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Wed Reading Meme...
Mar. 16th, 2016 10:23 pmOptimum 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.
( spoilers )
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.
( spoilers )
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 ...