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Wed Reading Meme...
Feb. 26th, 2014 09:29 pm1. What I just finished reading?
Finished The Proposition by Judith Ivory, which is a romantic/gender flip on Pygmalion. The writer cheekily references Pygmalion twice, the Greek myth and the Shaw play. It's okay. The ending sort of plops in out of the blue - and it's ridiculously ex-deus-machina, but I knew that going in. It would have been better if the writer had built up to the ending or teased the reader with it earlier...instead it feels as if she came up with it at the last minute and just tagged it on. Also, it's a wee bit cliche. I'd have preferred another route, the more bittersweet, less fairy-tale route. But that's just me.
The story focuses on a phonetics/elocution and etiquette expert, who specializes in vocal patterns, that is employed to teach a Cockney rat-catcher how to be a Gentleman. Two dandies, who later turn out to be con-men, request her aid for a bet. One bets the other that she can't pass Mick, the ratcatcher, off as a Gentlemen of means at her cousin's annual ball. Most of the book focuses on the elocution lessons, and Mick and Edwina (the elocution expert) romance. There's also a lot of boring sex scenes. Ivory isn't very good at sex scenes..they sort of just sit there. Sex scenes are admittedly hard to write. And I've become admittedly rather picky...comes from reading one too many erotica novels.
I rather liked the hero, who was a nice change of pace from...well the domineering alpha males that tend to populate these novels. This guy was laid back and sort of happy-go-lucky.
He was a rake, but not in the traditional sense...more charming than roguish. And he loved women...not a mean bone in his body. And sections of it did make me smile...such as the one where he's chasing his ferret through the Duke's ball.
The heroine got on my nerves...she was constantly worrying over things and way too obsessed with her looks and his looks and well the look of everything. I wanted to smack her. That said, nice change of pace, having a tall heroine, with a big nose. Not to mention a heroine who is turning 30. One does get tired of the 17 going 18 year-olds. Plus the hero and heroine are about the same age - another nifty change of pace. And equals in power. Actually, she has more power than he does through most of the book - which was sort of nice.
It's often the opposite.
Overall, not a bad read. I'd recommend it.
2. What I'm reading now?
Eh...still reading The Blind Assassin - although making headway. I'm halfway through.
The narrative structure is fascinating. To my knowledge no one else has tried this or pulled it off. Which is a novel within a novel. Half the book is memoir - the recollections of Iris, an old woman, looking back on her life...the other half is the erotic novel that Iris' sister, Laura, wrote and was published posthumously. Interspersed between are impersonal news clippings about their lives, including obituaries. These portions are sort of mixed with each other. We have about six chapters on Iris, six on the Laura's novel The Blind Assassin, then six more on Iris, then six on the novel, so on and so forth..while in between the news-clippings. I rather like Laura's novel which is also a story within a story. It's about a man and a woman who meet in secret in various hotel rooms around town, and in between bouts of lovemaking, the man, who is a pulp science fiction writer, tells the woman a science fiction story about a blind assassin who falls in love with the virginal sacrifice he'd intended to kill.
Definitely preachy in places...but the narrative structure makes up for it, as does the writing. Plus you can read it in snatches.
3. What I'm reading next?
It's currently a three-way tie between Courtney Milan's Unveiled, Elizabeth Hoyt's first of the Maiden Lane series - "Wicked Intentions" (damn these titles, who comes up with these? Can you imagine someone sitting around coming up with sultry names for romance novels? I know, lets call this one Hearts Exploding, bet no one has come up with that yet. And to my knowledge they haven't), and Kim Harrison's latest Rachel Morgan, "The Undead Pool", which I have mixed feelings about. The writing is sliding down hill. It's the exact opposite of Jim Butcher, whose writing was sort of getting better. While Harrison's world-building is getting increasingly more interesting, her writing technique is getting worse. Each novel has more typos and errors than the last. And the dialogue is stilted in places. She's also doing what a lot of the female serial urban fantasy writers do - which is cater far to much to the romance.
Finished The Proposition by Judith Ivory, which is a romantic/gender flip on Pygmalion. The writer cheekily references Pygmalion twice, the Greek myth and the Shaw play. It's okay. The ending sort of plops in out of the blue - and it's ridiculously ex-deus-machina, but I knew that going in. It would have been better if the writer had built up to the ending or teased the reader with it earlier...instead it feels as if she came up with it at the last minute and just tagged it on. Also, it's a wee bit cliche. I'd have preferred another route, the more bittersweet, less fairy-tale route. But that's just me.
The story focuses on a phonetics/elocution and etiquette expert, who specializes in vocal patterns, that is employed to teach a Cockney rat-catcher how to be a Gentleman. Two dandies, who later turn out to be con-men, request her aid for a bet. One bets the other that she can't pass Mick, the ratcatcher, off as a Gentlemen of means at her cousin's annual ball. Most of the book focuses on the elocution lessons, and Mick and Edwina (the elocution expert) romance. There's also a lot of boring sex scenes. Ivory isn't very good at sex scenes..they sort of just sit there. Sex scenes are admittedly hard to write. And I've become admittedly rather picky...comes from reading one too many erotica novels.
I rather liked the hero, who was a nice change of pace from...well the domineering alpha males that tend to populate these novels. This guy was laid back and sort of happy-go-lucky.
He was a rake, but not in the traditional sense...more charming than roguish. And he loved women...not a mean bone in his body. And sections of it did make me smile...such as the one where he's chasing his ferret through the Duke's ball.
The heroine got on my nerves...she was constantly worrying over things and way too obsessed with her looks and his looks and well the look of everything. I wanted to smack her. That said, nice change of pace, having a tall heroine, with a big nose. Not to mention a heroine who is turning 30. One does get tired of the 17 going 18 year-olds. Plus the hero and heroine are about the same age - another nifty change of pace. And equals in power. Actually, she has more power than he does through most of the book - which was sort of nice.
It's often the opposite.
Overall, not a bad read. I'd recommend it.
2. What I'm reading now?
Eh...still reading The Blind Assassin - although making headway. I'm halfway through.
The narrative structure is fascinating. To my knowledge no one else has tried this or pulled it off. Which is a novel within a novel. Half the book is memoir - the recollections of Iris, an old woman, looking back on her life...the other half is the erotic novel that Iris' sister, Laura, wrote and was published posthumously. Interspersed between are impersonal news clippings about their lives, including obituaries. These portions are sort of mixed with each other. We have about six chapters on Iris, six on the Laura's novel The Blind Assassin, then six more on Iris, then six on the novel, so on and so forth..while in between the news-clippings. I rather like Laura's novel which is also a story within a story. It's about a man and a woman who meet in secret in various hotel rooms around town, and in between bouts of lovemaking, the man, who is a pulp science fiction writer, tells the woman a science fiction story about a blind assassin who falls in love with the virginal sacrifice he'd intended to kill.
Definitely preachy in places...but the narrative structure makes up for it, as does the writing. Plus you can read it in snatches.
3. What I'm reading next?
It's currently a three-way tie between Courtney Milan's Unveiled, Elizabeth Hoyt's first of the Maiden Lane series - "Wicked Intentions" (damn these titles, who comes up with these? Can you imagine someone sitting around coming up with sultry names for romance novels? I know, lets call this one Hearts Exploding, bet no one has come up with that yet. And to my knowledge they haven't), and Kim Harrison's latest Rachel Morgan, "The Undead Pool", which I have mixed feelings about. The writing is sliding down hill. It's the exact opposite of Jim Butcher, whose writing was sort of getting better. While Harrison's world-building is getting increasingly more interesting, her writing technique is getting worse. Each novel has more typos and errors than the last. And the dialogue is stilted in places. She's also doing what a lot of the female serial urban fantasy writers do - which is cater far to much to the romance.