not to be outdone, he attempts to kill her a third time -- this round when she's naked in a public bath. Instead he kisses her. And finally just gives up on the whole killing thing, going for the whole seduction bit instead. Luckily for him, he has the body of Mr. Universe. He's huge, all muscle, and over six foot, and looks like an avenging angel or God, with a broken nose and lots of scar tissue on his torso. We're given this description about 1000 times in multiple ways - but that's the gist. And, oh yes, he's well hung. They always are in these books. And appear to be hard for an eternity. And women complain about men being shallow and into great physiques.
Now, my suspension of disbelief sort of jumped out the window when she described an assassin, who can climb buildings, fade into shadows, silent, and do complex martial arts as having the physique of a body builder or boxer. I'm sorry, no. Whole different type of physique and muscle development.
The heroine...swoons for this guy. Even though he tried to kill her three times. But what the hey, he saved her son's life. The first time is a bit awkward, and of course, she's a virgin, so he's beside himself with the fact that he treated her otherwise. (Considering she was pretending to be the mother of Jakub...he certainly had reason to think otherwise.) Note, this isn't a boddice ripper, there's no rape in this book or attempted rape. Thank heavens.
And the guy falls for the heroine...which redeems him, (sort of, the writer never quite does attempting to be realistic) and he changes the course of his life for her (again, sort of).
After they have lots of boring sex, worry if it will ever work, break up, feel lost without each other, worry that neither is good enough for the other...and if the other can handle their lives,
and find the villain who hired the hero to kill the heroine in the first place. (Spoiler alert - it's Jakub's father's nasty jealous barren wife. How's that for a mouthful. I figured it out the moment I met the woman in the book. Someone else did the same plot in another book I read recently, so it shouted out to me.) YAWN. I suppose I should be offended by the plot, but I've read far worse. This is sort of tame, just poorly written and constructed.
2. What I'm reading next?
Something better I hope. I've been in a ridiculous reading slump of late. Possibly because I've finally burned out on the romance genre. A side-effect of being a binge reader is burning out whatever you are binging on, eventually.
I want a good thriller. A page turner. That's funny. With lots of banter. Good romance. And a heist!
So, ahem, I went and got three books on the Kindle.
* Johannes Cabal - The Detective (Johannes Cabal 2) - which is a steampunk, mystery adventure, where the necromancer has met his match in a witty female con artist. There's a dead body of course. And lives are in peril. All told in a dry witty style.
* The Heist by Janet Evanovich and someone whose name I forget. It's about an FBI Agent and a Con-Artist who go on an adventure hunting a thief. Involves pirates, bullets, and lots of bantering, also whether they'll kill each other first. (Evanouvich isn't great, but I like her sense of humor, so am giving it a whirl.) It's the first in a series, which doesn't bode well. The reviewers on good reads gave it mixed reviews -- one was odd, they'd read all the Stephanie Plum novels in a week (seriously? Apparently there's binging, and then there is binging.), and decided the character got on their nerves after a while, and the characters never moved forward, and the plots got recycled. (I figured that out after reading five of them. She had to read 18, to figure it out? Alrighty-then. I think people shouldn't speed read, it's bad for their brains.)
* The Palace Job (Rogue's of the Republic #1) - another start of a series. Ugh, you would not believe how hard it is to find genre books that aren't part of a series nowadays. I blame evil marketing people who want to copy JK Rowling's success. ( It's rare to find good books in series. They start out well enough, but usually fall apart around the fifth or sixth book. Sort of like TV shows, come to think of it. Getting over the fifth season/book seems to be an issue across the board.) This one is about...oh, I'll just let Good Reads tell you about it:
The most powerful man in the republic framed her, threw her in prison, and stole a priceless elven manuscript from her family.
With the help of a crack team that includes an illusionist, a unicorn, a death priestess, a talking warhammer, and a lad with a prophetic birthmark, Loch must find a way into the floating fortress of Heaven's Spire–and get past the magic-hunting golems and infernal sorcerers standing between her and the vault that holds her family's treasure.
It'd be tricky enough without the military coup and unfolding of an ancient evil prophecy–but now the determined and honourable Justicar Pyvic has been assigned to take her in.
Apparently the wit is something between Terry Prachett and JK Rowling, so we'll see how well I like it. Prachett doesn't tend to work for me -- I don't have the sort of brain that appreciates puns.
I find them dumb and just cringe. It may well be genetic, apparently no one in my immediate family appreciates puns -- we're all dry wit humorists, or into absurd situations and biting sardonic humor.
But I may try it first. I don't know. Decisions decisions. Been sucking at decisions of late.
Eeny Meeny ...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2016-03-17 12:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-18 02:28 am (UTC)I read on my commute.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-18 03:32 pm (UTC)