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Feb. 3rd, 2014 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Finished The Countess Conspiracy by Courtney Milan - which I rather adored.
This was amongst the better romance novels that I've read to date. I sort of adore it to bits. It's not your average historical romance novel - wanders a wee bit off the beaten track and is a refreshing change of place.
The hero, Sebastian Malheur, is a self-described rake, but he's a rake who uses sheafs, and is considerate of his female lovers. One lady got scared, so they played cards instead and he made her laugh. He lives to make others laugh. And in some respects, plays the traditional female role. He's also quite good at mathematics.
The heroine, Violet - the Countess of Cambry, is a botanist and evolutionary biologist, and one of the foremost scientific minds of her generation. But in secret. It's the Victorian era after all...and women just don't do these sorts of things. So she has a little arrangement, Sebastian presents her work as his own. She does the research, the writing, and the discovery and he presents and signs off on it. He does aid her in her research and discuss it with her. But no one knows she did it.
Well, one little problem...Sebastian's brother, Benedict is dying, and he dearly wants to impress him with his worth, so he can be his nephew, Harry's Guardian. Also he's tired of being a fraud, and having everyone dislike him for theories that he didn't devise. He adores Violet, but he just can't be her front-man any longer.
Violet lives in fear of coming out - what will her sister Lily think, Lily with her large family and her balls and loving husband, or her mother with all her rules regarding scandals? A lady must protect her own after all. Plus, isn't it selfish of her to want? To desire the acclaim?
Turns out nothing is that simple. And the most touching relationships in the novel are between, oddly enough, Violet and her mother, and Sebastian and his elder brother.
It does have a few sentence structure issues here and there - but that's largely par for the course with e-books, and Ms. Milan self-publishes, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt, considering I've found more typos in books that were published by established firms.
Highly recommend for those who want something a wee bit different in the romance genre. No balls in sight, no fancy gowns. The heroine isn't a stunning beauty. The hero isn't an adonis or a sulking tormented alpha male type. And no damsels in sight.
2. Read a rather blistering...rant, wouldn't call it a review since it didn't make a lot of sense, on Good Reads from a 16 year old girl from Bahtrain, India, on of all things, John Green's YA novel "The Fault in Our Stars". Woo Boy, did she hate that book. As did a lot of other people apparently. But they adored The Book Thief, which I looked up, and discovered to my considerable amusement, was also hated by a bunch of people.
Folks, Kurt Vonnegurt's words of wisdom...come to mind:
Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/k/kurtvonneg130886.html#T4yjBDXvzmXRVy7g.99
I think Rage is blinding. It blinds you to everything around you. Having experienced...I know. You don't care about anyone or anything but the rage. It consumes. It eats. It is like a wildfire destroying all that lie in its path. And here's the thing about rage? It doesn't help to vent or rant or rave...online about it. All that happens is it spreads like a virus.
Corrupting and tainting all that come within a hairs breadth of it. Rage starts wars. Rage ends in murder. Rage results in rape, which rage erupts from. Vengeance sprouts from rage and acts as its emissary or agent.
There's a reason Wrath (aka Rage) is one of the seven deadly sins...it is deadly. There's no emotion worse than rage, and its cousins are jealousy and envy. Racism, sexism, homophobia,
all sprout from rage and result in rage - like an unending circle.
What kicks rage in the teeth? Humor I suspect. Laughter. Mel Brooks curtailed rage by poking fun at the things that made him the most angry. Quentin Tartino does much the same thing.
As did Monty Python. And Bill Cosby. And Richard Pryor. And Margret Chou. Rage is a funny.
We should poke fun at it.
Note I'm not talking about anger. It's not the same. I'm talking about rage...where you can't stop ranting. Where your insides cramp up. And your teeth clench. Where you feel as if you need to leap out of your own skin. That crawling, creeping heat...where your face turns red, and you can't quite see straight. No one rants out of anger, they do it in a rage. And you can't talk to them or argue...for rage is blind and death. It can't hear or see, but for its own sake. All detractors can go frak themselves.
And having been there done that...all I can say is being free, finally free of that rage. Which became like a physical thing...is such a relief. It's as if I'm walking on air.
Now I need to find another page-turner for the subway rides. Current candidates: Sherry Thomas ' Beguiling the Beauty, Luckiest Lady, or His at Night. Or Jojo Moyes - Me Before You, although the positive reviews pissed me off - so maybe not.
This was amongst the better romance novels that I've read to date. I sort of adore it to bits. It's not your average historical romance novel - wanders a wee bit off the beaten track and is a refreshing change of place.
The hero, Sebastian Malheur, is a self-described rake, but he's a rake who uses sheafs, and is considerate of his female lovers. One lady got scared, so they played cards instead and he made her laugh. He lives to make others laugh. And in some respects, plays the traditional female role. He's also quite good at mathematics.
The heroine, Violet - the Countess of Cambry, is a botanist and evolutionary biologist, and one of the foremost scientific minds of her generation. But in secret. It's the Victorian era after all...and women just don't do these sorts of things. So she has a little arrangement, Sebastian presents her work as his own. She does the research, the writing, and the discovery and he presents and signs off on it. He does aid her in her research and discuss it with her. But no one knows she did it.
Well, one little problem...Sebastian's brother, Benedict is dying, and he dearly wants to impress him with his worth, so he can be his nephew, Harry's Guardian. Also he's tired of being a fraud, and having everyone dislike him for theories that he didn't devise. He adores Violet, but he just can't be her front-man any longer.
Violet lives in fear of coming out - what will her sister Lily think, Lily with her large family and her balls and loving husband, or her mother with all her rules regarding scandals? A lady must protect her own after all. Plus, isn't it selfish of her to want? To desire the acclaim?
Turns out nothing is that simple. And the most touching relationships in the novel are between, oddly enough, Violet and her mother, and Sebastian and his elder brother.
It does have a few sentence structure issues here and there - but that's largely par for the course with e-books, and Ms. Milan self-publishes, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt, considering I've found more typos in books that were published by established firms.
Highly recommend for those who want something a wee bit different in the romance genre. No balls in sight, no fancy gowns. The heroine isn't a stunning beauty. The hero isn't an adonis or a sulking tormented alpha male type. And no damsels in sight.
2. Read a rather blistering...rant, wouldn't call it a review since it didn't make a lot of sense, on Good Reads from a 16 year old girl from Bahtrain, India, on of all things, John Green's YA novel "The Fault in Our Stars". Woo Boy, did she hate that book. As did a lot of other people apparently. But they adored The Book Thief, which I looked up, and discovered to my considerable amusement, was also hated by a bunch of people.
Folks, Kurt Vonnegurt's words of wisdom...come to mind:
Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/k/kurtvonneg130886.html#T4yjBDXvzmXRVy7g.99
I think Rage is blinding. It blinds you to everything around you. Having experienced...I know. You don't care about anyone or anything but the rage. It consumes. It eats. It is like a wildfire destroying all that lie in its path. And here's the thing about rage? It doesn't help to vent or rant or rave...online about it. All that happens is it spreads like a virus.
Corrupting and tainting all that come within a hairs breadth of it. Rage starts wars. Rage ends in murder. Rage results in rape, which rage erupts from. Vengeance sprouts from rage and acts as its emissary or agent.
There's a reason Wrath (aka Rage) is one of the seven deadly sins...it is deadly. There's no emotion worse than rage, and its cousins are jealousy and envy. Racism, sexism, homophobia,
all sprout from rage and result in rage - like an unending circle.
What kicks rage in the teeth? Humor I suspect. Laughter. Mel Brooks curtailed rage by poking fun at the things that made him the most angry. Quentin Tartino does much the same thing.
As did Monty Python. And Bill Cosby. And Richard Pryor. And Margret Chou. Rage is a funny.
We should poke fun at it.
Note I'm not talking about anger. It's not the same. I'm talking about rage...where you can't stop ranting. Where your insides cramp up. And your teeth clench. Where you feel as if you need to leap out of your own skin. That crawling, creeping heat...where your face turns red, and you can't quite see straight. No one rants out of anger, they do it in a rage. And you can't talk to them or argue...for rage is blind and death. It can't hear or see, but for its own sake. All detractors can go frak themselves.
And having been there done that...all I can say is being free, finally free of that rage. Which became like a physical thing...is such a relief. It's as if I'm walking on air.
Now I need to find another page-turner for the subway rides. Current candidates: Sherry Thomas ' Beguiling the Beauty, Luckiest Lady, or His at Night. Or Jojo Moyes - Me Before You, although the positive reviews pissed me off - so maybe not.
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Date: 2014-02-04 03:30 am (UTC)And on the romance front I just finished up Loretta Chase's Mr. Impossible which was a fun romp through Egypt, and I finished Judith Ivory's "My Fair Lady" gender swap (mixed with a touch of "Trading Places") called "The Proposition". Both are pretty angst free and enjoyably frothy.
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Date: 2014-02-04 11:48 pm (UTC)But I've chosen Jojo Moyes - "Me Before You" - which half my friendslist on Good Reads wants to read. I'm curious.
I can't imagine what about Fault in our Stars would provoke extreme loathing.
As near I can figure - they reacted to the hype. And well, didn't feel the two kids acted like teens, were wise beyond their years, and too "perfect". Also, they seemed to read the book a wee bit too literally.
Or they had someone they knew die of cancer and felt the novel didn't provide an accurate depiction...
Here's the links in case your curious:
This one took it a wee bit too personally: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/226742301?book_show_action=true
This one doesn't seem to have understood it: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/389841483?book_show_action=true
And this one apparently took exception to how the characters handled cancer and how lightly it was dealt with: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/490265297?book_show_action=true
It's rather interesting how differently people perceive things. Also, no matter what the book is - it will piss someone off. LOL!
What's interesting about Fault in Our Stars is it got such emotional reactions.
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Date: 2014-02-05 02:34 am (UTC)The 'overpersonalized' one seems to ignore the needs of fiction. Life doesn't have to reach a conclusion, but fiction does or it just doesn't work as fiction. So while I can agree that it doesn't match 'real life,' Fiction is not in fact 'real life' to begin with. It's a bit "This is Not a Pipe."
And the second, I'm sorry, but I just don't know what in the hell is up with the giftastic book reviews. It's a review of a book -- USE. YOUR. WORDS!
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Date: 2014-02-05 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-05 10:20 pm (UTC)Thanks for the rec!
Mr. Impossible is the favorite amongst most Amazon and Good Reads reviewers for Loretta Chase. (oddly, I've read five of hers, and that's the only one I hadn't read. She has another one with a spy and a lady who has lots of affairs).
no subject
Date: 2014-02-05 10:30 pm (UTC)This...EXACTLY.
I despise the "giftastic book reviews" on good reads. They are not only impossible to read at work, they give me a head-ache. That one hated the book so much so started a discussion thread...to discuss how much she hated it.
There was one Gif review that worked for me - by an older guy on The Goldfinch, it had black and white photos of Donna Tart, and photos of the painting discussed in the book. It's by far the best use of GIF's that I've seen on Good Reads to date.
Life doesn't have to reach a conclusion, but fiction does or it just doesn't work as fiction. So while I can agree that it doesn't match 'real life,' Fiction is not in fact 'real life' to begin with. It's a bit "This is Not a Pipe."
Yep. Apparently a lot of the reviewers on Good Reads and Amazon have difficulty with the whole concept of "fiction". They think it needs to match "real life" and not just any real life, but "real life" as they personally experience it.