(no subject)

[shadowkat]

Swiped from Courtesy of dlgood who wisely doesn't partake of new books on the best-seller lists.

A Negative Review of Breaking Dawn by Elizabeth Hand in the Washington Post

To appreciate this you have to know that Elizabeth Hand wrote the anti-romantic, pro-feminist book Waking The Moon - considered a bit of an underground cult hit in dark fantasy.
And one of her pals writes book reviews and pulpy vampire horror novels amongst other things.
Neither have ever made the splash Twilight is. But both, I will state, have written somewhat better books - I was actually able to read and enjoy Hand. She's not great...the book's fun, but a bit over-the-top in places regarding the rituals. Donna Tartt's Secret History was a lot better. As was Tom Tyron's Harvest Home, but whatever.

Comments

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

Waking The Moon was many things, but feminist? Not so much.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

True, but...in comparison to the Twilight series and a good percentage of the dark fantasy genre, it is.

Donna Tartt's novel wasn't either.

I think the only truly "feminist" authors I've read in this category might be Sherri Tepper who wrote Grass, Elizabeth Bear, and Octavia Butler.

Of course depends on how narrowly we're defining it.

Hand considers herself a feminist author, but then so does Meyer and Whedon, so that is not saying all that much. ;-)

[wenchsenior.livejournal.com]

I sort of like Hand despite myself. I loved "The Glimmering" (I think that's the name).

What cracked me up was how often I had to look up words while reading...she has serious 50-cent word use issues, and it comes across very pretentious. Eventually I ended up reading her first published novel, and she included an afterward in the new printing where she admitted that it is a weakness that her professors used to tell her was pretentious. And it was hilarious...her first novel was UNBELIEVABLY worse than her later ones. LOL.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she has the same writing quirk that the guy who wrote the Corrections does, Jonathan something or other. Loves to use lots of archaic words, which have the nasty side effect of making them sound incredibly pretentious.

Not a fan of Hand, to be honest. Only read Waking the Moon, which I barely remember - read it over 10 years ago. But - it was readable and sort of enjoyable.

[deevalish.livejournal.com]

I am really glad that I did not waste my money or time on this series. I was momentarily tempted when I found out that the series was concluding but all these reviews just really all say the same thing. That and I read a few very funny reviews/summaries/chapter by chapter recaps that were just...so funny. That it was apparent just how bad it was.