simpler reviews

[kaigou]

These are easy: Lost District and other stories, Joel Lane: depressing, so frickin' depressing, I think I'll go shoot myself now. Beautifully written and edgy, but four stories in and never mind, I'm too depressed to try another one. Cripes.

Also, Princess of Roumania, Paul Park: halfway through the first chapter and I want a chronology. That is to say, protag, what's her face (I put the book down a second ago and already I can't remember, that tells you something), runs into school friend in woods, they start hanging out. Once? twice? a daily basis? A page, I think this is now their second time hanging out, then maybe it's their tenth, then protag makes a comment that makes me think this is only the second time, wtf, over?

Plus, please do not write like you're frickin' five and mentally thwacked and think that this fits for a thirteen-year old, fifteen-year old, whatever young adult's brain. It doesn't. Believe it or not, I really do agree with Card when he says that kids do not need to use very small words and have bad senses of time for us to identify their voices as 'young' -- it's all in their priorities.

Someone needed to hit Park with the clue stick about trying to be a) a little more linear, please, and b) a little less versimilitude as to how 'scattered' kid attention can be.

Comments

[anghara.livejournal.com]

You ought to go to SFSite and look up my review of that book. I think you really do...

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

Zing!

All I can say is:

1. If you actually made it past chapter one, you are a better and more dedicated reader than I.

2. If I'd paid for that book, I'd be at the bookstore on Friday morning (post-T-day or not) demanding my money back.

As it is, it's going in the "take to used bookstore" pile. It's not even worth the space it'd take on my shelf, IMO.

[difrancis.livejournal.com]

I will go read that. I read half the book, mostly because it was my plane book on the way back from WFC, and then I haven't touched it since. I don't really like the narrator's voice much. And the mystery doesn't seem to draw me. But apparently some folks thought it was good enough to make the WFC ballot, and it's on the Nebula preliminary ballot, I think.

Di

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I think it's a combination of people going "well, the cover's really awesome" and maybe that they're all on drugs. And possibly that the author, or his agent, has offered them a great deal of cash. Or drugs.

The premise is fascinating, but the execution left a great deal to be desired.