A thing I liked and a thing I didn't.
Jun. 13th, 2012 02:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
algAs you know, Bob, my mom is a reading teacher. Actually, she was a reading teacher (specifically for struggling and/or reluctant readers, which is used as something both true on its face and also often as code for ESL students) for a million years. They are phasing out the reading license and switching all reading teachers to being other teachers, so now she teaches "Literacy" -- the modern NYC school equivalent of "English." What this means for my life is that sometimes I get to help grade vocabulary tests (:D :D :D, do not get me started on how much I love grading) and also that I get to borrow all her YA books that she buys for her students.
Yesterday, on an interminable subway ride, I read I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore
. My mom really enjoyed it in her capacity as a teacher (if you are interested, she said part of why she enjoyed it was that it had clearly been written for readers who were below grade level and unambitious).
There was quite a bit that I liked about it. The semi-ThunderCats-esque origin story (they came from a planet being destroyed! In a rocket! And there may have been two rockets!), the cool powers (glowing hands = the most useful thing ever for reading under the covers after bedtime, y/y?), the neat twist of the scars...
Except that's partially where this broke down:
I liked the idea that there were nine warriors being protected but that they had to be kept separated, because they had a spell put on them so that as long as they are kept separated, they have to be killed in sequence. That is so adorable, right?
But at one point, we're told that the bad guys (who reminded me of the Gentlemen) know where one of the higher-up numbers is, but they can't kill that warrior because they haven't killed the ones who come before. We're also told that if the warriors are in the same place at the same time, the spell will be broken and they could then be killed in any order. What exactly is stopping the bad guys from kidnapping the warrior they know about and then putting that warrior into the same place as another warrior? It just seems so inefficient to leave alone the warrior they know about
Perhaps these bad guys are not strategists?
Of course, Four and Six break the spell anyway when they meet up in the last third of the book, but I still spent the first two-thirds thinking about all the ways the bad guys could kill these warriors more efficiently.
I also had a problem with the fight scenes -- I found it weirdly difficult to follow them, and ended up skipping swathes of text. I think that's mostly due to the first-person narration, which is very very clumsy in places. And that, actually, was my biggest complaint about the book -- I thought the narration itself was a big disappointment. The quality of the actual writing was unimpressive.
As someone who has had to make the terrible decision of whether or not to acquire a book that has a great concept but terrible execution more times than I can count, I completely understand where an acquiring editor is coming from when they take on a book that has a great concept but clumsy writing. To my mind, the next step is to help the writer smooth out the writing, though, not just hope readers are so into the concept that they ignore the mediocre or terrible writing.
Ultimately, that's why I won't be reading the rest of the books in the series. I did not care about the protagonist and his manic pixie dream girl at all (that is a different post for a different time, I think -- and, okay, honestly, once I got the whiff of that, I skipped over a whole ton of his musings about his romantic life), and I certainly don't care enough about the concept to muddle through the prose. Also, the "Pittacus Lore" thing doesn't work for me at all; enough already with this kind of thing. I'm done with it.
Apparently, Timothy Olyphant is in the movie, though, so maybe I'll end up seeing it.
Now: a thing I liked! A few weeks ago, I holed up with some friends and we watched the entire second season of Justified
in one day (well, in 11 hours or so). I do like Justified, but that was a pretty overwhelming amount of people in agony for one day, so we followed it up by watching the first three episodes of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
.
Wow. Just -- just wow. I loved it so much. It's filmed gorgeously, and since it was shot on location, all the glory of Botswana is on display. Jill Scott was hilarious and incredible, and drew me in from the very first moment. She commands the screen; every single scene she's in, she's compelling. And she does an amazing job of communicating who her character is at all times, not just with every word, but with every gesture, every movement of her body. The supporting cast was also great, and the mysteries are pretty enjoyable. It's a really different style from a lot of what's on tv these days -- and, yeah, I was surprised it came from HBO. No one is naked, no one curses, there are no long sex scenes or on-screen rapes; it's a delightful change.
I also love the way Mma Ramotswe deals with haters. She is really great at handling herself when it comes to people who think a woman shouldn't be working/should get married, as well as people who are judgy and shamey about her body. She navigates strong and/or difficult personalities really well, with a really great attitude that steers clear of both strong language and the kind of "bless your heart" passive-aggressiveness that often doesn't work for fictional characters (it tends to end up -- to my eye -- seeming to make fun of the character employing it more than it puts the other character in their place). I also love that she doesn't make excuses for herself or try to justify herself to other people. It's really awesome to see that on tv.
(I am withholding judgment about the way the only canonically queered character is treated until I see the rest of the episodes, though. One of the other characters keeps having, you know, "learning experiences," and I'm not sure yet whether I'm comfortable with the homophobia and gender policing required for that.)
Oh, and thing I tentatively like! Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
, set in 1943. The conceit is that it is the diary of a woman taken prisoner by the Gestapo, and her interrogator has demanded she write down her secrets/confession (or they will kill her by pouring kerosene down her throat and setting it on fire, ouch).
I'm about halfway through, reading it slowly to make it last. Sometimes the conceit gets on my nerves, but the writing is beautiful, and the story is fascinating. A+ reading so far.
Yesterday, on an interminable subway ride, I read I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore
. My mom really enjoyed it in her capacity as a teacher (if you are interested, she said part of why she enjoyed it was that it had clearly been written for readers who were below grade level and unambitious).There was quite a bit that I liked about it. The semi-ThunderCats-esque origin story (they came from a planet being destroyed! In a rocket! And there may have been two rockets!), the cool powers (glowing hands = the most useful thing ever for reading under the covers after bedtime, y/y?), the neat twist of the scars...
Except that's partially where this broke down:
I liked the idea that there were nine warriors being protected but that they had to be kept separated, because they had a spell put on them so that as long as they are kept separated, they have to be killed in sequence. That is so adorable, right?
But at one point, we're told that the bad guys (who reminded me of the Gentlemen) know where one of the higher-up numbers is, but they can't kill that warrior because they haven't killed the ones who come before. We're also told that if the warriors are in the same place at the same time, the spell will be broken and they could then be killed in any order. What exactly is stopping the bad guys from kidnapping the warrior they know about and then putting that warrior into the same place as another warrior? It just seems so inefficient to leave alone the warrior they know about
Perhaps these bad guys are not strategists?
Of course, Four and Six break the spell anyway when they meet up in the last third of the book, but I still spent the first two-thirds thinking about all the ways the bad guys could kill these warriors more efficiently.
I also had a problem with the fight scenes -- I found it weirdly difficult to follow them, and ended up skipping swathes of text. I think that's mostly due to the first-person narration, which is very very clumsy in places. And that, actually, was my biggest complaint about the book -- I thought the narration itself was a big disappointment. The quality of the actual writing was unimpressive.
As someone who has had to make the terrible decision of whether or not to acquire a book that has a great concept but terrible execution more times than I can count, I completely understand where an acquiring editor is coming from when they take on a book that has a great concept but clumsy writing. To my mind, the next step is to help the writer smooth out the writing, though, not just hope readers are so into the concept that they ignore the mediocre or terrible writing.
Ultimately, that's why I won't be reading the rest of the books in the series. I did not care about the protagonist and his manic pixie dream girl at all (that is a different post for a different time, I think -- and, okay, honestly, once I got the whiff of that, I skipped over a whole ton of his musings about his romantic life), and I certainly don't care enough about the concept to muddle through the prose. Also, the "Pittacus Lore" thing doesn't work for me at all; enough already with this kind of thing. I'm done with it.
Apparently, Timothy Olyphant is in the movie, though, so maybe I'll end up seeing it.
Now: a thing I liked! A few weeks ago, I holed up with some friends and we watched the entire second season of Justified
in one day (well, in 11 hours or so). I do like Justified, but that was a pretty overwhelming amount of people in agony for one day, so we followed it up by watching the first three episodes of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.Wow. Just -- just wow. I loved it so much. It's filmed gorgeously, and since it was shot on location, all the glory of Botswana is on display. Jill Scott was hilarious and incredible, and drew me in from the very first moment. She commands the screen; every single scene she's in, she's compelling. And she does an amazing job of communicating who her character is at all times, not just with every word, but with every gesture, every movement of her body. The supporting cast was also great, and the mysteries are pretty enjoyable. It's a really different style from a lot of what's on tv these days -- and, yeah, I was surprised it came from HBO. No one is naked, no one curses, there are no long sex scenes or on-screen rapes; it's a delightful change.
I also love the way Mma Ramotswe deals with haters. She is really great at handling herself when it comes to people who think a woman shouldn't be working/should get married, as well as people who are judgy and shamey about her body. She navigates strong and/or difficult personalities really well, with a really great attitude that steers clear of both strong language and the kind of "bless your heart" passive-aggressiveness that often doesn't work for fictional characters (it tends to end up -- to my eye -- seeming to make fun of the character employing it more than it puts the other character in their place). I also love that she doesn't make excuses for herself or try to justify herself to other people. It's really awesome to see that on tv.
(I am withholding judgment about the way the only canonically queered character is treated until I see the rest of the episodes, though. One of the other characters keeps having, you know, "learning experiences," and I'm not sure yet whether I'm comfortable with the homophobia and gender policing required for that.)
Oh, and thing I tentatively like! Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
, set in 1943. The conceit is that it is the diary of a woman taken prisoner by the Gestapo, and her interrogator has demanded she write down her secrets/confession (or they will kill her by pouring kerosene down her throat and setting it on fire, ouch). I'm about halfway through, reading it slowly to make it last. Sometimes the conceit gets on my nerves, but the writing is beautiful, and the story is fascinating. A+ reading so far.