#this is a pretty blah review - the book was just a bit disappointing

[darkwithasharpenededge]

A "I Can't Believe I Finished This Book This Fast" Bitch's Review of Magician: Master by Raymond E. Feist

Rating: 70/100

Summary: Finally deviating from its tropes, Magician: Master brings the plots set up in Magician: Apprentice to their rather too tidy conclusion.

Remember how I said yesterday that I wasn't going to read this book for a while? Yeah not even I really understand what happened to that. I read one chapter last night, and I picked it up to read another chapter this evening, thinking that I might as well get through it. And then I got through it. Review contains spoilers, blah blah blah.

Plot: Pug: Pug is the reason I read this book as fast as I did. It was my interest in Pug's plot that kept me going, and the scene where he was being trained to be a Tsurani Great One was the best scene in the entire book, and was singlehandedly responsible for this book receiving a 70 instead of a score somewhere in the high 60s. As much as I hate to admit it, it fucked.

Plot: Tomas: More on this in the romance section, but I had mixed feelings about Tomas' plot. I thought that some of the worldbuilding with him having to merge himself with a long-dead member of an ancient violent race was pretty neat, but the actual resolution of the plot was not to my liking, especially with how much it tied into other aspects of the unsatisfactory ending.

Plot: Politics: The politics stuff was shit. It had some really interesting bits with the feeling of the civil war from the first book finally possibly coming to fruition, but I was sorely disappointed. The king died, he named a "good guy" his heir, there was a bit of brief succession drama at the end with the bastard brother to one of the main characters, it was all extremely convenient and sucked. Tempted to go back and knock my score down two points just because of how much I hated the politics stuff.

Plot: Resolution: Extremely convenient and everything worked out for everyone with no bad consequences. I have a feeling that if I end up picking up any romance this year as part of this challenge, I'm going to have this same problem again.

Pacing: I didn't note this in my previous review, but this problem was also prevalent in my read of the first book: The book often had extremely large timeskips that made it difficult to gauge how much the characters had changed in the offscreen time. For example, at the beginning of this book, we're told immediately that four years had passed, and then later in the book, another four years passed? The reader is told that it took nine years in total for the events of the first and second book to transpire, but I'm not sure that the time scales all add up.

Also the book often felt slow, but that was partially down to writing style. Prose Quality: I didn't pay as much attention to it this time, partially because I was reading noticeably faster. Still serviceable, still fairly heavyhanded in some places, with a tendency to spoonfeed the reader that I don't care for.

Characters: My attachment to Pug as a character kind of dwindled after the two giant timeskips, and as Tomas mutated my attachment to him dropped as well. I liked Amos (the pirate captain), he had some extremely funny lines and brought some much needed comic relief, but I didn't find anyone new to latch onto.

Worldbuilding: The Tsurani are imo pretty clearly Asian-coded, and honestly I find that a sign of weakness in an author. Imagine being so uncreative that the most exotic thing you can think of for your invading army from another planet is just "what if they were Asian". Boring. What if your main characters were Asian and they were invaded by Stock Standard Medieval Fantasy World, that would be WAY more entertaining.

But I will give some credit to the worldbuilding for Pug's scene where he learned the entire history of the Tsurani in one go. That scene was in fact really good and I really enjoyed it. Best scene in the entire book. No I won't shut up about it.

Action Sequences: The combat sequences in this book were still pretty meh, but there were some decent chase sequences, one on land and one on sea. And if Pug's scenes where he was learning the Tsurani ways of magic count as action sequences, well, then, this book can get some points back for that too.

Romance: Awful no good very bad evil. I wrote in the margins when I reached certain scenes between Tomas and the Elf Queen that every day I respected Paolini more and more for having Eragon and Arya not get together at the end of the story. Awful horrid choice. Hatred forever. We love to see a thousand year old queen accept emotional abuse from her boyfriend. /s. Also the whole "oh what if he becomes king by marrying her" plot is INSUFFERABLY stupid. Just don't get married! Not getting married was always an option!

Female Characters: What female characters? Every woman who appears on the page is someone's romantic interest.

Gay?: I wish.

Was It Worth It?: Yes, if only for that single chapter where Pug was attending Tsurani wizard school. That was the good shit.

Will I Continue The Series?: Nope.

Final Verdict: If something freakishly similar to Pug's scene in Tsurani wizard school appears in my own writing, well, you didn't read this review, shhhhh. The conclusion of this story was kind of awful and full of extremely convenient events and manufactured succession drama that nobody had any reason to give as much of a shit about as they did, but whatever. I did it. I have knocked this one off my list in record time.

Review Word Count: 969

[theboywhocriedbooks]

Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian

[Goodreads]

It's 1989 in New York City, and for three teens, the world is changing.

Reza is an Iranian boy who has just moved to the city with his mother to live with his stepfather and stepbrother. He's terrified that someone will guess the truth he can barely acknowledge about himself. Reza knows he's gay, but all he knows of gay life are the media's images of men dying of AIDS.

Judy is an aspiring fashion designer who worships her uncle Stephen, a gay man with AIDS who devotes his time to activism as a member of ACT UP. Judy has never imagined finding romance...until she falls for Reza and they start dating.

Art is Judy's best friend, their school's only out and proud teen. He'll never be who his conservative parents want him to be, so he rebels by documenting the AIDS crisis through his photographs.

As Reza and Art grow closer, Reza struggles to find a way out of his deception that won't break Judy's heart--and destroy the most meaningful friendship he's ever known.

Thoughts:

Spoiler-Free Thoughts:

This was a book that I instantly became excited for when I learned what it was about. It discusses queer love, HIV/AIDS, NYC, the late 80’s, and those are all right up my alley. I’ve personally spent a lot of time educating myself about this history, be it in classes such as the one I took that focused on QPoC and HIV/AIDS specifically, or online, so you can say I’m pretty invested. I even wrote my own short story that focuses on similar themes (more on that some other time). Those parts of this book were so great, to an extent. One of my favorite historical moments is the St Patrick's Cathedral protest in the late 80’s, the die-in, where an individual can be heard screaming ‘You’re killing us!” and that made it into this book. So many other important historical moments made it into this book and I think that is its strongest aspect. 

I was also excited about this book because it discusses this topic AND is by a person of color, an Iranian American specifically and one of the main characters is Iranian American as well. I felt like, ‘who better to explore themes of love and friendship during this time than someone who was alive during that time and also is a person of color’, aka, a voice I don’t hear enough of when discussing this topic. So much of this book is important! The queer Iranian representation, the queer youth rep during this time in history, queer sex + safe sex, the iconic activism, and even just some of the general references. I respect this book for that alone, for attempting to tackle it all and doing some of it very well.

Unfortunately, I had a lot of problems throughout the book. I know one or two might be very biased and personal things, but I know there are some I would like others to know or talk about. This includes: love triangle/melodrama?, general pacing, Madonna, the white characters, cis-normativity, privilege, the pov’s, and more. I will discuss that below, so run to read the book (if you want) or continue to read my spoiler-ful thoughts!

Spoiler-ful Thoughts:

I feel like some of what I have to say might be controversial so bear with me. For context, I am a young queer Mexican-American writer from Los Angeles, and that’s where I’m coming from with this, identity wise.

I was so stoked to hear this history told in a PoC perspective but aside from the author being of color, I don’t actually think I got a PoC perspective??? Let me break that down. First of all, the story is a multi-pov that alternates each chapter from Reza, Art, and Judy. Realistically, 1/3 of the story is told from the Iranian American character’s eyes. Then the other two are white characters. That itself is where I began being a little iffy (because, again, I was excited about a young PoC pov on this topic) but I was open, especially because I enjoyed them all in the beginning. I just didn’t understand why we needed a straight ally’s point of view? Overall her arc fell flat, aside from the cute moments of fashion design or that moment with Reza’s brother surprisingly. I would have been okay/would have preferred if it was just Reza and Art’s pov though.

In relation to Judy, the whole romance between her and Reza and then Reza and Art was so overblown and unnecessary. Reza didn’t need to date her, though that is a valid and relatable gay teen feels. I wish it ended in that “oh!!! you’re gay, wait!! lol let’s be friends then!” thing. Instead, she’s in love with him for half the book, super pushy with sex and gets extremely upset with Art for… liking Reza, and then you don’t ‘see’ her much throughout the rest of the novel anyway? It just felt so unnecessary, and so love-triangle-y. I did really like Art’s “you don’t understand how it is to like someone and be gay” speech cos felt valid to gay teen vibes, but that could have just been said in a way less dramatic argument? It really made no sense to me.

Before we leave Judy, lets touch on privilege, specifically white privilege and class privilege. Reza’s family, was once poor but now filthy rich. Art’s family, filthy rich and white. Judy’s family, allegedly shown to not be ‘rich’ by the two lines that say “my friends’ rich parents gifted us that cos we’re not as rich as my rich friends” and yet there is really no discussion on that any deeper than that. Like why are her parents not shown working, her mother especially? And her uncle? He lives alone in an apartment in the upper east side or whatever, and doesn’t work anymore? I might have missed that but I shouldn’t be able to just ‘miss that.’ Like, how did they pay to go to PARIS. It just didn’t at all feel like a story I could relate to or one that this history could relate to entirely. Like, even them having a whole ass wake/party thing for her uncle in a night club? Most people who died of AIDS complications didn’t get that, especially not ones who aren’t from ‘not-rich-families’. It was subtle and yet the smell of privilege was everywhere.

Then even Art and Reza’s relationship was also weird? It was forbidden then it immediately wasn’t and they were in love, due to one or two time jumps that really did not help to build their relationship at all. Okay though, some teens love easily, especially gay teens who don’t know many other gay teens so it could slide? Then, however, there is this really real and valid fear ingrained in Reza regarding AIDS and gay sex. He is terrified, and I loved (and hurt) for how terrified he was because it felt reasonable. What I didn’t love was, knowing this, Art was also super pushy sexually? Do you realize he, at multiple times, tried to pressure Reza into sex and once even got naked and pushed his body against him? Doing this after full well knowing how uncomfortable Reza was? No, thank you. From the author’s note in the book, I felt like MAYBE this could have been intentional and not meant to be an extremely positive? While that could be a stretch, it also doesn’t at all criticize or directly address this toxic behavior so boop.

This brings me back to not feeling like I get a QPoC perspective. Reza is our main queer person of color, and really the only prominent one (Jimmy was a rather flat character). Yet, everything else revolves around whiteness. I already addressed Judy taking up space as a narrator. Then there is Art, the super queer activist teen. He is mostly where Reza learns all the queer things from, and he is mostly the perspective where we see the queer action/activism from. Then, who is the elder HE learned everything from? Stephen, the gay white poz uncle of Judy. THEN, who do they frame EVERYTHING around? Madonna, the straight white woman. 

Sure we hear about Stephan’s deceased Latino boyfriend and, as I said, Jimmy didn’t have much character to him aside from wearing a fur coat, saying “my black ass,” and helping move Stephan’s character along. He also has one of the few lines that directly addressed qpoc, where he says qpoc are disproportionally affected by AIDS but no one is talking about it. Ironic. It almost rarely addressed PoC throughout the rest of the novel. Heck, it almost never addressed trans characters either. What about the qpoc and trans woc who were foundational to queer rights movements that take place before this book? Sure he name drops Marsha P. Johnson, in passing, on the last page of this 400 page book, but why not mention them in depth even in one section?

Someone asked me, why does the author HAVE to do all of this. Why do they have to representing everyone, like Black trans women. Isn’t that unfair? My answer is no, it’s not unfair in situations like this. This author isn’t writing just a casual romance/friendship story. No, he is heavily touching on so much literal queer history and yet leaving out so many key players that are so often left out because of white-washing that happens in history. He didn’t even have to name these people, but just addressing that they are there as a community. Instead we get two or three throwaway lines about Ball culture after they “went to a ball that one time,” a random line from Jimmy, and a Marsha P. Johnson name drop at the end. It is honestly disappointing. 

Even framing everything in the words of Madonna was a bit much for me. Sure, I know of her history and importance to queers so this is one of the more biased parts of this review. I just don’t think we needed several references to her every other page. I then screamed when, not only did we time jump like 20+ years (gays don’t do math, sorry) and the last quote is Lady Gaga! Oh, my god. I won’t linger on the white popstar allies because it’s not worth it. In regards to that time jump, though. It felt unnecessary as well, just trying to tie it all up with a bow. It’s reference to Pulse seemed random, and honestly felt a bit cheap, but so did lots of the things I’ve referenced. 

Lastly, why did Art abruptly lick Reza’s lips out of nowhere, or when he was angry it was shown by saying “ and his brow sweats”? Anyway, I’m bummed out. I haven’t been reading as much this year or writing reviews but here I am, writing a novel-sized review basically dragging this book. I liked it enough to finish, and I think it’s important. I know some queer kids reading this will love it and learn from it but I just couldn’t help but realize that right under the surface, this book was sort of a let-down.

Thanks if you read all of this, and also sorry at the same time. Share your thoughts!

[cloudoclock]

1 Year Later : My Sixth Form Masterpost 😊🧐

Last Summer, I decided to make a Masterpost of all the tips I gathered for people moving from year 11 to college of sixth form, as well as those who need any academic aids.

Today I decided to make a review of the  masterpost I made for sixth formers last year. I’m now going into year 13, so I’ve had time to think about what’s best for me and as a very determined student, I thought it would be a good idea to look back at what I thought I needed.

Websites and Resources

Revision world - I did not use this at all this year. The only useful thing that came out of this website was the ability to make mind maps because I always get lost when I do them by hand - although there’s many other sites for that. 2/10

Specs - Going to your exam board website and printing out your specifications are a big help because you can outline your own self study throughout the year. Keeping track is essential. This was very essential for my Media class and English Literature because they are essay based and the spec is perfect for planning. 8/10

Specimen Papers and Walkthroughs - we all know how useful practice is and finding up-to-date papers are essential for calming yourself into the exam mindset. Walkthoughs on Youtube are also great because it gives a condensed version of the exam thought process. As someone who struggled with improving my essay writing to A Level standards, specimen papers are essential to my own planning  and actually understanding how arguments are executed. 8.5/10

Powerpoints  or Prezi- this one is a bit of an odd one and does require a bit of digging. Search up “a level (subject) powepoint/presentation” and there may be a presentation from teachers on a unit from your subject. On Prezi there are loads of presentations that are easy to follow and vary in content. This was unintentionally the most useful resource for Media Studies. In my class, our teachers would set us up in groups bi-weekly and just give us an element of media to make presentations on. Luckily when you do a search along with “slideshare” there’ll be an array of student-made presentations. I don’t encourage copying but it cuts down on time spent searching for main facts. 10/10

Youtube - of course everyone’s favourite site is a useful resource. However, it is very easy to get distracted so look at specific channels and playlists. I actually didn’t use youtube too much this year, but I think it’s great for advice videos. 5/10

Emma studies - this is truly my prinatable queen annd planner life saver. She has all these free printables and layouts that you can just put in your binder and in your books to keep up with your work. However, I haven’t been journaling since COVID properly started in February, so I need to figure that out haha. *Note she hasn’t really been active in a while

Study Methods

Cornell Method - Not useful for someone like me. I did not practice this method enough because of its inefficiency and have now realised its totally useless for my style of work. I advise that you get a Skillshare and watch the entirety of Ali Abdaal’s study class or go look on his Youtube channel. The summary section is counter is a waste of space as I would probably rush it to just do it. Although the questions section is the most useful part, its more efficient to write the questions as a title and make additions after.

Colour schemes- Once again, another very very pretty add-on to notes but I stand by the rule of a MAX 3 colour scheme. I must reiterate that this is an add-on and it is best to stick to one colour pen, rather than switching between pens. 

Rewriting Notes after class - now I know the idea seems long winded and a waste of your time, but ... I now realised it is actually A WASTE OF TIME. I earnestly entreat you to watch the skillshare class I mentioned. The act of re-writing extensive notes from class is not active recall, even though the act of writing is partially benefitial. I would advise writing down key points and specific points for the exam, but not much more. Repeated exposure to these facts or ideas is much better because you do all the summarising in your head. Obviously, this is the time you can make reformed notes, but doing it for every lesson is strenuous in the long run.  The learning doesn’t take place on paper so save the environment. 

Music

My light playlist - this playlist is pretty chill and a bit of a autumn night vibe.

Reading playlist - there’s pretty good scores on here for reading sessions for a bit of a switch from the usual (I really loved this during the autumn term, especially for English)

White noise- I loved this and some exam hall sounds on youtube.

Supplies

Home Binder/ expanding file - Unfortunately, I am yet to have a system that works with binders. It really does help to have a small file to hold all your papers, but I would use online files and not print unless necessary.

Binder for lessons- For STEM, language and perhaps essay classes, I think you definitely need a place to store all that content. Make sure you declutter often!

Refill pad/ notebook- I hated my perforated books and I’m starting to grow hatred for wirebound books (maybe its the way I store them), but I like having an easy notebook on the go.

Post its/ page tabs- I personally think these are a little wasteful if you are not using them consistently. Page tabs are very good for books if you need to focus on themes, characters or as points for essays.

Planner- please, please, please get a planner. You need a planner regardless of how you do it - online, bujo or on daily memo sheets.

USB - not many people talk about having a usb, maybe because we are in the digital age of sharing. When you need to quickly open docs or powerpoints in school, or in the library or at home, no one has time to wait for google drive. I learned how important it was to have a usb in gcses and it is worth the extra effort.

Tips and advice

The jump in self discipline, workload and effort at a level is different for everyone, but it is helpful for you prepare in whatever way you can, so that the hit isn’t so scary. I got hit so hard and was giving up by November; those videos about being tired are no joke.

Your friends are not always the best people to organise study groups with. Unless you are sure, that work is going to get done, its best that you find people that you can get serious with. I still stand by this because I know not everyone has a nice study space at school and the sooner you get used to focusing alone or better yet with a teacher, the better.

If you feel yourself losing focus and even after taking a break, you’re uninterested,stop and refresh at another time or the next day. You’re brain is doing so because it cannot fit anything else in there and forcing yourself isn’t helping anyone. If you continuously burn yourself out, you will find it difficult to come back to the work because you’re constantly reminding yourself of how much of a chore it is. - I got burned out twice and never recovered. Please take care.

Ask your teachers and your head of year questions. The magic word “ucas” is going to be popping up and soon enough you’re going to be worrying about your personal statement.(Its popping up right now for me </3) If you have a query, find a time to talk with them because it is invaluable support. If you’re like me, write on a piece of paper the questions you have and meet your teacher in a free or at lunch so you can be comfortable and get down what you can. They’re a lot more understanding than I thought.

You can buy all the supplies and ask all the questions but implementing these keys are all on YOU. If you feel yourself slipping, be honest and accept it because if you keep running from it, you could seriously damage your physical and mental health. Keep a diary so you can notice patterns in your energy.

Your best is your best. Succcess is subjective blah blah blah and no one can take that from you. When you get your results, you know what you put into those exams/coursework , so you are entitled to disappointment or joy.

This took me a while to make so I appreciate any comments or reblogs. I love you random person.  If you got to this point I would appreciate it if you could follow my general account on Instgram @fairy_lierre, as I’m going to rest my studygram. Stay tuned for lots more on a level advice and life update <3

[awfully-sadistic]

{{ Book Talk: Knight

It’s been a long time since I put anything up here. In the time I haven’t been writing, I’ve read at least... one book on my own. I’m not counting the stories I’m currently reading with Dot (WHICH IS STELLAR BY THE WAY, what I look forward to). I’ve read one book and It was Kay Hooper’s Hold Back the Dark  and I do like them, the Bishop series. But we’re not talking about her books today.

Nope. I’m here to talk about one I randomly picked up because, why... I don’t recall how I got on this author’s page. Kristen Ashley. I think I was looking through the romance genre on the novel site I use and one of her books was called Mystery Man (Dream Man #1). To me, that sounds cliche and all that other stuff. I just wanted to know how many of these Dream Man books there were and then I ran into this.

Lol, why does she not have covers for these books. As you can see, I wasn’t given much. I just clicked on the first book to see if there was a synopsis on what this chick was about. Opening it got me nothing either. There wasn’t even a summary.

So, I started to read a little of it. And, I have no idea. I can’t explain why I couldn’t put it down. I just had to keep reading it. I didn’t even like it. The premise was the average, poor girl gets her Sugar Daddy but he’s mysterious and cool and dangerous and owns a club and she has her girls and... blah, blah, blah. I didn’t like it, the aspects of BDSM seemed forced despite Knight (yeah, that’s this guy’s name. His mom named him Knight because she needed one. That’s what he told Anya, the main chick) being a Dominant. A Daddy Dominant but NOT a Daddy Dominant in the DD/lg sense. He just LIKES being called Daddy. He just likes control. Cue, normal control issues and shit, tragic background, blah blah blah.

Not saying he’s abusing or anything. He takes care of Anya, buys her the world, actually takes care of her friends, demands that she stop wearing her cheap shit, buys her a car, takes care of her building when she didn’t have locks on her door, bought her a new phone that cost a grand. But there’s... just something that I can’t... put my finger on that he’s not attractive.

I think it’s the way he speaks. I don’t mind people cussing at all, whatsoever. It has never really pulled me out of books or even in conversations, except when people do it in weird ways. Try hard or “tough” ways. But the way Knight curses, for how fine he liked to dress himself or present himself and so forth, he seemed like he would have been better speaking refined. Not throwing in a “fucking” EVERY. OTHER. FUCKING. WORD.

It made the dialogue clumsy. Like, you’re trying to be bad, you curse. Knight generously sprinkled his goddamn sentences with swear words like this fucker needed to dump a shitload of salt on it. It wasn’t even flavorful text. It was just... cringy. I cringed every time Knight spoke and that wasn’t due to secondhand embarrassment. Like, I hated to hear him speak in his dialogue. It sounded so try-hard. So immature.

Not from someone who was trying to be a Dominant specializing in control. Simply, control. Let me see... that, I can understand. There were some things I didn’t like but that was my specific flavor. I don’t like STRICTLY controlling Dominants. I hate being told what to do. I can understand some of the shit he was controlling, that it fits in with some parts of the Lifestyle. Some submissives like that and prefer to hand their life over; reminds me of what Dot says. I don’t think I had a problem with him (or rather the author) acting out the BDSM acts or scenes. I thought, for as far as it goes in literature, it... was normal. I mean, what was expected. 

But they never really specified whether Anya was a submissive or a little or a sugar baby. It’s not important but why put the emphasis on this kind of relationship but not be clear about what it was? Was the reader supposed to guess that? I don’t even know what type of Dominant Knight was supposed to be; I mean, there doesn’t need to be a type but again, why put the emphasis on Vivica (one of Anya’s girls) making a big reveal that she was a submissive. Though, that was pretty cute. I like the scenes with Vivica. She had everything in control in her life, was fiercely independent, but she wanted to hand the reigns over at the end of the day and be taken care of. Again, I understand that because it reminds me of Dot. It was actually nice that Knight set her up with one of his Dominant employees (Rasheen or Rashaan or something like that) and it was exactly what Vivica needed; I got more entertainment hearing about Vivica’s bits than Knight and Anya.

Hmm. I think other than the simpleness of this entire plot, taking out the elements of BDSM... it’s... just boring. Knight was kind of hard to follow because I couldn’t take him serious cursing all the time and Anya was... simply Anya. I mean, for a heroine, she was... just a normal young woman trying to get by in life. Poor upbringing, shitty relative who took care of her and she moved out on her own as soon as she was able. She put herself through school and even had a dream of owning her own salon (which Knight eventually gave her) And for a split second, I vaguely remember something else bothering me about their relationship.

Ah yeah, Knight has a temper. I mean, I get tempers. But not when they’re done in the way that Knight has control issues. I think there were a couple of times in the book where he and Anya should have spoken things through instead of the author trying to force more BDSM elements into the scene in order to have steamy sex parts.

...And if I can read through them, they’re not steamy.

I hated that aspect; there should be more talking in the Lifestyle, in relationships, period, but Knight was so adamant on things being done his way even when Anya seemed to have the right idea to be angry; he’d get angry at her for being angry. See, that’s ridiculous. Especially considering the parts where he told her that he would only tell her what was necessary considering his business life. AND WILL ONLY TELL HER THINGS WHEN 1) IT CAME UP WHEN HE WANTED IT TO or 2) WHEN THINGS WERE THROWN IN ANYA’S LAP AND HE HAD NO OTHER CHOICE BUT TO COME CLEAN.

Uh, no. 

Be honest about everything. Even that dirty little business you have on the side so it doesn’t come back and bite you in the ass and potentially ruin the relationship because you’re hiding shit and you should have been honest in the first place.

All because, he said, he didn’t want to spoil her innocence. Miss me with that shit. Fucking completely. I hated his reasoning for keeping Anya out of the loop and she was stupid as fuck for going along with it.

I get you have someone that takes care of everything with you and about you but what would have happened if Anya couldn’t have taken what Knight did on the side (basically, he handled high end escorts, giving them a place of safety when they worked. I didn’t care he did that shit but wouldn’t it have been easier to fucking come clean with it instead of your rival and ex-partner revealing it to Anya and then her having to come ask you?) It wasn’t just the subject of the secrets he was keeping but that he felt he didn’t have to tell her shit unless he wanted to. That bugs me. But then again, I expect transparency from my partner and not having him tell me about shit when I fucking ask because I FOUND OUT. Why the fuck put someone in that position. If it was a stranger, I don’t think it would be a problem to confront someone. But with my partner? If it was Jeff or even Dot, I had to confront? That shit is hard.

Like, two days later, Knight is coming up to you saying, “If the cops come here, you don’t know anything” and damn straight, I don’t know anything but also why THE FUCK ARE THE COPS KNOCKING ON OUR DOOR. It’s not just Knight’s life anymore since he pulled Anya into this shit. A relationship is not just about you anymore. It’s about two people and you shouldn’t be keeping things from each other. Even if they have nothing to do with your job; if it’s going to leak into your personal life, why the fuck would you hide it? And you can’t say it doesn’t--IT HAS. I READ THE BOOK. THE SHIT YOU DO, KNIGHT, THE STUFF YOU DON’T WANT TO TELL HER ABOUT, YOU TOLD HER ABOUT ANYWAY BECAUSE OTHER PEOPLE WERE TELLING HER. SHE FOUND OUT FROM SOMEONE ELSE, WHY WASN’T IT YOU?

That is what’s stupid. That’s so stupid.

Oh man. Anyway, like I do with all the other books I finish reading, I went to Goodreads to see what others were saying. For the most part, I guess this chick has some sort of following. Never heard of her before. I haven’t read a lot of reviews but I’m on this one currently:

“From the blurb and the build-up to this book, I thought I was going to get the baddest, hottest, toughest, giving-the-middle-finger-to-society naughty boy EVER. Perhaps a Tate or Ty on steroids. Instead I got a bloke who biggest claim to badass-ness was his dominance in the bedroom and his control outside of it. Yet if it was only this I had to complain about, and the rest of the story shone, I'd still be a happy little reader. But there was so much here that disappointed me.”

1) The hero smokes!! What is this, the 60s, the 70s?? A habit like that is about as attractive as a nose-picking. Except the nose-picking is healthier.

I don’t care that he smoked; I know some people in our Family do, too. I honestly didn’t think it was too prevalent since Knight smoked in ways that was supposed to make him seem attractive, so basically, it was harmless. He was usually found on his balcony, smoking. *Shrug* Not a big deal, but I guess this chick thought it was. Some other minor things. The hero is a slut. No, truly a real, live slut. And he wears a black turtleneck, which I guess makes sense as it suits the 70s-era cigarette smoking. Also, he should take lessons from Ty and not talk so much during sex.

I have no idea what she means by slut. Knight, I guess, wasn’t a slut. Anya wasn’t one, either. If by slut she meant in the instance where Nick (Knight’s brother) was telling Anya she could have his choice of women who visit his club and then Knight basically confirming that he did, I guess...? But that’s not slut behavior? It’s just usual douche-y fuckboy material. Second, haha, Knight’s appearance made me ???? a lot because I kept thinking of a man in a bucket hat with shaggy hair and some sort of trench coat. I have NO idea where I got this image, but I kept thinking about it every time she described him. LOL. I screwed myself with that. Second, Knight did talk alot. Usual dirty talk; I cringed but then again, I always did whenever Knight opened his mouth.

I don’t know who Ty is, guessing from another book. 2) The insta-love/lust of the hero. With just one surreptitious glance at Anya as he walks into a room, he's smitten.

Actually, I think she’s wrong on this one. It was instant attraction for Anya when she noticed him walk into the penthouse she’s at; there was a big party and she noticed him almost right away. Almost everyone around him, in fact. I guess he was just supposed to be eye-catching and he was mad. It was his penthouse and his brother was throwing a party he didn’t expect. Anya wanted to go home early, her old phone didn’t work, she walked into Knight’s room to use the landline for a cab and then he gets mad at her for being in his room. He actually didn’t notice her until they were out of the penthouse and in the elevator when he actually takes a look at her. And THEN, I guess, decides she was attractive. But at the same time, there was no indication that he felt anything for her because he didn’t show and/or tell. But he did go overboard when taking her home; drove her home instead and then made a walk through to her apartment all the while getting mad that her apartment complex was a trash heap. 3) The nickname. It wouldn't be a Kristen Ashley book without a nickname. This one was Daddy. Enough said.

Like I said before, I have no idea what they were playing at with this. I would get if Anya was a sugar baby since Knight did basically everything for her and paid for all of her shit. Bought her clothes, a car, a salon. But she only ever called him Daddy in the bedroom. Never out of it. 4) The heroine is all legs, tits, ass, and big hair. I’ve only read maybe eight or nine Kristen Ashley books but in each and every one of them we have the same heroine. Physically. I get that it's nice to have women who are shapely, but it’s also nice to mix things up a bit. Can we please have a heroine who is short or I'll settle for medium height. Perhaps one with small breasts. Or one who's boy-shaped (there are women like that) with small ass and hips.

I mean, I haven’t read eight or nine Kristen Ashley books but I’d agree with her on saying Anya was supposed to be all legs, tits, ass, and big hair. I mean, I figured that’s just the usual for romance. I wasn’t too bothered by it but then again, I didn’t read eight or nine Kristen Ashley books and haven’t run into the same protagonist problems. 5) There was very little romance. Besides the fact, Anya looked good, I never got why Knight fell for her. Or what he saw in her to validate the insta-love.

This. Yeah. There wasn’t too much of romance but a lot of lust. Nothing wrong with that but there were times when I sat back all: “Why are you two together?” because it didn’t make sense to me. Knight seemed like a grade A shit stain and Anya was a cardboard cutout of other protagonists, I see. There was no wooing, no sweet words -- except out of Anya. Anya was always the one saying honey or sweetheart and would be tender while Knight would tack on a “baby” at the end of his sentences, sometimes. Oh, and SOMETIMES he would fuck her tenderly.

I also hated the fact that he kept threatening that “this is the end for us if you can’t accept this and what I do” due to his job and the secrets HE CHOSE TO KEEP FROM HER. Like, why can’t she be mad when things came to light? She wasn’t allowed to and even her best friend, Vivica, was all “Whatever he’s into, whatever anyone says about him and if it might be true, just roll with it” like... what the fuck. I don’t know what was dumber but all of it is just dumb. 6) Knight's profession.

Yeah, I said before he’s the owner of a nightclub called Slade and he has a high end escort business. His profession didn’t move me and this might just be the normie crowed crying about it because he was supposed to be “bad” -- I mean, he dealt with shady shit. Again, I didn’t bat an eye at it and he acted the big shot and shit. It was just silly, honestly.

And for some reason, everyone likes quoting this cheesy ass line of his. So, I’ll leave it here for tonight:

"Wars fought over a face like this," he murmured like he was talking to himself, my heart stopped beating and his thumbs moved lightly across my cheeks. "A man would work himself into the ground for it, go down to his knees to beg to keep it, endure torture to protect it, take a bullet for it," his eyes came to mine, "poison his brother to possess a face like this."

And that was my thoughts on Knight by Kristen Ashley.

OH YEAH, I forgot. I was honestly surprised I hadn’t seen anyone else bring this up but Knight didn’t want Anya and him to get married because it was basically too much of a hassle. When Vivica and Rash were going to get married only then did he give in A LITTLE because he thought Anya might be missing out on the experience.

He compromised in the terms of giving her a golden band and then saying he would wear one too. But they were not going to have a wedding. Just a party. And not a big one and basically said that anything celebrating a wedding was out. What the flying fuck, lmao. I get it, you don’t have to have a wedding but what the hell was this???

[deltastorm101]

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst - A (critical) love letter.

Hello and welcome back to another episode of “a review I thought I could never write because I’m way too emotionally attached to this game which I know insanely, almost creepily well”, mixed with a healthy dose of “I should do everything but write this review because I want to finish school at some point but I have to use the surge of inspiration while it lasts”!

Today we will be talking about Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, which was released 2016 as a prequel-ly reboot (saying it like this because for the longest time I’ve thought it to be a prequel but turns out it’s a lot more like a reboot... my bad) to the first Mirror’s Edge from 2008 (which, by the way, still looks fantastic today considering its release year). I will occasionally throw in references and aspects from the first game as well, but this will primarily be about Catalyst.

Time for game 👏 review 👏!

And as always - warning: spoilers. I’ll try to keep the really huge ones out of this or at least mark them well, but going off and playing for yourself first is recommended.

To start this off, I want to say that I initially loved the first Mirror’s Edge - however, only after playing Catalyst, I realized how bad the controls and bugs in it actually were, which is another way of saying Catalyst is a miracle when it comes to naturally flowing controls and crisp and polished looking environments. The city it takes place in, “Glass”, is breathtakingly gorgeous, period. Shiny, clean, it is just on point and one of the biggest reasons I consider it to be my favourite game from the day I first played it, hands down. Not even one of the new Tomb Raider games or one of my childhood-reminiscent games were able to top it and that means something.

The game takes place in an open world map complex under a totalitarian government, drawing parallels to George Orwell’s “1984” – big brother is watching you, all that. A dystopian world if I’ve ever seen one. The open world aspect is one of the best decisions the developers could have made; I have no words to describe how beautiful the different city districts are, and being able to run in freeroam through the city of Glass like parkour runners are meant to feels so much better than being trapped in closed-off levels like it was the case in the first game.

When I first wrote down some key aspects for this review while I was playing it once more, I noted that apparently, you only truly understand the game’s backstory and the protagonists’ origins if you’ve bought and read the comic, Mirror’s Edge Exordium, and that I think it’s not that important because you can well understand what’s going on at the beginning without it – the game starts with Faith, the main protagonist, getting out of jail/a sort of juvenile detention, making her way back into her old circle of friends and family and, of course, old unresolved and new unconsidered problems and conflicts. The comic basically explains what has been messed up by who to make her end up in juvie in the first place and, as I said, it’s not really necessary to know. But, after having bought it now after literal years of consideration, I can say that it’s definitely very nice to know, and totally worth it. There are a lot of elements from the game carefully and lovingly worked into the comic and vice versa (I don’t know what was written first, comic or game, but they fit together very nicely), and just having more reasons, more answers, a larger overview and even partly some explanations for the first game feels... right.

The voice acting is good overall – not strikingly awesome but definitely up there, especially during emotional cutscenes. Sometimes the controls are a bit wonky and Faith might not immediately do what your fingers tell her to but that could definitely be on me - in games where fast reaction is important, quick time events can go wrong occasionally, nothing new. There are some passages you could consider a QTE but they’re being displayed early enough for you to be able to mentally prepare for them as far as I see it. And in my book, that’s a massive improvement from the first game, where you were able to press a button perfectly in time even while having reaction time (= a temporary slow mode) activated, and still watch Faith gracefully fall down the side of the building while flailing her arms in fear because she didn’t grab onto that perfectly grabbable practical white ledge. Why, you ask? I don’t know, ask Faith. Oh, you can’t, obviously made clear by the nasty sound of her hitting the road and her neck being snapped apart. Seriously, I cringed to the moon and back when I first heard that ugly sound. Which is another thing they improved in Catalyst; now all you hear is her quick, raspy, fear-filled breaths and a blissful silence paired with a white death screen after you’ve hit a death barrier. Not the ground, a death barrier. There’s a shitload of them. Which is a pity regarding the fact that a whole lot more out-of-bounds areas would be reachable and playable if there weren’t. Honestly, I find it kind of disappointing that there’s this many invisible walls, fall-through grounds and death barriers. I can see why, conserving computing resources to avoid loading screens, blah blah, but still... let me go off the map, dammit. The game is about a group of people living “off the grid”, why can’t the player actually do that? Hm? Hmmm?

Another aspect tying into this is the social playing mechanic(s), which I found interesting but indeed totally unnecessary. We all know leaderboards of races and stuff, which were incorporated here as setting the best time in short, timed courses (“dashes”), which naturally have been hacked and cheated into ridiculousness. No, RunnerMaster69, I do not believe you ran that dash in three seconds and 420 nanoseconds, I just don’t. Upon completing a dash, you leave an ‘echo’, so basically a ghost other players can compare themselves to, and for you to see which route another player took. Nothing too groundbreaking on that front. There’s a way of tagging locations you’ve been to: so-called Beat Link Emitters (Beat L.E.s) are like little chips shining red in the world you can put down wherever you’re able to stand safely and have them appear in other people’s games to touch, which is a nice way of incorporating a way of saying “Hey, look where I was able to climb!” (And yes, I have abused this system; there’s a glitch making it possible for Faith to float down high buildings onto lower ones, which aren’t death-barriered but not reachable on a normal way. You bet I was a floating gurl putting down Beat L.E.s whereeeeever I could. So much fun. Sorry.)

The same goes for hackable billboards, which can also appear in your friends’ games, but they could have been designed a lot more interestingly. If you hack a billboard, your runner tag appears on it, which consists of a visual symbol, a frame around it, and a background. You can customize the tag in a companion app, which again I didn’t really find necessary. But it is pretty self-explanatory and a nice gimmick if you’re into that kinda stuff.

Maybe an irrelevant aspect: Faith is wearing the same outfit (almost) throughout the whole game. Only at the beginning while getting to the runners’ lair she’s wearing something different and I see missed potential there: let the player run in these clothes, or in the prison clothes, or in the clothes from Mirror’s Edge 1, or in some of the fancy clothes Glass’ high society is wearing, or generally different runner’s attire which still stays true to the style, or Black November garb... endless opportunities, missed. Not at all crucial, but in my opinion maybe better than some different-looking billboard...

Coming back to the (back-)story aspect once more; as with all of today’s big triple-A games, there’s a looooot of documents and recordings to find, to give the player a loooot of backstory, which I found terribly overdone. It always felt like there was too much to collect and too few actual story told; not to mention some story bits not being in either of the games or their collectables, but in a separately sold comic, well done EA, well done.

Additionally, a lot of the documents were about literal history of the state called Cascadia and the ‘conglomerate’ and Omnistat and the November Riots (don’t worry if you have no idea what these words mean, I don’t either...) and regarding the fact that I finished taking history in school with a D ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)... you can imagine I wasn’t that interested in the actual history elements. Give me story anytime, but get the hi- prefix outta here please.

Another thing that I just very recently discovered: Some of the performed parkour movements are inaccurate. Thanks to my new interest of binging parkour tutorial videos I’ve seen actual mistakes in movement (in both games), which I can understand sometimes because some of them have been implemented on purpose and for a reason. For example: A parkour safety roll is performed sideways, with one of your shoulders hitting the floor first and the impact being absorbed and reduced by your whole back rolling over the ground in a diagonal line, ending in one of your feet carrying over the fall’s momentum for you to be able to stand up and run right along, probably even faster than before the drop. In the first game, this was handled straight up terribly; not only did Faith not roll diagonally but straight on her spine, which fuckin hurts if you perform it after you took a fall and is dangerous as all hell, but all her momentum got lost as well - it didn’t make any difference if you took a hard fall, the screen flashed red and you had to build new momentum, or if it was a soft fall with a nice (hurting and dangerous) roll, her stopping dead in her tracks like “Oh wow, did you see that, I made a roll” and then continuing to build new momentum because it all got lost. BUT since this is about Catalyst: Faith is still performing a straight spine-hurting-dangerous-as-all-hell-roll, but at least she keeps her momentum when she does it. Regarding to what I said at the beginning of this semi-rant-paragraph because I’ve “studied” (emphasis on the quotation marks) parkour theory so much at this point, yet am not able to actually perform any moves because I don’t have the strength, stamina or willpower to- Uh, where was I...? Ah, yeah, the reason for the incorrectly performed roll. It’s obvious when you think about it: motion sickness, a gamer’s best friend when it comes to first-person perspective. If Faith was performing a correct roll, it would turn and shake the camera around too much, which could potentially make the player motion sick over time. Period. Look up some first-person safety roll footage on YouTube and you’ll see what I mean. So, there’s a reason, and we should be thankful the roll is a straight gymnastics roll. Sorry Faith, looks like your spine and neck have to suffer a little longer. However, I can and will not understand why they have Celeste, a character from the first game, climb up ledges with her knees and elbows. No. NO. Feet first. If you can’t do feet first, then do one foot first and then pull up the rest. If you can’t do that, train more and don’t call yourself a runner yet, doing this for a living on top of I-dunno-how-high-rooftops.

My feelings are kind of ambivalent on the no-guns mechanics - all you can defend yourself with is your fists (and legs and momentum, of course), while in the first game, you could snatch people’s guns and start some weaponized combat. I liked both of these strategies, not really caring when they announced Faith not being able to do shootieshootie-pewpew this time around.

One thing I liked a lot considering the open world aspect is that if you die, you respawn exactly where you last stood on safe ground before dying (except in missions, of course). It makes freeroaming very comfortable because you don’t have to worry about respawn- and checkpoints; you can just try again when you messed up a jump.

They also changed the beacon- and navigation system (“runner’s vision”) a bit too, which was also definitely necessary for the open world (which they’ve praised as a lot less linear, but honestly? It isn’t really. I knew my way around in Glass pretty well after a mere month of playing), but they did include options for how much you want the game to help you. There’s normal runner’s vision, with a red streak appearing every few seconds, showing you exactly where to run; there’s classic runner’s vision, made to be like in the first game, with environmental beacons and indicators being coloured in red when coming close to them and without the red streak; and of course, you can switch it off completely, which I occasionally like to do to test how well I really know my way around in Glass.

The soundtrack is outstanding. Straight up phenomenal. It can empower and hype you up, but can also be relaxing during a relaxing sightseeing trip through Glass. And it’s also great to leave on as background music while studying (I’m making use of that when preparing for graduation exams), or driving.

There is dynamic day- and night time - I liked that a lot, it’s a good way of showing off the lighting at all sorts of times. Only problem I had: a night sky is supposed to be black, not royal blue.

Note: almost all the “problems” I’ve listed here have been made mods for (e.g. more exciting looking billboards, more outfits, a changeable day-night cycle and a black night sky). If I had enough experience with (and patience for) modding, I’d definitely try it myself but the ‘flaws’ aren’t grave enough for me to feel a desire to manipulate and tweak some game files.

Okay, time for a spoiler. Not a bad one, but one that could give you ideas if you know how Mirror’s Edge rolls, or if you’ve played the first game... which is basically a spoiler in itself too. Ahem, anyway.

Towards the end of the game, when I was profoundly convinced of it being one of my all-time favourites, I was like “Yes, finally a game that improves and learns from past mistakes and listens to their players and what they want”... and then came Noah. I bawled my eyes out and I will be forever angry at the devs for doing this. That’s all I’m saying.

That ultimately didn’t stop me from loving the game though. From an objective standpoint I’d say it’s an overall good prequel/reboot/requel/preboot. Faith’s universe became a bit more mainstream but also a lot more polished and they definitely listened to their fans to some degree. From the very subjective standpoint I have written this review from, I’m saying that Mirror’s Edge Catalyst holds a very special place in my heart and I am truly glad it saw the light of day, after everyone waiting 8 years for it to be released after the first game. (I didn’t wait quite that long; I got Mirror’s Edge 1 in January 2016 and was completely and utterly hooked and hyped for Catalyst in May 2016.)

And that concludes it. If you’ve read this far – thank you. I’m aware that this is a bit different from my other reviews tone-wise - I have put every ounce of sass I possess into this because I... felt like it :D I hope it was fun to read!

[coffeebooksorme]

LIFEL1K3 by Jay Kristoff review

GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:  On a floating junkyard beneath a radiation sky, a deadly secret lies buried in the scrap.

Eve isn’t looking for secrets—she’s too busy looking over her shoulder. The robot gladiator she’s just spent six months building has been reduced to a smoking wreck, and the only thing keeping her Grandpa from the grave was the fistful of credits she just lost to the bookies. To top it off, she’s discovered she can destroy electronics with the power of her mind, and the puritanical Brotherhood are building a coffin her size. If she’s ever had a worse day, Eve can’t remember it.

But when Eve discovers the ruins of an android boy named Ezekiel in the scrap pile she calls home, her entire world comes crashing down. With her best friend Lemon Fresh and her robotic conscience, Cricket, in tow, she and Ezekiel will trek across deserts of irradiated glass, infiltrate towering megacities and scour the graveyard of humanity’s greatest folly to save the ones Eve loves, and learn the dark secrets of her past.

Even if those secrets were better off staying buried.

I was given an eARC by RandonHouse via NetGalley for an honest review.

This book is just...this book is amazing. I quite literally have to force myself to not fill this with flailing gifs and incoherent keysmashes of joy to explain the amazingness that is this book. I love Jay Kristoff’s writing and this book has only solidified him as my favorite author. 

Lifel1k3 has been compared to Mad Max, Romeo & Juliet, XMEN, and various other fandoms throughout media but this story has a whole life (heh) of it’s own, lemme tell ya. From the setting to the world building to the characters to the vernacular spoken, this book is wholly original and absolutely fizzy to the utmost fizziness.

I went into this story not really knowing a whole lot other than it was a new book by Jay, it had robots, and it was set in a post-apocalyptic world. Considering I’d read most of his Lotus Wars series, Nevernight, and the Illuminae chronicles, I was excited to see what Jay would do with a sci-fi infused post-apocalyptic setting and he did not disappoint.

The Mad Max comparisons are on point because the Yousay is a totally broken wasteland of a world filled with desolation, despair, radiation, and cities that are ruled by corporations rather than government. It’s dirty, it’s filthy, it’s wholly unhygienic, and it is glorious. We go from the remnants of a literal trash heap floating in an ‘ocean’ that is nothing but sludge, plastic, and detriment of the old world to a desert town littered with ships, containers, and a hodgepodge of anything that can be scrapped together to make a building only to end up at the post-apocalyptic version of Babel that was once a shiny beacon of hope only to be brought down to nothing. The world in this book is choice and I loved it almost as much as I loved the characters.

Eve, Cricket, Lemon Fresh, and Ezekiel are our main cast and they are absolutely wonderful. Each one has their own distinct personalities that shine throughout the book. You will laugh, you will cry, you will scream, and you will stare gobsmacked at the book as you travel with them throughout this story. 

Cricket is by far my bestest little robot but don’t you dare tell him I called him little. He’s the sidekick to Eve’s main character but he was such a joy to read about. Every time he spoke on the page I was smiling and laughing at the bits of snarky sarcasm that he threw in. 

Lemon Fresh is the humor of this book and quite possibly the most badass bestie any fictional girl could have. She had her very own arc in the book that didn’t involve Eve which I really enjoyed because most of the time the side characters are only there as fluff for the MC but that wasn’t the case with Lemon. She had her own history, her own arc, her own very distinct and very awesome personality, and I cannot wait to see more of her.

Ezekiel is our lifelike of the story and love interest. I really enjoyed his character but he isn’t the swoon worthy HEA that I was expecting him to be as I was reading. Sure, he said some pretty words and did some pretty heroic things but I wasn’t all LE SIGH about him as I have been about other HEA’s. 

Eve is our MC who’s living a life filled with lies. I definitely got some Anastasia feels about her as the story progressed. She’s totally badass, sarcastic to a fault, a bit tempestuous, and sooooo much fun to read. She loves her Grandpa Silas to a fault, she’s super protective of her robotic puppy Kaiser, is super close with her bestie Lemon Fresh, and an absolute hilarious companion to Cricket’s mother henning. She’s a wonderful MC who went through an absolute roller coaster of a ride and I am chomping at the bit to read more of her considering how Jay completely ripped my heart out with the ending!

Kristoff is known for his twisted mind and twisty ends to books. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out he flips you on your butt, grabs the story, and twists it in such a masterfully done way that all you can do is stare at the words and wonder what the heck just happened. It’s heart breaking, it’s maddening, and it’s absolutely freaking wonderful. In the wise words of Ron Weasley...

I do have a few qualms with the story that kind of irked me a bit. 

The addition of the Preacher just felt unnecessary. He’s a hired assasin sent by one of the corporations to capture Eve either alive or dead. He’s a one dimensional, Western inspired type of bounty hunter and while he did keep our cast on their toes for a good majority of the book, he just felt...blah. Yes, he spurred our cast to travel to Babel but I just didn’t really like him a lot. He’s very eye rolly.

Eve/Cricket kept calling Ezekiel Brain Trauma and Stumpy, respectively, in reference to some injuries that Ezekiel suffered in the book. To me, those ‘nicknames’ felt very degrading and insensitive and just a tad bit ableist to me. Jay could have left those out and the story would’ve been just fine. Also, when Eve and Lemon Fresh first find Ezekiel, who they assume is OOC, Lemon Fresh tries to take a peek into his shorts to look at his man bits and yeah, not cool. Robot or not, OOC or not, that left me with a really skeeved out feeling. Lemon’s quite obsessed with ogling at Ezekiel in the book and has no shame about objectifying him at all but actively trying to look in his pants when he’s the robotic version of passed out is not a good look.

Those few bothersome things aside, this book is amazing and I loved it. I laughed, I cried, I screamed (honest to goodness, I did), and I was completely thrown for a loop at the end. The book isn’t even officially released and I already want the sequel. 

[caitsbooks]

Caitsbooks Reviews: The Supervillain and Me by Danielle Banas

Overall: 2.5/5 Stars Characters: 2/5 Setting: 2/5 Writing: 2/5 Plot and Themes: 3/5 Awesomeness Factor: 3/5 Review in a Nutshell: The Supervillain and Me is cute, but reads more as a younger-YA contemporary rather than a superhero novel.

"He saw me in a way I hadn’t realized I wanted to be seen until I met him. Not a hero, not someone with powers, but just a girl."

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- Premise -

The Supervillain and Me follows Abby Hamilton, who lives in a world where superheroes are common, and one of them just so happens to be her brother. When she is saved from an attempted mugging by the town's new supervillain, the Iron Phantom, he reveals that he isn't committing the crimes attributed to him. As the two grow closer, they must unravel a mystery that threatens their town.

- Setting -

The worldbuilding was pretty... blah. There is very little explained about the superheroes and their origins, so if you are looking for a marvel-esque origin story you won't find one here. Also, this one town seems to have never heard of the concept of a supervillain? They were so surprised that a super could do bad things, and I just find that so hard to believe. How could a world where it seems that most major cities and towns have superheroes, but none of them have ever turned remotely evil?

- Plot -

The Supervillain and Me is basically what would happen if you took a Disney Channel Original Movie and turned it into a book. Except there are quite a few Disney Channel Movies I would rather read... This book really does read like your average contemporary. While there are superheroes, there really isn't any action until the last fifty pages or so, so don't go into this book expecting a crazy wild adventure. The first part of the book really revolves around Abby and the Iron Phantom bonding, and her trying to guess who he is (which really just means a lot of scenes of her at school saying "hmmm this guy has the same eye color and vague shape, he must be him!"). If you are used to reading YA, or are paying any attention at all, then you probably know who the Iron Phantom is from the moment his Clark Kent side is introduced. There really are no surprises in this plot, at all. I found myself predicting all twists.

- Writing -

There's not much to say about the writing style here. It's very basic and bland. The humor fell flat most of the time, most likely because it relied on the main character being clumsy or making a fool of herself. Some of the banter and character dialogue was enjoyable, but there was nothing really memorable.

- Characters -

This book has a decent sized cast of characters. Abby is an okay protagonist, but very basic. She can be a bit cliche at times (clumsy, 1 dead parent, you know the type) but it is nice that she does have actual hobbies and skills outside of the what the plot requires. Her best friend is extremely forgettable (to be honest I read this book two days ago and I forgot her name). The Iron Phantom is an interesting character and makes a good love interest, but there honestly wasn't anything about him that made me care. I did love Abby's brother Connor. I know the author is writing a spin-off, and I really hope it's about him. His character and journey were probably some of the more interesting aspects of this book.

- Conclusion -

Pros- Quick read, fun enough, cute romance Cons- The setting, characters, and writing were all lacking Overall- 2.5/5 stars.  The Supervillain and Me disappointed in all the areas that would have made it memorable. However, it still is fun and would probably be more enjoyable for those looking for a lighter YA read.

[insignem]

Have an absurdly long review of The Starless Sea?? I usually don’t actually write reviews of books that I read, but my frustration and mixed feelings towards this one compelled me to. Spoilers ahead.

2.5 stars? It wasn't terrible, though it did make me almost throw it down several times in rage due to its execrable punctuation (learn how to use a semicolon, lady!! you're clearly addicted to writing sentences that require them!) It's like all the punctuation was downgraded one level - commas where semicolons were needed and nothing where commas were needed - and I'm baffled at how this book got past an editor. I think maybe a case of the author feeling like it's her "style" when in fact it's just poor writing - I’m all for playing with the ‘rules’ of grammar when writing stylistically, but this is NOT that (something about how you have to know the rules to break them). It’s clearly meant to be beautiful, dreamlike language, but it’s inconsistent and creates some of the flattest, clunkiest prose I’ve had the displeasure of reading in published fiction. It made it difficult to enjoy; I usually read quite fast, so without the punctuation marking pauses in the text for my brain I felt like I was just barreling over it and it was... unpleasant. The audiobook helped matters LOTS because the narrator actually put the pauses in where they needed to be, and ultimately listening to it versus reading the text actually made it tolerable for me to finish the book. It's not that she's a bad writer, exactly - she certainly does well with description/vivid settings/ creating an ~atmosphere, and while I wouldn't exactly say that her prose was beautiful/poetic as she clearly wants it to be, it was certainly pleasant when read by the audiobook narrator. I've seen criticism of her characters, which wasn't one of the low points for me - I liked them all and found them all interesting; I would have certainly liked to learn more about them, but it wasn't a huge issue for me. They were people, but they also were "metaphors" as she so kindly announced over and over again; archetypes meant to play certain roles. Zachary's passivity didn't bother me, exactly - American Gods was one of my favorite books for a while, and I saw shades of Shadow in him (though I would argue that Shadow's passivity and subsequent awakening in the final act plays more of a relevant plot role than Zachary's here). Could/should the love story have been more developed? 100%, but I also didn't feel like we're meant to believe they're madly in love with each other yet, just that they see that potential in the other and want to the opportunity to give it a go. I do wish she'd interwoven Kat's story a little more through the middle part of the book, as she's clearly far more pivotal at the end than the story sets her up to be. Mirabel seeks out Kat before the events of the book?? How did that not come up? She literally just tells her everything about the Harbor and the Starless Sea?? If Mirabel had sought out Zachary in the past but he only accidentally stumbled across Sweet Sorrows, why didn't she try to move that along a little more? I guess it wasn't necessarily an accident that the Keating Foundation donated Sweet Sorrows to the school the son of the fortuneteller would end up at - not too farfetched to think that they could have seen that coming I guess - but it seems weird to me that Mirabel needed both Kat and Zachary to accomplish her goal, but doesn't actually prod Kat into action, despite telling her everything else, and also doesn't seek out Zachary as an adult until he arrived at the party... and then basically tells him as little as possible! Possibly because she knew he needed to die, and she didn't think he would go through with it if he knew, which is too reminiscent of HP for my tastes - especially their talk in the bee-created ballroom at the end; SUPER reminiscent of the king's cross albus/harry convo. Obviously the book is full of allusions to literature, and of course stories have similarities (it's in their nature!!) - but this was too similar; it felt less allusive and more (maybe accidental) copy-cat. Plotwise: I don't necessarily mind that this isn't really a plot-driven book. Setting and atmosphere are definitely the primary point - like EM thought of a place and sort of vaguely designed a story around it to justify writing a novel about this place -and the world she creates is certainly compelling. I would have liked the logic of it to be fleshed out more - it reminded me of a dream where it makes total sense when you're in it but once you wake up, you realize that it didn't really make any sense at all. Maybe that was her intention, but it felt like lazy worldbuilding to me - there needs to be an internal logic, and I got the sense that she didn't actually put much effort into thinking it all through because she didn't want to or feel like she needed to. For example, Zachary was stabbed through the heart. Dorian had a beating heart in a box. Did he rip open Zachary's rib cage, remove his heart, and place the new heart inside?? and then he just magically healed? she clearly didn't want to think about the mechanics of that scene, so she just skipped over them. Same deal with the Harbor needing to end so it can be reborn - sure, that's plausible, but she doesn't bother explaining, even vaguely, why Zachary needs to go all the way down to where the sea has receded with the book that was lost in time and the bees and be the key and be dead and blah blah blah in order for that to happen. Like, she clearly thinks the pieces are there, but there's no reason for them! I did like all the frame stories that explained the history and stories of the place; some of them were quite compelling, and perhaps would have worked better as an actual collection of short stories. I think she's better at creating a coherent narrative for a short story than for a 500-page novel. But ultimately, this book fell flattest to me when it came down to its core concept: EM tried to write a novel-length love letter about stories and storytelling, and neither tells a coherent story herself nor makes any coherent statement on their importance, other than vague, pretty, quotable lines that don't really add up to anything. I think a book that's not particularly plot- or character-driven needs to be really clear on its theme, and this one is not. But it simultaneously gives you the strongest sense that it THINKS its telling this really coherent, compelling meta meditation on the importance of stories, which just struck me as unearned self-satisfaction from an author that thinks she's a better storyteller than she is. I feel like people want to argue that it's MEANT to be vague and for you to interpret how you wish, but there's literally the whole scene towards the end where Kat thinks about the story Mirabel is telling her and it's such an incredibly heavy-handed attempt at summing up the themes EM is trying to get at: "I remember the space more than the story that went with it" "endings are what give stories meaning... I think the whole story has meaning but I also think to have a whole story-shaped story it needs some sort of resolution... a goodbye. I think the best stories feel like they're still going, somewhere, out in story space. I remember wondering if this story was an analogy about people who stay in places or relationships or whatever situations longer than they should because they're afraid of letting go or moving or the unknown, or how people hold on to things because they miss what the thing was even if that isn't what the same thing is now... Or maybe that's just what I got out of it and someone else hearing the same story would see something different." "I don't remember the whole story... because the story didn't seem as important as the teller or the stars in that moment when it was being told. It seemed like something else. Not something you could hold on to." Well, there you have it! How cleverly did EM just lay out for you exactly what she is trying to accomplish with this whole book/her ~thesis! Lol. And despite her bit about the best stories feeling like they're still going on out in story space, I also think, with a novel like this, you really need to stick the landing, and this one didn't. I know she'll claim that she left it purposefully vague and up to interpretation, but again, it's the laziness of the worldbuilding - if you're going to weave this web of disparate threads, you need to really bring the together cohesively at the conclusion. I still had hope up until around page 470 that she was going to do that, but then I realized there simply weren't enough pages left and knew I would be disappointed. I know she wants us to imagine where the story goes next, but I was personally a little dissatisfied that we didn't at least get to see Kat and Zachary reuniting in the new Harbor, among other things. I also realize throughout this review that I've been referring heavily and disparagingly to the author, which I would argue that in a good book is hardly necessary, because the story and the characters speak for themselves. In this book, they did not, and the author and her own self-satisfaction were far too present throughout for my tastes. A couple more random things: Jesus these characters drink a lot! No judgement, but I swear alchohol was like the most prominent recurring thing in the book, more than bees or keys or swords or hearts or time or fate or anything else! I did really like the discussions of video games as storytelling and stories being told through different mediums, and how the player of a video game has a more active role in the story than the reader of a book does. I think the honey is more metaphorical than literal - like it's pollinated off of bits of stories and such - but thinking of of viscous, sticky, sweet-smelling honey everywhere made me gag a little - it was not the dreamy image for me that I think she wanted it to be. Though I did put honey in my tea this morning, so I guess it did make me want to eat some, lol. Also finishing the book randomly made me want to listen to the Panic! at the Disco album Vices & Virtues for the first time in YEARS - the vibes definitely match, so if you want a soundtrack for your reading, check it out. Sample lyrics: "I will come back to life/But only for you/Asleep in the hive/I guess all the buzzing got to me." ALSO lol at Dorian reading The Secret History and Zachary/Kat attending a college in Vermont. LOL. (personally amusing because I was a classics major at a college in VT - one with a Jterm - and my general meh-ness at Tartt's book, despite the fact that you'd like it was made for someone like me - too clearly written by a non-classics major imagining what studying classics would be like for my tastes, and also because I think EM fancies herself like DT after the success of The Night Circus when both of these authors NEED BETTER EDITORS who are actually willing to make them tighten up their books!) I listened to TNC on audiobook years ago and remember being dissatisfied with the ending after all the buildup as well, but little else. It certainly didn't linger with me, but I'd been hearing such good things about this one, and I wanted to give it a try. I'm not disappointed that I did, but I really, really wish that this book had lived up to its promise and had been told by a better storyteller.

[darringauthier]

Seventh Son (2014)

Genre: Action/Fantasy

Who’s In It: Ben Barnes, Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore, Alicia Vikander, Olivia Williams, Kit Harington, Djimon Hounson

Who Directed It: Sergei Bodrov

Plot:  When Mother Malkin, the queen of evil witches, escapes the pit she was imprisoned in by professional monster hunter Spook decades ago and kills his apprentice, he recruits young Tom, the seventh son of the seventh son, to help him.

Running Time: 1 hour 42 Minutes

IMDB Score: 5.5

Why I Watched it: Well this film has a history, it was sitting on the shelf for awhile and then when it finally got jumped into theatres it got terrible reviews.  So I wanted to see how bad it was and also that’s a pretty good cast.

Random Thoughts: You know a film has been sitting for awhile when the supporting actors are actually names by the time the film comes out, Kit Harington is only in the beginning and Alicia Vikander who is now a Tomb Raider is the love interest here.  Both deserve better and have gotten it.

What I Liked: This was a huge bomb when it came out and it lost a ton of money so let’s start off by trying to be kind.  Give me a moment.

The cast, it’s the only good thing in this movie, these are really good actors and to their credit they’re trying, but this is yet more proof that good to even great actors can’t save a bad script or a dumb script.  Oddly even though he isn’t in it much Harington showed enough to where I think he should have been the lead.  Bridges is playing the Jeff Bridges part and at first it was annoying but he grows on you, there just isn’t much there but he brings heart and so much talent and to his credit he’s not sleep walking he’s all in.  Julianne Moore is a certain age and as an actress she’s no longer the lead unless it’s an indie film so she’s taking these villain roles, she’s fine here and she actually doesn’t chew scenery she’s also going for it.

The action isn’t great but I did like the first big scene it was well done and it worked pretty well to set things up.

What I didn’t like: I mentioned the script, it’s bad and yes it’s one of those YA movies that is based on a series of books and yes it’s a bout a chosen one, we know this story and honestly they do nothing different.  Also the story is just so lackluster, there is no life in this story at all.

Ben Barnes is a decent actor but he’s so boring here, I should say bland and he has no chemistry with Vikander at all, she’s fine but she seems a bit lost with her character, to her defense it’s a badly written cliched character.

The most disappointing thing about the film is the look, this looks cheap and the production design is pretty bad, it’s so dark looking and blah, so I have to say the cinematography is really bad.  Everything in this film is just off, except for the acting it’s all below standard.  If this film is going to work as a fantasy we need to see this different and amazing fantasy world and here we don’t get it, we almost get Sci-Fy channel type effects and look.

In the end the story is just not different enough, it’s Harry Potter, well a knock-off, I didn’t care one bit and the sad thing is the story is boring you just don’t care I wasn’t engaged one bit even though I liked most of the actors.

Final Thoughts: Not a great movie, though it’s watchable, come on anything with Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore can’t be all bad.

Rating: 4/10

[peachdoxie]

Alright! My full review, I suppose, of Coco! Of course, spoilers galore, so be wary if you are avoiding them.

Two things. First, I will not be talking about the representation of Mexican culture in Coco. I’m not Mexican and so I’m not the person who can do that. I’ll leave that to actual Mexican people, who actually know stuff about Dia de Muertos and Mexican culture and whatever else. Second, I will not be comparing Coco to The Book of Life. Again, I’m not Mexican. Also, I’m sure plenty of other people who know both films better than I do to compare them. It’s been like three years since I’ve watched TBOL and so I can’t remember all the details either. 

Now that that’s out of the way, I’ll start by saying that I did actually enjoy Coco. I didn’t think it would be a bad film, of course. My impressions of it from what I’d seen on tumblr were rather that it would be kind of lackluster and unimpressive, similar to how I found Moana (review here). Not visually, since the animation was gorgeous as usual for a Pixar film, but narrative-wise. If you want some of the worries I had before seeing it, you can read them here. 

Instead, I don’t think those were accurate worries. I felt that the cartooniness was well balanced with the seriousness. The weirdness of Dante was really the only thing that actually felt out of place, in the beginning at least. But since he’s not an actual dog but rather a spirit guide (I can’t remember the word for it), it makes more sense and so I wasn’t bothered by him being that goofy. So the style of the animation actually worked for me and wasn’t a bother. And, of course, it was well done and very pretty and detailed and all that jazz.

The story of the film was also fairly solid, and thematically it was on par. Character-wise it was excellent, with one exception. I expected it to not be as good as it was, that some of the characters would be caricatures or stereotypes of stock characters, but they weren’t. For the really pertinent characters - Miguel, Hector, Abuelita Elena, Imelda, in particular - they had good backstories that explained their character choices well and provided for good character development, as well as a solid plot. That’s what I was most afraid of, since bad characters can lead to a bad story. Not the case in Coco, for which I was glad.

I’m going to talk about what I didn’t like as much now. I know it will seem like there’s a lot I don’t like, but really it’s just me being extremely critical of some small things that I think could have improved the film a lot. Keep in mind, I think Coco was really well done, so these aren’t serious or me saying I think Coco is bad. I always tend to spend more time talking about what I didn’t like than what I do, since most people agree with me on the things they liked. It’s the things I didn’t like that I have to explain in greater detail.

So, first major criticism. Hector’s identity as Miguel’s great-grandfather was very predictable. As soon as we met Hector and I noticed his gold tooth matched the one on the guitar that belonged to the man in the picture, I immediately had two thoughts: first, that Hector was lying about who he was and was actually Ernesto de la Cruz. Second, that he was the man in the photograph, Miguel had it wrong, and somehow Ernesto ended up with the guitar. Surprise, one of those is what actually happened. So I saw that coming from basically the first moment we met Hector. When he said his daughter’s name was Coco, I was like “yep, there it is.” The reveal was well done, but I saw through the plot twist from a mile away. I think they could have made that less obvious, but eh. It might just be a me problem, since I am very well versed in film narrative studies.

However, I do have bigger issues with one part of the story that I do wish Pixar hadn’t done because it’s cliched and out dated. I really wish that they hadn’t made Ernesto de la Cruz someone who murdered so he could commit theft of intellectual property so that his ambitions weren’t ruined. Sigh. I’ve seen that done too many times and it’s boring. And I don’t think this is because of me being me, either. Smashing We Used to be Friends with Stealing the Credit for the “big twist” (granted, it wasn’t the only one so there’s that) is sooooo overdone. I’d rather that didn’t happen, and I’ll explain why.

I didn’t see the betrayal coming, but that’s probably because, to me, it doesn’t really fit in the film. It’s kind of like Hans in Frozen, though better executed and with slightly better setup. The fact that Hector died of “food poisoning” was highlighted served as a Chekhov’s Gun, so at least there was that. But otherwise, I didn’t like Ernesto’s betrayal for two main reasons besides its overdoneness.

First, it didn’t seem to fit with the film thematically, imo. Coco didn’t need a third-act villain to still have a really great story with the exact same message. In fact, Ernesto’s betrayal seems a bit counter to the theme of family and remembrance and stuff. The main conflict for most of the film was between Miguel’s desire to be a musician and his family’s rejection of that because of the lingering impact of Imelda’s grief and anger. Which is great! That’s a really good cause of conflict! In the end, Miguel is able to reconcile Hector and Imelda by getting them to talk to each other and realize that Hector always wanted to go back and was trying to go back but died along the way. They reconcile over music and there’s still the dramatic tension of Miguel trying to get back to Coco before she forgets Hector in her old age. That’s a great conflict that leads to a lot of suspense and character development and resolution. I love it.

But throwing a villain in there? It actually seems kind of lazy to me. Like, the directors made Ernesto be a villain as a plot device to make drama for why it took so long for Miguel to get back. To me, it wasn’t necessary. More so, it was thematically inaccurate. Part of the conflict resolution was the reconciliation between Imelda with the broken heart and Hector with the regret and guilt at leaving them. The resolution relied on communication and understanding of each other’s perspective, as well as dealing with grief! Both Imelda and Hector were grieving for so long that part of the resolution, as subtle as it was, was about finally accepting what happened and moving on, together. 

And tbh, I think that making Ernesto de la Cruz a villain - murdering his best friend just so his ambitions could be fulfilled - seems very much against that. It puts him as evil and, basically, irredeemable. That bothered me, a lot. I don’t like irredeemable villains that aren’t the central cause of conflict. The only reason why Ernesto was revealed to be a villain was because of the primary source of conflict. That’s just...bad writing, imo. Not like, super bad, but not really that good either. Why can’t Hector reconcile with both Imelda and Ernesto? If the theme is about reconciliation and family, why didn’t that happen with Ernesto as well?

(Okay, I will break my earlier statement about not comparing this to The Book of Life, for just a bit. If the makers of Coco were trying to avoid too many comparisons to TBOL by NOT having a trio of reconciliation at the end, like with Maria, Joachim, and Manolo, then they could have done other things that avoided too many similarities that would have made me happier. Plus, if too many similarities were what they were worried about, then making Coco three years after TBOL shouldn’t have on their docket. But, that’s unknown if that was their intent, so I won’t rant on that further.)

The second reason why I didn’t like Ernesto being a villain, besides the way that I didn’t think it fit narratively and thematically, is that I’m just really fricking tired of the Broken Pedestal trope. You know the one. Someone idolizes someone else, then they find out that idol is flawed, and they’re crushed. The pedestal breaks and the idol falls. Like, blah blah whatever moral tales you want to tell about the dangers of idolizing people because you’ll inevitably be disappointed and whatever. The side of me that abhors cynicism just wants that trope to go die a quiet death in a corner somewhere. Well, what I really want is for the broken pedestal concept to not be so polarizing! What frustrates me so much about Ernesto de la Cruz’s fall from grace is that it had to go from being “the best musician in all of Mexico who wants you to follow your dreams!” to “a man who murdered his best friend to steal his songs when his friend wanted to go home to his family.” Like, can you get any more polarizing than that? He goes from idol to evil in one scene. 

This is probably more of a big “me problem” than any of my other criticisms, and perhaps I’m laying this a little too hard on Coco, since plenty of other films have done it, but Ernesto’s betrayal is made more frustrating to me because the film didn’t need to have this story line in order to still be good. It’s easy enough to have Hector still die young and still be forgotten by everyone WITHOUT Ernesto being a villain. Hector could have decided to head home with Ernesto wishing him luck, then died on the way back. Maybe no one knew what happened to him. Ernesto, overcome with grief over the loss of his friend, could have refused to talk too much about him and so no one ever really knew who Hector was. Or they had a big fight and Hector left. For whatever reason, Hector leaves the MacGuffin-esque guitar behind and Ernesto uses it out of respect for his friend. Ernesto, in the end, admits that he was wrong to have not made a point of publicizing Hector’s role in his fame as much, or that he didn’t remember him well enough in his fame, or whatever. Thematic reconciliation and everyone’s happy. Or I don’t know. Something like that. But basically the exact same plot could have happened without Ernesto being a third act villain! Ernesto is still flawed, but in the same way as Imelda and Hector because he was grieving for his friend and screwed up! 

I just...am really tired of the “fall from grace” trope being used, especially in wake of all the stuff in 2017 that’s happened re: people being outed as sexual harassers and whatever. Granted, Coco was in development long before that, but I don’t think that’s a reliable excuse. Plenty of people have been revealed to have done bad things like that before 2017. Plus, like, it’s so negative! Why can’t Ernesto be an overall good guy who has flaws just like everyone else! And I know I’m ranting at this point but it’s so tiring seeing such polarizing falls from grace. Yeah, whatever messages you want to say about the dangers of idolization and of ambition and whatever cultural history there is behind them, I get that. Can’t we have the idol fall, but not all the way? Can they fall to a middle ground? From idealism to realism, instead of idealism to pessimism? Not that Coco is necessarily pessimistic, but hopefully you’ll get my point.

Anyway, part of the reason I’m going off about this so much is because I know that Pixar is capable of doing better than this! Yeah, yeah, I know that “Pixar” isn’t one singular entity, but they do have a brand and they do have an ideology of what they want their films to be like, and I know that several of the big names do tend to have influence on all the films Pixar makes, so I think my point is valid. Lee Unkrich, the director of Coco, has worked on basically every Pixar film in some authoritative capacity. Pixar has made very quality films where the conflict was character driven WITHOUT having any sort of villain. Finding Nemo is the one that really comes to mind (Lee Unkrich worked on it, just fyi). There was no villain in the film. There were antagonists, but not villains. There IS a difference between the two. So it ticks me off that there was a villain in Coco when a) it was narratively and thematically out of line, b) it wasn’t necessary to have the same theme in the end, and c) I know Pixar can do better than that.

Whatever. I know I’m being extremely nitpicky for Pixar, but that’s because I have high standards and I hold Pixar to relatively high standards as well, given their history. But like I said earlier, that doesn’t mean I think Coco is a bad film. In fact, I think it was really great. There were a lot of things I really liked about it. The animation was great. The music was great. The characters were all really well rounded and driven. The story was also fairly good, if not predictable. Even the villain, though I don’t think he should have existed, was well done in at least being consistent. I’ll probably see it again at some point this break, and maybe once again in Chicago as well. 

As a last note, please don’t argue with me on my opinions or try to change my mind. You may disagree with me and you’re welcome to tell me that, but I really don’t want to argue with anyone. I’ve stated my opinions and why I think the things I do. I can’t defend them any more than I already have.

[troutfishinginmusic]

Essay: The difficult humanity of Iggy Pop’s solo discography

Most interviewers will talk about The Stooges, maybe touch on the Bowie years and leap to whatever album Iggy Pop is currently promoting. There’s a lot of history missing in between all that.

Iggy’s solo discography, from New Values to Après, is a lot to take in. It truly runs the gamut, from radio pleas to experimental fuck-offs.  I’ll try to provide nuance and context wherever possible as I go through each kind of Iggy record from this period. That said, it isn’t an easy body of work to assess.

Here comes success: Pop albums

Iggy’s attempts to fit into the mainstream are fascinating. New Values (1979) possibly had the the greatest chance to become a hit. It’s an album that does a fine job threading the needle of Iggy’s punk, avant-garde and pop sides. You don’t have to imagine too hard to see a song like “Tell Me a Story” getting radio play.

New Values also may be one of Iggy’s strongest solo albums. Songs like “New Values,” “I’m Bored” and “Five Foot One” are undeniable classics. There are few flaws to be found (I’ll get to that later).

There’s a genuine commitment to the material on Party (1981), but crossover mega-stardom proved to be  elusive. It may have been hard for audiences to forget this guy making radio moves was someone who, only a few years prior, was known for rolling on broken glass.

It’s a bummer because there’s more to Party than the cover would lead you to believe. It’s a solid 80s album with more lyrical depth than what you’d find on the radio in that era. No one could argue it’s his best, but you can definitely put it on and not skip a track.

I met you out at the Mardi Gras On a French Quarter sidewalk When you kissed me, it was strong I wonder if you'll hear this song

- “Pumpin’ for Jill” from Party

Iggy lets his crooning take center stage for the first time as well. It’s more fully developed on later albums like Preliminers or Avenue B, but it didn’t have far to go. His version of “Sea of Love” on Party is one of the best, falling just short of Cat Power’s cover.

Blah-Blah-Blah (1986) is just a well-executed 80s pop record, but you do get the nagging feeling it doesn’t feel as natural as other Iggy albums. The best songs are one’s like “Cry for Love” where he brings out his incredible goth-y croon to great affect. And it’s hard to hate a song like “Real Wild Child (Wild Child)” even if it is desperately clawing at the pop charts.

Solider is solid but doesn’t quite reach the heights of the focused, but flawed, New Values. “Take Care of Me” and “I Need More” are great, straight forward punk songs. “Mr. Dynamite” is one of his better stabs at incorporating pop and avant-garde. “Loco Mosquito” is a solid pop song that slips in punk lyrics. “Get Up and Get Out” is a rare feminist song that works perfectly in its simplicity.

I'm wondering fellas if you've heard the news The chicks are sick and tired of being abused Now I saw all this on the wide screen You know that chick Bette Davis split right out of the scene

- “Get Up and Get Out” from Soldier

“I’m a Conservative” is Iggy’s tongue-in-cheek lyricism firing on all cylinders. It’s placed next to “Dog Food” where Iggy thumbs his nose up at all the stereotypes people had hung on his shoulders up to that point, for better or worse.  

Cold Metal: LOUD rock albums

Iggy has consistently said how boring big dumb rock albums are in interviews, especially Nu Metal. Yet at different points he still feels a need to put up a big ugly noise, while slipping in interesting lyrics, just to prove he can. This has meant different things at different points.

If you can get past the terrible hair metal-esque cover art and seriously flawed production, Instinct (1988) is actually kind of interesting. It pales next to the Stooges albums, but if you’re more partial to the rocking side of Iggy’s career you could do worse. Some highlights include “Easy Rider,” “Cold Metal,” “Strong Girl” and “High on You.”

The worst of these “rocking” albums, and possibly his worst album overall, might be Naughty Little Doggie (1996). It’s just sort of an embarrassing slog. The best songs (like “Knucklehead”) are passable and have a nice grinding blues-y thing going on. It sounds like the album a rocker would make to stay up to date with punks in the 90s.

Naughty Little Doggie also contains some repulsive and confessional lyrics, which I’ll get to later. It’s an understatement to say this thing is probably questionable to a lot of ears, but it is important.

American Caesar (1993) is interesting. It sounds like Iggy striking a good balance between rocking out and introspection. It’s also sort of a concept record.

“Jealousy” is a great acoustic song with simmering hatred just barely contained. There’s a great “Louie, Louie” cover that adds some political commentary. “Boogie Boy” is probably his best song making fun of big dumb rock music. There are standout songs, but the thing works best when you listen to the whole thing.

Now every mornin’ I wake up at nine I'm eating cheerios with red wine I'm reading that book but it's not too good Cuz my boogie head is made outta wood It's a fact i get so much joy When i can go out and be a boggie boy

- “Boogie Boy” from American Caesar

American Caesar is very long, with a runtime of over 70 minutes. You have to be in the mood for it and ready to hang in there for the whole thing.

As I revisited all of these albums I was shocked by how much I liked Beat ‘Em Up (2001). It’s extremely heavy and extremely funny. I made the mistake of reading reviews about it before I actually listened to it. It’s much more than a big dumb rock album.

A song like “Football” does a lot of things at once and somehow succeeds.  Iggy is able to make a song where he imagines himself as a football being thrown around sound oddly touching. “Mask” and “V.I.P.” are are some of his best rant-y songs in a long career of them. 

Complicated crushed up disappointed squirming angry thrusting stabbing regretting starving greedy human alien being, struggling down the street, up the alley, in the elevator, through the party, to the office, in the bedroom, on your way to the morgue.

- “Mask” from Beat ‘Em Up

It’s also HEAVY. It may even be heavier than the Stooges records in some ways. Mooseman from Body Count joins his band, The Trolls, on the album to provide some great lowend (sadly it was his last album). I never thought I’d find myself getting into this album but it’s actually pretty fantastic, although a bit long. 

It’s totally what The Weirdness should’ve been. With a bit of time I could see this being a bit of a cult classic. Plus it gave birth to this great performance.

Till wrong feels right: Famous collaborator albums

Brick by Brick (1990) is a well-constructed early 90s rock record and it sounds like it. It’s damn catchy, especially “Candy.” It features session pros and rock royalty from the time like Slash. It’s all executed well, but it’s not really something you’ll return to often.

One interesting song on Brick by Brick is “Butt City,” which is as goofy the title suggests but does slip in a some pretty good social commentary about racial profiling by police. This and “Mixing the Colors” from American Caesar explain Iggy’s views on race in a plain way, which was overdue.

The cops are well-groomed, with Muscled physiques in Butt Town Their tan uniforms are tailored in chic In Butt Town Any young black male who walks down the street Is going to get stopped by a car full of meat But the girl with the hair Flies by in her underwear

- “Butt Town” from Brick by Brick

Skull Ring (2003) is an album that is the epitome of hit or miss. Iggy brought in marquee punks like Green Day and Sum 41 and it actually kind of works. His Peaches collaborations on the album are fascinating but aren’t songs you’ll come back to often. Their best collaboration is a song called “Kick It” on the Peaches’ album Fatherfucker.

The bad songs with new collaborators are at least interesting. Strangely, songs with the newly reformed Stooges and previous backing band The Trolls are the ones that don’t jump out. There are a few gems like “Superbabe,” “Whatever” and “Dead Rockstar,” though.

King of the dogs: French albums

The French albums Iggy made are both stunners. They seem ridiculous on first blush but, once you get over your own preconceptions, they’re great.

Préliminaires (2009) has it’s roots in a Michel Houellebecq’s novel, New Orleans Jazz and bleak existentialism. “King of the Dogs” is such a perfectly suited cover for Iggy. “I Want to Go to the Beach” is a devastatingly minimal plea. “Party Time” is a goofy song with a very 80s propulsive bassline. I can’t say enough good things about this album.

Après (2012) is great in a lot of the same ways but is a more straight forward covers album. The selection is great. His version of Yoko Ono’s “Going Away Smiling” is perfect, though it’s hard to beat the original. There are also some great Serge Gainsbourg, Beatles and Cole Porter covers. This is definitely worth seeking out.

Buried in a melting coffin: Experimental albums

It’s been resurrected with the documentary Gimme Danger, but most don’t think about the Stooges being one of the first noise rock bands. This is apparent in some of their discography, but the very early version of the band (when they were called the Psychedelic Stooges) supposedly sounded like The Melvins. Iggy even played the vacuum during shows. There are no recordings from this period. This is all relayed by Iggy in many different interviews. He was also very closely associated with the Andy Warhol crew and drew from a variety of boundary pushing influences as a record store clerk in Ann Arbor. In his solo discography, this willingness to push boundaries comes out on occasion. 

Zombie Birdhouse (1982) was recorded in Haiti, following Party. It’s a very difficult album to unpack, so I’ll do so carefully. Imagine Iggy made his version of David Bowie’s Lodger album, at least in terms of lyrical content. Most of the album revolves around the idea of an American in a place he doesn’t understand. It’s the most political thing he ever recorded.

The opener “Run Like a Villain” depicts America bombing its poorer adversaries. It’s a wonder that he rarely ever made songs like this since it’s so effective. For example:

Big Dick is a thumbs-up guy He shot a missile in the sky It functioned just as advertised Until the fire made him cry 

“Run Like a Villain Zombie Birdhouse

“The Villagers” is a bit hard to take but it fits the tourist theme of the album. “Watching the News” is a super experimental song about Iggy doing just that in a very uncomfortable, but effective way. “Ordinary Bummer” and “Platonic” are solid ballads. The best songs are the uptempo “Eat or Be Eaten” and “The Horse Song.” The ladder has these crazy drone-y parts that are molded into something insanely catchy. I’d submit it as one of the best songs he’s ever done.

This is such a vastly underrated album that was sadly undercut a bit by the production at the time. That’s since been improved on the remastered version, which I can’t recommend enough.

Avenue B (1999) is very reflective. It’s jazzy and slower moving than most of his discography. My guess is that his new album, Free, is going to be very similar to this based on the songs that have been released so far. That’s a good thing.

Collaborators like John Medeski provide a great foundation for Iggy’s lyrics to be on full display. Everything from acoustic guitars to bongos crop up, creating a subdued and gentle springboard to dive off. 

You can tell Avenue B was an album he wanted to make for a long time. It explores a lot of difficult things. From being in love with fascist to the problems of a relationship with a much younger woman.

This is a course corrective from Naughty Little Doggie, picking up where “Look Away” left off. It’s the beginning of Iggy becoming a bit more accountable for his past. There are still some cringe-y moments, especially on the otherwise great “I Felt the Luxury,” that don’t age well. But, on the whole, it’s honest and the start of a new chapter.

(Don’t) look away: Contradictions and skeletons

You don’t have to look hard through Iggy’s solo discography to find "problematic” lyrics. The messages aren’t always handled well but they’re more honest than anything you’ll find on a typical rock record. That’s an important distinction.

Confessions

There’s a sense of willful forgetfulness rock fans have about teenage groupies. Every now and again I’ll hear a movie like Almost Famous called “dated,” even though that’s totally what happened at the time. While many thinkpieces point to the fact that there were laws in place that made this illegal at the time, they totally miss the point about public perception on this issue. Just because there is a law on the books doesn’t mean people will care or follow it. This wasn’t just a rock star problem, even if it’s easier to tell ourselves that.

Pretty much every rock icon you can name from the 80s and earlier has this skeleton in their closet. Iggy is no different in this regard.

The difference maybe is honesty. “Look Away,” from the album Naughty Little Doggie, is a very unpleasant but real song. It doesn’t romanticize the power imbalance and lays it out simply in the first line.

The song discusses Iggy’s relationship with Sable Starr and her subsequent doomed relationship with Johnny Thunders. You’re not going to hear a confession like that on an album by Jimmy Page or the Eagles, even though they have more reason to clench up about the topic. Honesty doesn’t make it easy, though. In Iggy’s own words in the song “What we did once, I wouldn't do again.” Hopefully that’s true.

I don’t excuse any of this, it’s terrible. Especially on an album with a creepy, leering song like “Pussy Walk.” Naughty Little Doggie is a difficult album to sort  out. Yet it does lay bare all the downsides of the glam lifestyle (which in many ways he was a part of) and abandons any mythologizing about it. I do think we can discuss these things and learn from them, but I would never recommend anyone buy this record. If you want a reason to not listen further, this is it.

The flip side is that Iggy has been an ardent supporter of feminist art throughout his career and obviously didn’t see creeping on teen girls as a contradiction. He should’ve known better and been held accountable, along with scores of other artists from his era. We know better now.

It seems he does too and has been working to change this prior to the metoo era and has never tried to act like something he’s not. In recent years he has made a tangible efforts to correct these past mistakes, which I don’t see other artists from his era doing. He has recently raised money for the Girls Rock Camp Alliance charity. He’s championed independent female artists like U.S. Girls, Pins, Le Butcherttes, Noveller and countless others. Small steps, but steps nonetheless.

Race

On the whole Iggy been way ahead of the curve on race politics, but has one awfully ignorant song on his album New Values. His views are made a bit clearer on American Caesar and Brick by Brick, but this is still something worth discussing.

In pretty much every interview he’s given he’s made sure to promote the black music that gave birth to rock and roll. Early in his career he backed black musicians as a drummer and has collaborated with them throughout his career. He drew influence from traditions that weren’t his own and made something totally unique. He didn’t steal from other cultures. That’s far ahead of the time.

What isn’t is a song like “African Man” which was either intended to be edgy or goofy, but just ends up being kind of racist. There’s no way around that. It’s just a terrible song that ruins the near perfect New Values. It’s a fucking bummer it was ever recorded and I sincerely hope it doesn’t give someone the idea that it’s funny to say something like that.

I would chalk this up to ignorance that a good deal of white people had at the time. Movies and cartoons depicted Africans as savages and cannibals. I think this is what he was trying to replicate and possibly parody. For someone who supposedly had an interest in social anthropology early in life, I’m surprised he would utilize a stereotype that blatant. This makes me personally think it was supposed to be a parody. There comes a point where none of that matters, though. It sadly ends up giving comfort to those who hold backwards views on race.

I’d love to actually know his thoughts on this stuff, but no one actually asks about it in interviews. It’s frustrating because it’s an issue he gets right more often than not. It’s better to confront these things than to pretend they don’t exist. I think that’s the only way forward.

There is one moment where he does apologize for accidentally using a dated term in a past interview. Maybe that’s a good indication of how he feels today.

Break into your heart: Conclusions

It’s hard to write objectively about an artist who means a lot to you. I tried for years to figure out a way to do this coherently (it probably didn’t end up working). I saw a few OK lists spring up dissecting some of these albums, but they always seemed to just graze the surface. There was always something lacking.

They missed the honesty and humanity on display through a long and complicated career. They would mythologize the usual parts. They would gloss over the difficult parts. They would diminish the efforts for something better.

To me Iggy was a catalyst that didn’t just birth a movement for disengaged youths to stick safety pins through their noses. It was much more than that. He opened a door for marginalized people to scream about the oppression they face daily. He promoted difficult and confrontational art. He is a mirror for America’s best and worst impulses.

For me, and many others, his life represents a struggle to survive and keep getting better. He’s survived bad reviews, severe drug addiction, divorces and a host of other things. There’s something so powerful to that simple notion of getting back up after falling hard that many times. I think that’s why, despite his flaws, people still care.

It’s been difficult to grapple with some of the regrettable parts of his discography. I think everyone is doing that now with their record collections in some way. There are no easy answers. It really comes down to how you want to engage with art and commerce. I’m not going to preach to you or tell you how you should interact with art. Iggy Pop is a lot of things, but above all else he is transparent. I can live with that.

After some deserved success and recognition with Post Pop Depression, he’s ready to step out on a limb with his new album Free. I can’t wait to hear it.

[lunarproductions]

I admit I have never been a huge fan of the Flash, only seeing him in the DC animated cartoons and movies but Arrow introduced Barry Allen all over again and he and his show soon became my favorite part of the CW comic book shows; until Legends of Tomorrow season two that is. However, despite its ups and downs I continue to watch and enjoy the show

This article is basically me expressing what I liked and didn’t like about the episode in a casual format. No fancy reviewing here, but if you want to fangirl with me then read on!

FANGIRL FAVORITES

Barry, just Barry in general. His actor his very cute and despite me not liking facial hair much he worked it well, along with the longer hair. It was no mystery to have him return but it still felt really awesome to see it happen. I love his new power level though he probably won’t be able to access it now that he’s of sound mind and body.

Wally speaking Japanese was pretty neat, not sure if the actor learned it just for that scene or if he is a fan of the culture like myself. Also, Wally has become a bit more tolerable as time has gone on, can’t say the same for his sister. Though I do enjoy their bond.

Caitlin has had an issue with being rather boring, especially in the beginning while she was mourning and then when Robbie died again. I always liked her character but becoming Killer Frost added an edge she needed.

Overall the whole cast did really well and I liked that we were introduced to the Thinker earlier on though I imagine we won’t make many more cameos until his true big reveal. While I liked Julian, hopefully his departure means Barry can do more forensic work and lead a life outside of the Flash business.

FANGIRL FAILS

Iris, just Iris in general. It was recently noted in a video I was watching how weird it was for two people who were raised together as brother and sister to be romantically involved and I have to agree. Especially when they both call Joe dad. Other than that she’s just annoying, that hasn’t changed, and she has zero chemistry with Barry. Felicity, who I dislike on Arrow, had buckets of chemistry with Barry and even Patty had some but the show keeps forcing Barry and Iris together. I know why but Arrow takes a dump on comic book canon relationships why can’t The Flash?

The CGI graphics still don’t impress me, notably when it's of actual characters. Barry and Wally have really bad character models when they run and it’s easy to tell they’re computer generated.

Julian leaving sucks. They spent the last season getting viewers to like him for what? I know season three was bad but he wasn’t part of the reasons why it was bad.

Back to Iris but, her being the reason Barry comes to his scenes was predictable and trite. Yes, they’re in love blah blah blah but agh…

Another thing, everyone ending up back on Team Flash so quickly and easily. Also, so many of them have powers now. Yes, I know the characters of Sisqo and Caitlin have them in the comics so I did see this coming but now with Wally it sort of takes away from Flash being the star. While I like all of these characters using their powers, I also accept that it does mar the storytelling a bit. They tried to make it seem like Vibe and Kid Flash had so much trouble holding down the city but it shouldn’t have been that hard, especially with what we learn in Legends of Tomorrow that Citizen Steel was also aiding them for months.

FANGIRL FANGASMING INTENSIFIES

So, Grant Gustin is a very sexy man. He has that adorkable vibe that I love so very much and his fun and happy approach to Barry Allen is endearing. While I enjoy the show for what it is, him being so attractive also helps and as I mentioned before with his longer hair after the Speed Force visit well...yum! Speaking of hair, I’m also liking Sisqo’s longer locks and Caitlin’s hair has so much volume and bounce. It really helps enhance her rebel vibe though. I was disappointed she rejoined the team so easily but it’s clear she has her own set of demons to work through.

Because the ending scene of her going full Killer Frost as amazing! While I’d really like for her to come to grip with her powers and this darker side, I love how forceful it is. The Caitlin before was one who might let people walk all over her and her Frost side is a drastic opposite, they need to meet in the middle.

And my final and favorite moment was Barry bursting out of the containment cell to save Iris. It was a true show of power and something I don’t think anyone has ever done before, it was pretty amazing.

[graceivers]

Review #44 - Bayside Desires

Bayside Desires Author: Melissa Foster Genre: Contemporary Romance Rating: ★★★ Recommendation: it’s a toss-up; once was enough Summary: Desiree Cleary hurriedly returns to Cape Cod thanks to her mother’s cryptic and misleading message only to be saddled with an art gallery to run and a mortgage to pay. Rick Savage is temporarily at the Cape to finish a family business venture before leaving so he can avoid the past. They meet; they fall in love; they beat their respective demons and stay together.

Female Lead: I didn’t dislike Desiree’s character. I disliked how Foster wrote Desiree’s character. Sometimes those two statements sound like the same thing, but in this case, they are not. What I liked about Desiree was that she was clearly a mature, responsible, caring individual. I mean, she all but berated her sister for swearing because she recognized that uttering curse words really didn’t change the unfortunate circumstances they were in. I was practically sold on her character right then and there. But as I read on, the problem became apparent: Foster trying to beat the readers with the whole ‘sweet’ and ‘naughty’ personality. Foster literally repeated those two words to describe Desiree every few pages, and I not only got sick of it but also became rather irritated with the description. I got it after the first few times, okay? That would’ve been enough. But Foster just kept repeating herself—sweet Desiree, naughty girl, blah blah blah. Enough! Just let this character be, for goodness sake. Male Lead: I did like Rick for the most part. He was very sweet and attentive towards Desiree, and he did obviously love his family despite having a difficult time with losing his father. That whole issue with him not coming to terms with his father’s death after so many years honestly seemed a little bit trite and melodramatic for me, and I watch soap operas, so that’s saying something. But I had less problems with Rick’s character compared to how I felt about Desiree. I mean, for the majority of the book and his perspective, Rick was basically all for Desiree, and I guess I couldn’t complain when a man genuinely and wholly loves a woman the right way. Plot & Writing: Honestly, I was disappointed. Bayside Desires ran high on steam and swoon, but that couldn’t save the book from all its pitfalls. After reading Seaside Dreams by Foster, which I rather adored, my expectations were a little high here. Unfortunately, those expectations were not met.

To me, Rick and Desiree’s relationship was basically instalove. I was halfway through the book and they had had multiple intimate scenes, and then I was like, ‘WAIT, THEY’VE ONLY KNOWN EACH OTHER FOR A FEW DAYS?’ I mean, I guess kudos to Foster for making the chemistry between the two pretty intense, but that did not save the relationship from being rushed. Love at first sight? Maybe. Probably not. Lust at first sight? You bet. Some scenes Foster included felt so rushed that they almost seemed forced—for example, Rick miraculously opening up to Desiree about his dad’s death when he never even talked to his brother about it; similarly, Desiree telling Rick about her complicated family matters. Those scenes didn’t feel natural to me; it felt more like Foster needing to write those moments so the two characters actually knew each other in order to justify their relationship and love. And then at the end of it all when I reflect on what I’ve read, I realize that the whole book basically took place within a month. Falling in love with each that quickly? Sure, stranger things have happened. Was I sold on it, though? Take away the sex scenes, and the answer is no.

The book was built on the dynamic of different relationships and how they needed to be formed and/or reconciled. Normally, that would sound great to me. But then Foster inserted some choice characters into this book especially on Desiree’s side, and I couldn’t for the life of me get on board with the fact that Desiree would actively choose to have relationships with these people even if they were blood. First off, her mother? Foster tried to go all philosophical on us or something and gave us this ridiculous ‘I couldn’t be the mother you wanted me to be and that was for the best because it’s most important to be ourselves’ excuse as to why Lizza was a terrible mother. I could not read that whole section where the woman gave that absurd spiel. Want to be yourself? Fine. But that did not excuse Lizza’s immature and irresponsible behavior at all. Her absurd excuses did not change the fact that she was not a good or attentive mother and hurt Desiree when she left and never looked back. Desiree continually seeking her mother’s attention even when she had never received it, I could understand. What I didn’t understand was why Desiree, someone who avoided almost anything associated with Lizza, would still want to have a relationship with her mother after everything the latter had done.

Similarly, I was not particularly into Desiree so adamantly wanting a relationship with Violet, her half-sister. Yes, fine, they shared blood; that could be reason enough. I think I was just very disenchanted with Violet’s character overall—as in, if I met someone like her in real life, I would neither like nor get along with her. There was one moment that stood out to me, and that was towards the beginning when the sisters found the little sex shop at their mother’s art gallery. Desiree was freaking out, and Violet was just laughing and pushing her, and then there was this line by Violet: “I’m trying to help you, not make fun of you.” Excuse me. No. Violet was 100% teasing and making fun of Desiree’s discomfort with all those sex toys lying around. So Desiree was a little prudish at that time; or at least, she wasn’t interested in or comfortable talking about such an intimate topic with her sister WHO SHE BARELY KNEW AT THAT POINT. I understood that Violet was a character with so much experience or whatever and so comfortable in her own skin with no filter. What I was severely irritated with was how that personality made fun of someone like Desiree who was a little more reserved and yes, prudish. Violet felt extremely judgmental to me. And honestly? I’m going to judge right back. Not everyone needs to be so freaking open and blunt all the time. And I mean, Desiree was clearly a sexual person given the number of intimate scenes and references Foster wrote in for her and Rick. Not everyone needs to verbalize their sexual behavior for the whole world to hear, geez. Why it was so important for Desiree to prove to Violet that she could be ‘naughty’ and not so straight-laced was kind of beyond me but mostly unsupported by me.

And then way off topic, but I wanted to briefly mention this because this is the first time I’ve seen it occur. Foster had Desiree ask Rick if he was clean before she gave him oral. YES. THANK YOU. You can get STDs from oral, people. Desiree was knowledgable! This moment was absolutely worth mentioning. Favorite Part(s): Rick constantly touching Desiree. Literally all the freaking time! If they weren’t holding hands, he had his arm wrapped around her so their bodies were touching. If he wasn’t holding her face in his hands, he was hugging her. Their bodies were practically glued to each other’s. Honestly, for all the issues I had with their rushed relationship, I didn’t mind the constant touching at all. Final Thoughts: Bayside Desires was a disappointment. No one bats a thousand, I guess, and my displeasure with this book will not deter me from reading more of Foster’s books. Still, as much chemistry as the main couple might have had, their relationship was too rushed for my liking, and I could not overlook some of the decisions made by some characters. I am only marginally satisfied that this book is now the highest rated contemporary romance book I’ve read and not that previous abomination that I don’t even care to title. Then again, I clearly did not rate Bayside Desire that highly and would only recommend if you love Foster’s books and/or can overlook the issues I couldn’t.

[willreadforbooze]

Hello boozie readers!

Reminder:Our Will Read For Booze twitter account (formerly Sam’s personal account) is going to be dedicated to the whole blog! So go check us out kthxxxx. While that’s amazing, Sam has to start from scratch on a new account, let’s show her some love huh? Check out her new account TheBooktender_  She’ll love you forever and ever.

Minda’s Updates

What Minda is reading now:

Such a Perfect Wife by Kate White – Was feeling a quick mystery read and this is it! True crime journalist Bailey Weggins is investigating a missing persons case in a small town on Lake George. The pretty white lady who went missing is slightly mysterious and the details around her disappearance are slim. At 46%, things are heating up.

The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang – Been not-so-patiently waiting for this one to appear in my library queue, but here it is! The follow up to The Poppy War, we pick up where the third war left off after the traumatic ending. The lead (antihero?) Rin is on the run and seeking revenge. How will the saga continue and can she make up for the atrocities she has committed?

What Minda put down:

Dark Age by Pierce Brown – Just didn’t get into it right away, so will pick it up again later.

Linz’s Updates

Linz can’t come to the phone right now, she’s hungover. Damn you, holiday season.\

What Linz read:

Spark of White Fire by Sangu Mandanna: The first installment of a trilogy looks at fates and destinies and gods but in space. I’ve had this on the back burner for ages and picked just the right time to read it; my one complaint, weirdly, is I wish it’d been a little bit of a slower burn.

Dress Codes in Small Towns by Courtney C. Stevens: A young girl comes of age and explores her sexual identity. Thoughtful, enjoyable, but are teens this self-aware? Do they really talk like this?

The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh: Blah. “Dystopic feminist revenge fantasy about three sisters on an isolated island.” You literally can’t tell the sisters’ voices apart, it’s kinda predictable and relies way too heavily on the reader to fill in details.

What Linz DNF:

Spindle Fire by Lexa Hillyer: IF YOUR CHARACTER CAN’T TALK, THEN STARTS TALKING, THEN THEY CAN TALK CAN’T THEY

What Linz is currently reading:

Crier’s War by Nina Varela: Humans try to overthrow the robots that overthrew them (I think). This stack of hard copies I’ve got aren’t going to read themselves

Sam’s Updates

Who did the most holiday parties this weekend? I went to three. Including Linz’s amazing party. Girl knows how to throw a party. I spent all day baking cookies and I’m not done yet lol.

What Sam read this week:

Graceling by Kristin Cashore: Oh man. I see what everyone was talking about, this story was just amazing. The audio is great and I will definitely be picking up the rest of the series.

Queen of Nothing by Holly Black: YOU GUYS! This book was ah-mazing. For those of you living under the YA rock, this is the finale to Holly’s newest series that starts with The Cruel Prince. Our main character Jude, a human, lives in fae with her adoptive power-hungry father. I won’t spoil anything for any book, but let’s just say the romance in this is INCREDIBLY problematic, but….. i love it. I love it so much. Jude is one of the dumbest characters I think I’ve ever read but DAMN do I love it. The finale didn’t disappoint, drunk babbling about my heart-eyes are coming.

What Sam’s currently reading:

Warrior of the Altaii by Robert Jordan: Only just started this but this was actually Robert Jordan’s first book, but this was it’s first publishing =). Starting on audio, but will probably pick up my hard copy once I finish the hard copy i’m currently reading.

Scavenge the Stars by Tara Sim: I am about half way through this. The main character spent the last 7 years working on a debtor’s ship and now she’s sworn revenge. I did not know how I didn’t know this, but apparently it’s a Count of Monte Cristo retelling. I am worried, because it’s not that long and I feel like it’s never going to end. I’m only half way through. I think if it doesn’t pick up soon, imma put it down.

Ginny’s Updates

We’re getting close to the holidays which means I’ve been to five holiday events in the last four days. That being said, they were all delightful so I really shouldn’t be complaining. There was plenty of good food, amazing hot chocolate, plenty of talking, and in general a good time. Unfortunately, not too much reading.

Finished:

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid: I was worried at the beginning of this book that it was a bit of a tired trope. And yet this book did an amazing job of setting itself apart. Monique has a real voice, and Evelyn is brutal in her honesty with this interview. Once the story got started this book was nearly impossible to put down. 5/5

The Crown’s Game  by Evelyn Skye: This book has a lot in similar with The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I love that book, Sam loved it (review here). So this book is basically a Russian Night Circus but slightly more frustrating. There are a few moments where things seem to happen not because it was in character but more because the plot required it. I did like the idea of magic but found the ending frustrating. It was a perfectly fine book but I feel no need to read the sequel 3/5

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb As someone who has been to therapy it was really interesting to read this book. The look into how a therapist works, looking at how they begin to work with new people, helping them figure out how to work with their issues, and what could be causing those issues. I enjoyed seeing the growth in the patients that Lori decided to detail in this book (obviously changing names etc to hide the pertinent information). All in all, it was an insightful read. 4/5

What Virginia’s currently reading:

I know, I’m in a bit of a rut here.

Darkdawn by Jay Kristoff: Still working on this one. I want to read it, I just haven’t been in a reading mood when I’ve had the book on hand.

The Night County by Melissa Albert: This is the sequel to The Hazel Wood. I’m glad I get the chance to revisit this world. So far we’re back in New York while Alice tries to figure out life. A strong start, but unfortunately ran into some trouble with my library books and needed to prioritize those.

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne: I felt like having a light fun read. Lucy and Josh are Exec Admins to CEO’s of a merged company. They’re constantly having arguements etc and kind of detest each other. Which of course means that they’re both secretly in love. I can be in to this trope, but frankly, so much of this isn’t work appropriate. At least not between people who don’t get along. I find myself frustrated by some of the people and some of the situations. So, I’ll let you know how it goes.

Until next time, we main forever drunkenly yours,

Sam, Ginny, Linz, and Minda

Weekly Wrap Up: Dec 9-15, 2019 Hello boozie readers! Reminder:Our Will Read For Booze twitter account (formerly Sam's personal account) is going to be dedicated to the whole blog!

[preserving-ferretbrain]

The Demon's Blah Blah Blah

by Wardog

Wednesday, 01 September 2010

Viorica was right, and Wardog was wrong. Wardog tears into The Demon's Covenant.~

The Demon’s Covenant is the sequel to The Demon’s Lexicon, which I reviewed

here

, and very much enjoyed. I sometimes suspect that being liked is a mixed blessing at Ferretbrain as all it does is prepare for the way for a crushing disappointment, and I was, indeed, disappointed by The Demon’s Covenant. I’m vaguely suspicious that I might have read a different book to the rest of the internet, because every single other review I’ve seen has been full of love and squee, and I won’t deny that The Demon’s Covenant is full of Brennan’s usual charm, but it’s also extremely self-indulgent and does very little beyond set up the third book.

It reminded me most strongly of Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire – not because there’s any real similarity between the texts themselves but because, at the point book IV came out, I was still a stalwart Harry Potter fan and, although I was surprised at the sudden jump in length compared to the third book, I decided to forgive the book its obvious flaws because I was so into the Harry Potter world. Of course by the time the fifth book came out it was clear that no amount of engagement in the text could save the series from what it had become: an undisciplined, unedited mess. The Demon’s Covenant is NOT Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire but compared to the tight plotting and exciting twists of the first book it might as well be.

In essence, nothing happens in The Demon’s Covenant until the final thirty pages. The story opens some time after the end of The Demon’s Lexicon, with Mae trying to get her normal life back, when she discovers Jamie is in contact with the Magicians. Needless to say she calls in Nick and Alan and that’s basically it until the very end of the novel when there’s a big fight between The Goblin Market and the Magicians’ Circles. Yes there’s some politicking, with Jamie being passed about like the magical McGuffin he so clearly is, and Alan does another one of his trademark manipulative switcheroos, but largely there is a lot of “stuff” in the story but not much to make it a coherent narrative.

Part of the problem, I suppose, is the natural move from novelty to familiarity that affects every sequel. There is no sense of discovery here, only further information about the people and places and concepts that were introduced to us in The Demon’s Lexicon, information which largely serves to render these things less interesting, rather than the reverse. Also the “Is Alan going to betray Nick” dance is performed a second time, although less effectively because the answer is self-evidently either “NO NEVER!” or “Probably not in the second book”. And I do recognise it’s meant to be about character not action but as much I like the characters I still felt the amount of time given over to their delineation was excessive, and the degree of detail borderline obsessive.

For example, part of the book consists of extracts from Alan’s father’s journal, charting his son’s attachment to the young demon and his own developing relationship with Nick. It a chilling, and heartbreaking account (“when I drew the blanket back, Alan was sleeping with one arm curled around the monster. In his other hand was an enchanted knife”) and yet also completely unnecessary. It doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know, and it has to be bunged awkwardly into the narrative by having Mae read it aloud to Nick, who cannot read well when he’s emotionally distressed. Since the story is entirely told from Mae’s point of view, she spends a lot of time acting like Harry Potter with his invisibility cloak so she can be in on the right scenes for the sake of the reader. Furthermore, Alan’s father writes like a teenage girl with an LJ and literary pretentions, rather than a grief-stricken ordinary man, beset on all sides by enemies:

My blood ran heavy and cold through my veins, as if terror could turn me to stone, and I tried not to think of what bloody game or dark purpose the demon might intend for my son. That night I went upstairs with an enchanted knife in my hand and stood over the cradle. Drowning hadn’t worked, but this knife had the strongest spells the Goblin Market knew laid on it. The nightlight was on, casting a pattern of cheerful rabbits on the opposite wall. It [that’s the demon not the nightlight] lay sleeping in a pool light, but even sleeping it doesn’t look like a child. Not quite. I stood there sweating, the hilt of the knife turning slick my grasp. Then from the door, I heard Alan say, “Dad?” I turned and saw him looking at me, and the knife, and the demon. My little boy’s face went so pale it seemed translucent. He looked like the tired old ghost of a child long dead.

I know the effectiveness of first person narration depends largely on reader being willing to suspend disbelief, but there was something so self-consciously dramatised about Alan’s father’s journal that it consistently detached me from the story it was telling. I also suspect there’s a difference in a narrative being in the first person from the outset – you know it is not literally a journal any more than an epistolary novel is literally an exchange of letters – and a first person narrative being included in the body of the text as a found item, in which case basic plausibility demands that it sounds at least a little bit like what it’s supposed to be. And I’m honestly not sure what the journal of guy protecting a crazy magician ex-girlfriend and her demon spawn at the cost of his own son’s life and future happiness would sound like (Number of times tried to kill demon today: 7 –v. bad) but as much as I like the line “He looked like the tired old ghost of a child long dead” it just struck me as far too constructed to support the ‘reality’ of the journal as a journal.

Although I’m away I’m whinging here, and I have to say, I didn’t like The Demon’s Covenant, Brennan is a talented writer. She has a lot of wit and style, and I genuinely enjoy the experience of reading her, even if, in this instance, I didn’t actually like the book. Although I’d kind of reached information-overload on the emotional and psychological intricacies of the characters by the midpoint, I do have a degree of fondness for Nick, who is just as hot, ruthless, confused and genuinely entertaining as ever:

She glared at the back of Nick’s head and said, furious and irrational, “You could have danced with him at the club.” “I could have,” Nick said. “There were kids from school there. He gets hassled enough. Anyway, I don’t really dance for pleasure much.” “Uh – so you, uh, dance professionally, or what?” Seb asked. “Yeah,” said Nick. “The ballet is my passion.”

And I think I like Mae. She is strong, and compassionate and smart, and pretty much everything one would want in a female heroine, while still being flawed and human and making mistakes. The tone of the book is much more emotional than The Demon’s Lexicon, as one would expect now the point of view is not rooted in Nick, and perhaps Mae’s natural insight and interest in the people around her is partially responsible for the amount of time spent dwelling on the minutiae of character. But there was also a part of me that couldn’t shake the conviction that big advantage of Mae’s point of view for the author is that it liberates her to spend a lot of time describing hot dudes being manly and self-sacrificing at each other.

“Oh Nick,” he said in a soft, amazing voice. “No.” He limped the few steps towards his brother, then reached out. A shiver ran all the way through Nick, as if he was a spooked animal about to bolt, but he didn’t bolt. Alan’s hand settled on the back of his brother’s neck, and Nick bowed his head a little more and let him do it.

Just shag already!

Although I got through The Demon’s Covenant with my appreciation for Nick and Mae relatively unscathed, the same could not be said for Jamie and Alan. Jamie, at least, has stopped wearing purple and being fabulous, but the quirky charm I found reasonably endearing last book has paled through overuse to the point at which I find him genuinely grating. Again, this is probably completely unfair of me but from the fragments of Brennan’s LJ I have read here and there, his style and general approach to life is so reminiscent of hers that he’s evolving into some kind of gay Mary Sue:

“I can cook better than you,” Nick corrected absently. “I think monkeys can probably be taught to cook better than you.” “I’d like to have a monkey that cooked for me,” said Jamie. “I would pay him in bananas. His name would be Alphonse.”

Also I find his vulnerability when combined with his homosexuality bothersome. I know he’s a powerful magician, but he’s also sweet and forgiving to the extreme, subject to crazy crushes on unsuitable people (I mean he does kick off the books by canoodling with an incubus which naturally gives him a demon mark) and squeamish about violence. Couple this with a tendency to make a fool of himself in public and an inability to hold his drink and you’ve got a character so mind bogglingly pathetic I would be up in arms if she was a girl. Perhaps it is a symptom of my own internalised prejudice that I see these qualities as feminising but it’s less about Jamie being girly than the fact he is very much ‘other’ to the rest of the men in the text. I suppose I should probably just be relieved he’s not Magnus Bane but the implicit association of homosexuality with a ‘different’ set of virtues to those of straight men was not exactly comfortable for me.

And then there’s Alan. Oh dear. He was my favourite character in the first book, because he was unexpected, a supposedly “nice” guy, as cold and ruthless, in his way, as the demon he guards. However, in The Demon’s Covenant, his presentation seems to have moved into a space that is less interestingly ambiguous than completely unfocused. I skimmed a few reviews out there on the Internet at large and the general feeling is largely Squee!Alan. His fucked up, loveless life and his unrequited love for Mae seems to be winning him the pity vote. However, I found him icky, icky, icky and although that’s not a problem per se I couldn’t work to what extent I was meant to find him icky, icky, icky. The love triangle between Mae, Alan and Nick established in the first book is continued, or rather repeated, with little development. Alan is still in lurve with Mae, Mae still fancies the pants off Nick, Nick seems to feel some sort of reciprocal desire for Mae but obviously is supposedly incapable of love … and therefore thinks she should be with Alan, partially because he knows he can’t do the human emotions thing but also because he’d do anything, give up anything, for Alan, and if Alan wants Mae than Nick will probably do whatever it takes to ensure he gets her.

I don’t know if we’re meant to find this creepy and objectifying but it fucking well is, not least because it isn’t presented as a demon treating a human being as a trinket, but because everyone else in the book – including Mae – believe she’d be better off with Alan. And it’s annoying that Mae, who is a smart girl most of the time and managed to navigate the love triangle with some dignity intact last book, ends up in precisely the same mess this book – grinding with Nick while he’s pissed off with Alan until the point Alan interrupts them and Looks Sad. Get a new hobby, Alan, for God’s sake.

Mae also semi-encourages Alan’s attentions, even though she knows she doesn’t feel much of a spark, basically because she pities him. I know I am not the target market for The Demon’s Covenant but regardless of age and experience: pity is not the foundation of a healthy relationship. Just (wo)man up and tell him you don’t fancy him. Of course, midway through the pity fest, Alan lets rip with this little speech:

"After my dad died, I looked everywhere for someone to love me. I used to sit on the bus and watch people, see if they looked kind, try to make them smile at me. I had a hundred dreams about a hundred different people, loving me." Alan's voice was low, but he didn't falter. He reached out and touched her hair, very gently, pushing it behind her ear, "Of all the girls I ever saw," he said, "I dreamed of you the most.

Again, I know I’m not the target market here, so perhaps I’m more inclined to find things creepy that a teenage audience might find gloriously tragic and romantic but, seriously, if a man ever said that to me I’d run away screaming. Yes, right then, right there, because he clearly has a raging case of

Nice Guy Syndrome

. And guys who guild trip you into going out with them are so dreamy. Not. I’d take the demon anyday, he’s significantly less emotionally maladjusted.

And, this, I suppose was largely my problem with The Demon’s Covenant. I read lots of books for which I am not the market audience – I even enjoyed Twilight until I realised it had no sense of self-irony at all – but the more I read of The Demon’s Covenant, the more I felt the gap. I honestly just don’t get it, and I wonder if there’s just a fundamental disconnect between myself, the author and the world as envisioned by the author. One of the big themes of both books has been self-sacrifice – the brothers, and to a lesser extent Jamie and Mae, are always tumbling over each other to get themselves roundly shafted in the name of protecting the other person. I’m not saying that self-sacrifice is not a powerful device and all that, but it tends to work as a climax, or at the very least as a one-off. When people are constantly sacrificing themselves for each other, it soon loses its impact. I might be pulling justifications out of my arse here, but I also suspect is a trope that gets more play in fandom. Over-used, however, it rapidly degenerates into little more than emotional pornography.

And there’s an uncomfortable moral dimension to it: self-sacrifice, by its very nature, is an act performed in spite of, as much as because of, another person. Needless to say, because of this it tends to be largely non-consensual, which has the weird side-effect of infantalising and disempowering the sacrificee in a deeply unpleasant way. Ultimately every self-sacrifice involves a run-up of double-dealing and deceit, so that the act itself is a massive massive betrayal of trust – trust, that is somehow miraculously restored through the act of self-sacrifice.

To put it another way, mean, Sydney Carton’s sacrifice has nothing to do with Darnay – he does it for Lucie, because he loves her, and because she loves Darnay, and partially because Carton realises he’s wasted his life completely and therefore has little to give to the world, except his sacrifice for a better man. In the world of The Demon’s Covenant, Carton would love Darnay, and therefore trick Lucie into helping him look like he’s betrayed Darnay to allow him to sacrifice himself for Darnay instead.

Self-sacrifice becomes a closed system, in which the keyword seems to be “self” – it’s less about the person you save, than the personal act of saving, catching all the characters in a perpetual game of “I love you more”. Sacrificing yourself for the person you love is ultimately a pretty selfish act – essentially all you’re saying is that if someone has to live on miserably you’d rather it was then. Sacrificing yourself for the happiness of the person you love as Carton does actually has meaning. And, yes, I know, I know, Alan sacrifices himself for someone who isn’t Nick, but it’s basically sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice, and thus as irritating as hell. Of course it doesn’t help that it’s only the second book so most attempted self-sacrifices get derailed, so it seems we’re meant to be enjoying the exquisite anguish without having to actually, y’know, be upset or lose a character.

I guess I’ve been pretty harsh on The Demon’s Covenant. Although I found individual things to like about it, for example the strength of the characterisation, Mae and Nick, witty, lively writing, I can’t really say I enjoyed it. I’m willing to chalk up, largely, to me rather than the book since it seems to be generating rave reviews across the internet. I think maybe I’m just too old and grumpy.Themes:

Books

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

,

Emocakes

~

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~Comments (

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Arthur B

at 13:52 on 2010-09-01I know this is absolutely nothing to do with the review, but what the hell is up with the cover?

I mean, seriously. If you ditched the title the cover only conveys four things:

- It takes place in London.

- There is a martial arts smackdown at some point.

- The weather is bad.

- Someone's been dying their hair.

None of which implies a fantasy novel, none of which implies demons, one of which implies pretty much anything I recognise from the review.

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Dan H

at 13:56 on 2010-09-01To be fair, I don't think the cover of a book with demons in it has to have a demon on the front.

Also, the word "Demon" in the title might be considered a clue.

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Arthur B

at 14:01 on 2010-09-01I dunno, "Enter the Dragon" didn't actually have any dragons in it. I think the chances of the book being mistaken for some sort of edgy modern day almost-cyberpunk martial arts thing aren't bad.

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Dan H

at 14:55 on 2010-09-01I really, really think you're reaching here.

Urban fantasy hardly *ever* has anything explicitly supernatural on the cover. You might as well complain that because /The God of Small Things/ has a flower on the cover, people might mistake it for a book about botany.

I'd also point out that this is another argument in favour of the Dark Fantasy section. Otherwise people might accidentally pick up Urban Fantasy books expecting ... umm ... cyberpunk martial arts novels.

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Arthur B

at 15:11 on 2010-09-01Actually I'm taking the piss. :P

Though that flower on GoST is floating down the river which is the allegorical spine of the book.

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http://mary-j-59.livejournal.com/

at 15:50 on 2010-09-01I kind of disagree about Nick's father's diary. It gave me more insight into Alan, and I found the man's progression from extreme hatred into love and protectiveness for Nick rather moving. I also ended up admiring Jamie, who seems braver (morally, I mean) and clearer-eyed than anyone else in the book. He may be a hopeless idealist, but I'm hoping he succeeds in finding a way to use magic for good, not evil. And I'm hoping Seb may be redeemable, in spite of his cowardice. Oh, and Annabelle rocked.

Back to Alan. I think he is creepy, and meant to be creepy, and the insight we get into his childhood explains why. I actually asked Sarah Reese Brennan about this, telling her that I found the prospect of Alan in a relationship scarier even than Nick in the same situation, because Alan is manipulative and profoundly damaged. She said I was right.

My two cents, as always. BTW, did you read "Fire"? I keep asking that!

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Wardog

at 16:32 on 2010-09-01I liked the arc, and I thought it was *interesting* - but I don't think it showed you anything you hadn't already seen, and in a book I personally found bloated with detail, it was simply one step too far. I might have liked it better had the book been generally tighter. Also the style bugegd me, as you know :)

I liked Annabelle, but I found the sudden intrusion of an adult presence a bit disconcerting, especially because of the role she plays. I think the problem with YA is that since they often function on an allegorical as well as literal level, adults strain, and sometimes break, that allegory.

I'm slightly comforted by the fact Alan was intended to come across as horrendously creepy - only slightly comforted, mind you, because that means most of the internet is REALLY SCARING ME now.

Your two cents are always welcome! I read Fire, and I loved it, I must review it :)

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http://mary-j-59.livejournal.com/

at 17:37 on 2010-09-01What you say about adults in YA is interesting. I hadn't quite thought of it that way, and it makes me wonder what people will make of the adults in my story, when/if I get it published. Glad you loved "Fire"! I think she is awesome, and I have to review that one myself.

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Sister Magpie

at 18:43 on 2010-09-01I, too, assumed that Alan was supposed to come across as unhealthy and damaged--and not really in love with Mae, tbh. I thought his late conversation with Mae was supposed to imply that, where she basically realizes that he's just manipulated her this whole time (and not even manipulated her through seduction but through pity) and seems surprised that he doesn't realized just how screwed up it is. I think she says something about how he made it impossible that he would be loved so he wasn't throwing anything away by betraying her. Like for him there was only manipulating her pity for him as someone disabled and loving her unrequitedly. Which was why his relationship with Sin seemed to have the most potential. Her repulsion to his limp made him want his good leg back.

One thing I wonder given your thoughts on Jamie--what did you think of Seb? Did he undercut the bad impressions about Jamie by passing for straight in Mae's eyes for so long?

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Wardog

at 21:16 on 2010-09-01It's possible I haven't quite appreciated the complexity of Alan - or given Brennan enough credit. But I don't think the portrayal is quite clear enough, one way or the other, and that goes beyond interesting ambiguity into slightly over-ambitious or perhaps unfocused characterisation. I mean, like I say, I think there's enough scope to read Alan as endearingly broken (he just needs someone to wuv him), and it seems a lot of people have. Again, I'm probably lying issues of interpretation at Brennan's feet unfairly

And I also read his love for Mae as sincere, although it's still something he's willing to give up or use to further his own ends, which, again I think is more interesting and complicated than straight forward exploitation.

The general feeling of other characters seems to be that Alan is a good guy but, again, perhaps that's just meant to reveal how good he is at concealing what a manipulative wreck he is. I guess I'll see how the third book plays out - and, yes, I will probably read it. Because having started I'll damn well finish.

I guess I would be interested in all these layers if there hadn't been so much to wade through.

I slightly preferred Seb, but then again, he's just another stereotype: The One Who Is Mean To The Out There Gay Because He Is Secretly Gay Himself, Zomg!

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Sister Magpie

at 21:30 on 2010-09-02

And I also read his love for Mae as sincere, although it's still something he's willing to give up or use to further his own ends, which, again I think is more interesting and complicated than straight forward exploitation.

True. The reason I didn't consider him to be in love with Mae was really more that it seemed like the series in general, as stated by Mae, was sort of rejecting the idea that teenagers considering dating each other could be true love. Like at one point Mae said something about how nobody's going to "lose her" or whatever if they don't go out with her, they'll just date someone else. So it was kind of making a point of saying that romance at this point was not going to be the main driving force because nobody felt that deeply about anybody (perhaps only yet).

So the way I read the thing with Alan was that yes, he actually did have a crush on her. But once he decided to sacrifice that for Nick (like the self-sacrifice addict) that was what shaped his behavior. Like, if Alan was really hoping to date Mae he wouldn't be making speeches about dreaming about her the most because he's giving up anything like a healthy relationship chance in favor of guilting her and inspiring pity. But I could be totally wrong there. It's quite possible that that speech was Alan's true feelings coming out as a sort of tragic declaration out of hopelessness. As opposed to more of a perverse/bitter put down of himself as an object of pity that he's making work for him.

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http://katsullivan.insanejournal.com/

at 11:18 on 2010-09-07While I agree that Ryves Snr's diary did not read like the journal of a grown man, it's easily explained if you realize that Ryves had been a prose writer or poet before he became a demon huntert.

Again, this is probably completely unfair of me but from the fragments of Brennan’s LJ I have read here and there, his style and general approach to life is so reminiscent of hers that he’s evolving into some kind of gay Mary Sue

I definitely agree that Jamie comes across as authorial self-insert. Whether Brennan did this deliberately or this was subconscious is arguable. I don't think that automatically makes him a Mary Sue.

It's interesting that you found Book 2 so padded because I found it lacking in details about the mythology of the world. I still don't understand how Jamie's power is so dissociated from his free will that a Circle will go as far as to kidnap him to have it?

The reason I didn't consider him to be in love with Mae was really more that it seemed like the series in general, as stated by Mae, was sort of rejecting the idea that teenagers considering dating each other could be true love.

Interesting you should observe that, Magpie because that was definitely the impression I had got all through out the books and I found Mae's discovery that she is in love with Nick at the end of DC extremely profound because the distinction made it clear that it was no casual teenage-type of love that she was professing.

My one grouse with the characters is the lack of demographic diversity. All the main characters are White and this includes the protagonists and antagonists. Sarah Rees Brennan has written a lot of powerful articles about female represenation in stories but the fact is that a quarter of her main cast is female. And this person is also the most magically disempowered one. Her gay presentation, as you noted, is also problematic: Jamie and Seb.

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http://katsullivan.insanejournal.com/

at 11:20 on 2010-09-07I also found the death of Annabelle extremely problematic for the same reason. She reminds me of Spock's mother in the 2009 movie: she appears in the story just long enough for her to have a Meaningful Death for the benefit of her children's own story.

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Sister Magpie

at 21:19 on 2010-09-07

the main characters are White and this includes the protagonists and antagonists.

Except for Sin. Also I would quibble that while Mae is the one non-magical person, she's not exactly disempowered as she's being considered for what seems like a very important job in the magical world.

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http://katsullivan.insanejournal.com/

at 10:12 on 2010-09-08Have fun!

Except for Sin.

*face-palm* Why is it that when the race-fail or gender-fail in a story/TV show/movie is pointed out, the first response you get is almost always: “It can’t be racist if there is one Black/Asian/non-White supporting character in a sea of major White players.”? How does it help the conversation about racism and under-representation in fiction and fictional work (and the way that under-representation spills into real life) if every time the topic is raised, tokenism is used as a defence?

Sin is racially ambiguous – her little sister is described as blonde in the first book. She is also a peripheral player until hopefully the third book which is written from her PoV. (This may still not make her a major player, just the narrator.) Apart from all these things, Sin is still one character amongst White characters like: Mae, Nick, Alan and Jamie, Gerald, Black Arthur, Olivia, Sebastian, the female leader of the other Magician’s Circle (whose name I can’t recall), and Merris Cromwell.

Also I would quibble that while Mae is the one non-magical person, she's not exactly disempowered as she's being considered for what seems like a very important job in the magical world.

A job that can go to either Mae or Sin. So that’s two women fighting for a position of power (or a White woman making a power play for a Black woman's own position of power), which is far better than two women fighting for a man, but still two women fighting for one point of significance! As opposed to the men who get to be fought over for being uniquely powerful snowflakes.

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Dan H

at 13:38 on 2010-09-08

How does it help the conversation about racism and under-representation in fiction and fictional work (and the way that under-representation spills into real life) if every time the topic is raised, tokenism is used as a defence?

To be fair, I don't think Sister Magpie was trying to present a defence so much as a clarification. I could be wrong but I didn't read her comment as dismissing your concerns, just highlighting that rather containing exactly zero non-white characters, the book in fact contains exactly one.

I'd also agree (although I haven't actually read the book) that "least magically powerful" is not necessarily the same as "disempowered".

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Sister Magpie

at 15:22 on 2010-09-08

Why is it that when the race-fail or gender-fail in a story/TV show/movie is pointed out, the first response you get is almost always: “It can’t be racist if there is one Black/Asian/non-White supporting character in a sea of major White players.”?

Dan is right, I didn't say anything about how it couldn't be racist because there was one non-white supporting character. I just corrected the statement that there wasn't one single main character who wasn't white, and who I considered at least as important as the villains. She's not racially ambiguous, I believe she says flat out what her background is and it's biracial. I thought it was just giving a neutral fact.

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Leia

at 09:52 on 2010-09-09I think what Kat is saying and I agree is that nitpicking about supporting character Sin's race just derails the discussion about race and gender representation. And, for the record, I didn't know Sin was biracial until I read the comments.

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Arthur B

at 10:27 on 2010-09-09I think it depends on how the nitpicking's done. Pointing out Sin's race but emphasising that this doesn't really change the situation because Sin is arguably only there for reasons of tokenism is different from pointing out Sin's race and dismissing the argument entirely.

Ultimately, it doesn't help to let factual inaccuracies stand unquestioned because people have this tendency to say "Well, this one thing you said isn't actually correct, so I'm going to dismiss your entire argument". If the nitpicking is done with a view to strengthening and supporting the general point that's a bit different to nitpicking done to rip the argument apart.

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Sister Magpie

at 15:01 on 2010-09-09

I think what Kat is saying and I agree is that nitpicking about supporting character Sin's race just derails the discussion about race and gender representation. And, for the record, I didn't know Sin was biracial until I read the comments.

And I just didn't see how it could be derailing a discussion to correct something that I figured was an oversight. It didn't even seem like nitpicking to me.

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Dan H

at 15:13 on 2010-09-09I think the thing is that "correcting errors" is often used as a derailing tactic - while I don't think that was your intent in this case, people do tend to fixate on minor factual-level quibbles in this sort of discussion which isn't *necessarily* helpful.

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Sister Magpie

at 15:24 on 2010-09-09

I think the thing is that "correcting errors" is often used as a derailing tactic - while I don't think that was your intent in this case, people do tend to fixate on minor factual-level quibbles in this sort of discussion which isn't *necessarily* helpful.

True. Though in this case it seemed like the opposite to me, that you don't want to make it sound like it's important that there are absolutely no non-white characters anywhere when there is one. That just leaves you open to actual derailing in the future or accusations that you just erased the one non-white character.

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Arthur B

at 15:40 on 2010-09-09I think it's like I said earlier - it really depends on whether you are correcting the mistake in order to derail the argument, or correcting the mistake in order to tighten up the argument against precisely that sort of derailing attempt. And the thing is, people do the former

far

more than they do the latter, so even though I think Kat jumped to conclusions in interpreting your original comment I think it's a completely understandable jump.

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Leia

at 15:41 on 2010-09-09Maybe that wasn't the intention but the fact is that so far, all the discussion has been about a supporting character's ambiguos biracialness and there has been NO discussion about SRB's choice to make

all

the four main characters and

all

the principal villains white. Kat's point about Mae's mother's fridging has also been completely unaddressed. Whatever Sister Magpie's intention was, bringing up Sin's

ambiguosly presented

race has shifted the discussion from this.

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Arthur B

at 16:07 on 2010-09-09To be fair I think the discussion very swiftly shifted from Sin's race to the subject of derailing itself as it relates to this conversation, and the fact that this particular point doesn't actually change Kat's point.

In fact, I think more or less everyone has declared that they actually agree with Kat's point. Which, er, leaves us with nothing to discuss.

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Sister Magpie

at 16:15 on 2010-09-09

Maybe that wasn't the intention but the fact is that so far, all the discussion has been about a supporting character's ambiguos biracialness and there has been NO discussion about SRB's choice to make all the four main characters and all the principal villains white. Kat's point about Mae's mother's fridging has also been completely unaddressed. Whatever Sister Magpie's intention was, bringing up Sin's ambiguosly presented race has shifted the discussion from this.

Yes, they are all white. But it still seems a bit sneaky to complain about everyone discussing Sin's race (which hasn't really been what people are talking about) while making an argument twice, once in bold-faced, about Sin's race with the implication that this will be the last word on the subject.

Sin refers to herself as a dark-skinned girl, Mae has a moment of awkwardness about not wanting to say something racist in response, and then Sin says that her mother was Welsh and her father's family was from the Carribean originally. I do not think this absolves the book of any and all accusations of race, sexuality or gender fail. But it didn't read as ambiguous to me.

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Sister Magpie

at 16:18 on 2010-09-09p.s. Looking back on my original comment I can see how just saying "Except Sin" could read as a gotcha, like I was saying, "Um, except SIN! Who totally pwns your argument!" That was one of those times where how something sounds in your head doesn't come across on the page. In my head it was meant to be more, "Right, except Sin everyone is white."

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http://mary-j-59.livejournal.com/

at 03:16 on 2010-09-11It was absolutely clear to me that Sin is a girl of color. Because this is set in England, it didn't especially bother me that all the other main characters are white. After all, one of the chief main characters isn't even human! But I did find Annabelle's death problematic, and can't quite put my finger on why. What I said to Sarah Rees Brennan in a recent q and a session was that she runs off with her fencing foils to help in the fight, and we are never shown that the buttons are removed. Everyone else has sharps. Sarah Rees Brennan responded that the buttons had indeed been removed, but she didn't feel it necessary to show it. So - really, I guess my problem is that Annabelle was a pretty awesome character, but she existed (as a powerful and capable woman) primarily to die. And that does bug me a bit.

OTOH, the scene between Nick and Mae in the aftermath was really, really well-done.

My two cents! (again.)

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Leia

at 05:45 on 2010-09-11

Because this is set in England, it didn't especially bother me that all the other main characters are white.

*sighs* Which is why it's never *just* a story for people who don't have the privilege to assume their race is default. If your impression of England's demography is based on SRB's fantasy monochromatic England, it's not surprising you can make a statement like that.

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Arthur B

at 16:32 on 2010-09-11And in London, for that matter! Notable statistics are

here

. Note that this actually implies that London is more racially diverse than parts of the US.

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Dan H

at 17:36 on 2010-09-11

If your impression of England's demography is based on SRB's fantasy monochromatic England, it's not surprising you can make a statement like that.

Yeah, I was a bit confused by that as well.

I think this is one of the subtler and more pernicious forms of stereotyping, it's very easy to get into the habit of seeing ethnic diversity as something which only exists in America in the twentieth century - certainly I suspect that a lot of the reason most fantasy settings are so full of white people is that most people really believe that there *were* no dark-skinned people in Europe in the middle ages.

It's rather peculiar to see somebody applying the same logic to the country I live in - it's one of those things that encourages one to examine one's preconceptions.

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Wardog

at 18:00 on 2010-09-11I'm pretty sure there are black people in England ...

Also I'm pretty sure nobody was trying to derail or racefail here.

To be honest, I find Sin genuinely problematic as a character; she does, in fact, seem there largely to fill the "except Sin" role, and I find her sexualised exoticism a bit, err, dodgy when she is the ONLY non-white character in the book. I mean I know we all like the idea of hot black women dancing around but ... y'know ... it's especially problematic, I think, because the gypsy/other feel to the Goblin Market.

Also the whole "hey, the person I have raised to take over this might be rubbish at it so let's call in the inherently talented white girl" plot is a bit icky.

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http://cammalot.livejournal.com/

at 18:43 on 2010-09-11Aw, I wasn’t quick enough. I’m a chronic lurker here, but I was going to come out of hiding to point out that England is an *incredibly* diverse society! (I have spent far less time in Wales or Scotland and so don’t feel comfortable generalizing, but I do know there are people of color in those areas as well.) Just taking into account people from the Anglosphere/Commonwealth who emigrate or are educated there takes in huge swathes of Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and so on, not to mention the generations of non-Anglo-Saxons who are born there, or people not from the Commonwealth/English-speaking nations.

I would not necessarily attribute not knowing that to Mary’s (alleged?) race, though. There are plenty of non-white people who think that the UK is wall-to-wall whiteness. I’ve found myself unable to persuade one or two of my own relatives to visit it, due to that belief and the complex attitudes and nervousness bound up in it. Possibly this comes from them not being exposed present-day UK media or whatever, I don’t know.

For the record, I am very lukewarm about both books in the “Demon’s” series. I am going to take a bit of a departure from consensus here, though. And I’m going to be a be anti-Barthian and resurrect The Author, at least for the duration of this post: I agree with Kat’s points in terms of literature as a general body, but I’m not sure I agree with them as regards this particular book, on the subject of race. Aside: I’m glad someone above clarified above that Annabelle being “fridged” was not just a matter of killing off a female character, but that the character existed, basically, *only* to die. I’m on board with that point.

In terms of race (and I speak *only* for my individual self — I’m a black, U.S. woman, and speaking with, I guess, middle-class and Western privilege) I’ve found that I much prefer to *not* see people like me in the books of authors who might not be able to pull it off properly. I’m not keen on the idea of reading practice-run depictions of people like me in the works of authors who are just learning how. It’s upsetting, not entertaining, and it’s gotten more upsetting as I get older and more exposed to subtler types of fail. If I’m going to be misrepresented, I would rather not be included at all, thanks, and I would devote my energies to getting more diverse authors out there and telling their own stories instead.

Therefore if a white Irish/British girl (I believe she has Welsh family? Not sure) wants to write about a bunch of white Irish/British people, I am not going to have a problem with this. This is absolutely NOT to say that everyone should be restricted to writing only about people exactly like themselves — they should not, that would be horrible, and boring, and would diminish the quality of literature in general. But if something is going to be done, it needs to be done excellently, for my satisfaction. It should not be done to check off a list, and believe me, I can tell. And to be blunt, there are more than enough diverse depictions of white people in existence that one or two newbie authors’ screwups will not affect how they are perceived and treated in the real world very much. A white (read male, straight, cis, et cetera also in here, as applicable) character gets to be much more of a blank slate, un-prejudged. Screwing up a character of color feeds into far larger and more pervasive existing stereotyping, prejudice, and bad press. And, to narrow it way down, it affects how people respond to me, for real, in the actual world.

Now, I like Brennan’s blog, and the voice that she uses in it. I have also read and enjoyed her Harry Potter fanfiction. However, there were several things in her fanfiction that pinged me, as a black person, in an unpleasant way. One thing that struck me particularly was a definite sense of Hermione’s hair (large, bushy, frizzy, curly, et cetera — hey, kinda like mine come to think of it, and I know of readers of Rowling’s original work who thought that canon Hermione was actually intended to be biracial due to descriptions of her hair) being unattractive and somewhat mockable, and looking better when controlled with potions or other means of straightening. This in contrast to Draco’s (blond, fine, very pale, described as “the impossible color of childhood” in very romantic passages), mentioned in nearly every description of the character, and even treated as his one beauty when characters have called him less than handsome (Veelas think he is one of them, but wonder if he has had a disfiguring facial accident).

There were also characters she wrote about quite often that I did not know were black characters until I found myself sucked in by a Wiki one day and saw the pictures of the actors portraying them...because...I am more familiar with her fanfiction than I am with the actual Harry Potter-verse. (Yeah, it’s weird, I know, I know. I’m not a fan of those books). There were mentions of Blaise Zabini being black and attractive, but the one time I can recall that involved any detailed description of the character cited his “sleek black hair falling over his face” or similar. Now believe me, I’m well aware there are many people identifying as black with a wide variety of non-chemically induced hair textures; it would be very hard for me to have missed this. But “sleek” and “smooth” remain the only hair textures that get mentioned as attractive: I believe she referred to Ginny’s hair as both pretty and curly, but I was still bothered by the overall emphasis on sleek textures, even on a black character, while the one character’s hair that I empathized with was made fun of.

I don’t exactly hold this against the author. Fanfiction is, to me, a learning workshop, and for at least some of this time period she was a teenager. And much of the more flowery prose, I think, attributable to the fact Draco was the general fetish object of most fanficcers writing at that time; his particular characteristics would therefore be the ones that got lauded and raised above other people’s. And Brennan gets points for outright calling him point-blank unattractive to the viewpoint character(s) in a few stories. Variety!

The thing is, when you put something in writing it doesn’t go away. Even though all official sources of Brennan’s fanfic have been removed from the Internet, it’s still possible to find these examples with a perfunctory Google. How much more indelible would it be if a problematic depiction found their way into a mainstream-published work?

And I certainly don’t see how including a non-white villain would improve this.

I do not know the reasons Brennan neglected to include more non-white characters — it is entirely possible that she could write some quite well at this stage, without including the things that irked me in her fanfiction. I’d like that. I don’t know if she consciously felt she couldn’t, or if it did not occur to her, or if she just plans to do more of it later. But I would rather wait for her to do it at a point in her writing life when she can do it excellently, and I can read it un-irked. I guess I’ll wait and see how she describes Sin’s hair.

And now I’m going to contradict myself — with the books set in London, it’s WEIRD not to see more diverse ethnicities running about even in the background. Lots of times people tend to hang out with people of their own group, and that could explain the main cast, sort of. But there is a distinct lack of background color in this book, and not just in terms of people — I did not get much sense of place in any aspect. Not seeing a variety of people just *being there* is a mischaracterization, I think.

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http://cammalot.livejournal.com/

at 19:48 on 2010-09-11

Not seeing a variety of people just *being there* is a mischaracterization, I think.

That should read "not EVEN seeing a variety of people just being there..." or "Not seeing a variety of people EVEN just being there"... etc. The way it reads above seems like I'm saying people of color *should* be relegated to just "being there," when in fact I'm trying to say that "being there" is a bare minimum, especially for a city like London.

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Shim

at 13:08 on 2010-09-12@Cammalot:

I suppose one difficulty with having a varied background cast is that it's quite difficult to do subtly, because unless you highlight people's appearance (or names, but that can get a bit stereotypey) readers will probably still assume they're white. In fact, it may be especially difficult with lower-tier characters (identifiable individuals who aren't significant characters, your "Angry Commuter" and "Girl in Café" types) because they probably wouldn't merit much description in the normal run of things, and if you start highlighting their ethnicity it might seem rather heavy-handed. For crowd scenes and the like you can at least imply variety.

I'm not saying that's a get-out, mind.

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http://katsullivan.insanejournal.com/

at 11:58 on 2010-09-13@cammalot: I remember reading Hermione as a Black girl, too. For all her faults, Rowling did

start

at least by making Hogwarts casually multi-racial: the Parvati twins, Lee Johnson, Dean Thomas, Cho Chang... Of course in the end, the people that really counted were White. Maybe the silky-haired Blaise thing in SRB’s fanfiction was a call-back from the time the whole of fandom thought he was an Italian girl?

@Kyra Smith:

To be honest, I find Sin genuinely problematic as a character; she does, in fact, seem there largely to fill the "except Sin" role, and I find her sexualised exoticism a bit, err, dodgy when she is the ONLY non-white character in the book. Also the whole "hey, the person I have raised to take over this might be rubbish at it so let's call in the inherently talented white girl" plot is a bit icky.

THIS. Perhaps if Sin wasn’t the ONLY non-white character. But as it is, it’s so many kinds of problematic. And maybe it’s too simplistic a solution, but rather than insert the token non-White character with all the common prejudices (comic relief Asian best friend, exotic biracial dancer), how about making one of the ‘default’ characters non-White? What’s wrong with Mae and Jamie being siblings with Indian ancestry? Or Dan Ryves and Black Arthur being, pun not intended, Black?

@SisterMagpie:

p.s. Looking back on my original comment I can see how just saying "Except Sin" could read as a gotcha, like I was saying, "Um, except SIN! Who totally pwns your argument!"

Yeah, that was the vibe I got.

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http://mary-j-59.livejournal.com/

at 15:56 on 2010-09-13Um - sorry. I have lived in England, and am aware that it is racially and culturally diverse - and also that it's probably far more so now than when I lived there as a child, thirty years ago. I didn't mean that the way it sounded. What I meant was: is it always automatically racist if a white person writes about her own culture? If so, why?

That said, I think can seem more racist to have a token person of color than to have no person of color at all. And Sin does seem to be the token person of color. But -

1. Sin is going to narrate/be the viewpoint character for the third book. Before making judgements about her as a character, I'd like to see how Sarah Rees Brennan pulls this off. I, for one, liked Mae a lot better in "Covenant" than I had in "Lexicon".

2. And I repeat that Alan is creepy, and is meant to be creepy. So I do think, Kyra, that you're not giving Sarah Rees Brennan enough credit. But we can't tell for sure until we have the last book in hand. Heaven knows I gave JKR far too much credit! But everything I've heard from SRB reassures me that I'm not making the same mistake twice.

Which is not to say they are great, great books. They aren't on the level of Michelle Paver or Catherine Fisher or Kristin Cashore. But they are smart and fun and seem to me (so far, at least) to have a pretty solid moral core. I may be wrong, but I am willing to wait and see.

That said, the big problem I had with "Covenant" was Annabelle. I've got dead mother figures in my story, too, but there is a difference between a character's dying during a story and a character's existing solely to die. Annabelle exists solely to die, after having been a nonentity in the first book and a large part of the second, and that does bother me.

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Arthur B

at 16:26 on 2010-09-13

What I meant was: is it always automatically racist if a white person writes about her own culture? If so, why?

The thing is, the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention when folk start talking about white people's culture, because they're usually referring to one of two things:

1: The mainstream culture of the UK, or the US, or some other country which is thought of as a "white" country. The problem here is that, whilst the mainstream culture of white-majority places is obviously going to be largely influenced by the majority (that being why it's mainstream), you can't simplify that to "mainstream culture = white culture" - if you do that, you're saying people who aren't white basically can't be part of mainstream culture, which by definition is marginalising.

2: An exclusive culture which belongs solely to white people and which folk who aren't white can't participate in or understand. The thing is, when people get enthused about celebrating that sort of thing, it's usually because they're Nazis of some persuasion or another.

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http://cammalot.livejournal.com/

at 23:37 on 2010-09-13

Maybe the silky-haired Blaise thing in SRB’s fanfiction was a call-back from the time the whole of fandom thought he was an Italian girl?

It’s possible. It didn’t seem to be a spoofy usage to me, though, and it was written well after Zabini’s identity was clarified. (SRB had a clever, funnier throwaway sequence in an earlier-written piece, about Zabini changing genders with the full moon.) And again, these were all relatively tiny things taken in isolation. They just had a cumulative effect on me. And her work is still, overall, a pretty freaking stellar example of Harry Potter fic.

I do wonder, and I ask this with no belligerence whatsoever, but genuine curiosity — would Lexicon and Convenant have worked better if SRB had simply not included a “token” person of color and a “token” gay person? (I’m using the quotes because the tokenism might be disproved in the third book.) If Sin and Jamie weren’t in there, would we have noticed an absence? (Hmm. I guess we would have, since there would have been even fewer female characters.)

What I meant was: is it always automatically racist if a white person writes about her own culture? If so, why?

I have a lot of contradictory feelings on this subject, all of which are extremely subjective and reflect FAR more of “what I would personally rather read” than “what should be done in society.”

1. If a white person has to be told to include non-white characters, their heart probably wasn’t in it to begin with, and they likely won’t do the best job. So they are better off writing white characters, and that in and of itself will not offend me. (Especially if the group of characters is small — e.g. involving a family or similar.) They need to write what they are enthusiastic about rather than checking off points on a list.

2. It will annoy me no end if the sort of writer above then goes on to write non-white characters half-heartedly (or with stereotypes and cliches) while a minority writer writing on the same topics nowadays will either get paid and publicized less, get marginalized on the store bookshelves, or be instructed by powers that be to shoehorn in white characters in order to be saleable.

3. A white writer who wants to write minority characters should be encouraged to do so. (I didn’t always feel this way, but I do now, strongly.) But I really want to see it done well, and such a writer has to assume the risk that they might not do it well and might be criticized -- and will definitely be more scrutinized as an outsider than a person writing from within the race/culture in question -- and must, well, regard that risk as an invigorating challenge, I guess. That whole “fail better” thing.

An exclusive culture which belongs solely to white people and which folk who aren't white can't participate in or understand. The thing is, when people get enthused about celebrating that sort of thing, it's usually because they're Nazis of some persuasion or another.

Yes. It also posits that white people have one big homogenous culture. (Or that anybody has managed to agree on what “white people” means in the first place.) There’s a difference between writing about “white people [within a larger, diverse culture],” writing about “*a* white culture,” and writing about “white culture” (which, come to think of it, could theoretically be done without white characters, like in postcolonial lit).

But no, I don't think it's automatically racist. I don't think it's a question of anyone being a big old bigot at all, what I'm seeing in this thread isn't an accusation of oooh-you-terrible-racist at anyone, but of leaving out things and people that are there and exist in the world that's being described. There are people in our society who need to see themselves included and represented more. (I'm just wondering how best -- and who is best -- to get that done.)

@ Shimmin: This is very true. I think it was Tobias Buckell recently writing about how if you say things like "bronze skin" people (well, Westerners of all shades) tend to assume you're talking about white skin that has been tanned. Maybe it's better at this point to go bigger with it, especially for minor characters? It's unwieldy to say "The East Asian girl at the corner table," but it might just be what needs to be done. (It bugs me to admit that, too, because I have in the past been very annoyed by descriptions that go "The Asian girl" and think they have actually finished giving an adequate visual.)

I thought China Mieville did a wonderful job using quite obvious names to denote ethnicity in "Un Lun Dun," for example -- and he let the South Asian girl be the heroine to boot. On the other hand, I've found myself, at my age, actually squeeing joyfully at a couple books when I realized the protagonist(s) I'd already made assumptions about were supposed to be dark-skinned. Neil Gaimian managed it in "Anansi Boys," and I think Holly Black pulled it off once by mentioning the color of a character's scars. I felt like I had unlocked a really cool puzzle. :-) And I loved how, in that subtle way, the dark skin was not presented as some sort of deviation from a norm. So I think it's a question of skill, not necessarily method.

All that said, the big problem *I* had with the "Demon's" series was the system of magic felt a bit scattered; I don’t really feel a sense of place; and for a preternaturally emotionless guy, Nick seems to be emoting left and right. (Which for me raises an interesting question — how clueless can you honestly be about human emotions and still manage to always be bitingly quippy? Can you *be * humorous, on purpose, if you don’t have emotions?)

I am tired of bad boys. I was never that fond of them to begin with. I loved Jamie’s saying out loud that whoever he fell in love with would be very nice to him all the time and try to make him happy.

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http://cammalot.livejournal.com/

at 23:37 on 2010-09-13meep! I got very wordy there...

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http://mary-j-59.livejournal.com/

at 02:03 on 2010-09-14I'm glad you did! Basically, I agree with everything you said, except that I haven't (yet) had any major problems with the series - except for the gratuitous offing of Annabelle. And I'd been feeling a bit under attack, though I brought it on myself, I suppose, by writing in haste and when tired.

I do agree with you about Nick, but I think the so-called lack of emotion isn't really such; Nick has lots of emotions. It's just that they are mostly what we would call negative - rage, frustration, etc. But he is capable of what we (or more accurately, I) would call positive emotions, as well. It's going to be interesting to see what happens to him in the final book. At the moment, I'm shipping Nick and Mae, but expecting dead Nick. We'll see.

As far as the system of magic goes, have you read the Bartimaeus Trilogy? It's brilliant, and it almost seems Brennan must have borrowed from it - except that I think she hasn't read those books.

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http://3stan1990.blogspot.com/

at 06:21 on 2010-09-14

Sorry if this is derailing, but katsullivan and cammalot's comments suggests this is the right kind of place to ask these kind of questions. Also, it'll be kind of rambling and will involve a lot of talking about me.

A bit of context: I'm a white, cis, middle class dude from a small Australian town where casual racism, sexism and homophobia was the norm, with a strong white English heritage (my grandparents are Welsh and English and moved here in the seventies). I've been trying to challenge my views and perceptions on race and gender in order to become a better, wiser person.

I'm also an aspiring writer, and I've been trying to work the kinds of things I've learned into my writing. The thing is, I'm not sure if the attitude I'm taking is still just well meaning tokenism.

As an example of what I'm worried about, I have an Indian character (currently nicknamed The Jack, after the video game archetype). Born in India, raised in India, moved to England to study engineering and medicine at the same time, snapped under the pressure, bought a gun, became a mercenary, and is now trying to live up to the 'ultra badass' stereotype. This is intended as a parody of the (as far as I know) Western concept of the Indian nerd (seen in shows like 'The Big Bang Theory' and the movie 'Inception', though Inception plays with the concept a little), as well as a commentary on ultra-badasses in Western media (he'll pull Kirk/Mal/Renegade Shepard style stunts, which will disturb and annoy the other characters). So basically I'm writing a white guy who happens to be Indian. Same with Noiry Thief Dude - he'll act pretty much like a classic Caucasian film noir protagonist, for what I think are perfectly legitimate reasons (analysing the concept of cynicism and the motivations stemming from it), except he just happens to be Japanese.

TL;DR I guess I'm wondering whether or not all my characters being heavily based on Western concepts, despite being from non-Western cultures, is a bad thing.

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Wardog

at 11:29 on 2010-09-14I will second the recommendation of the Bartimaeus Trilogy - I LOVED those.

This is just a general rather rather specific point and apologies if I fail all over it but it was in reference to the tokenism of Jamie and Sin. I never felt Jamie was tokenistic - I thought he was a problematic depiction of a gay person, for me, because his vulnerability seems to go hand-in-hand with his sexuality, but it's obvious SRB is pretty damn interested in him, either as a weird authorial self-insert or because fandom, in general, is very into gay men. I know being "interested" can sometimes be an issue in itself (Jay Lake is clearly "very" interested in Green... altogether now EEEEWWW) but it tends to stave off tokenism. I found Sin much more tokenistic because it seems pretty clear to me that Brennan really isn't interested in the hot black girl, and she's just there to be a contrast to Mae, as well as to demonstrate Mae being friendly with other women to show it's not just about Mae and all the hot men who fancy her.

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Wardog

at 11:31 on 2010-09-14Oh, and I meant to say thanks for taking the time to comment, Cammalot - I've found your take on the book fascinating, and I'm generally just delighted to discover I'm not the only person in the world who doesn't like it! :P

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Dan H

at 13:51 on 2010-09-14

What I meant was: is it always automatically racist if a white person writes about her own culture? If so, why?

I think this is a misleading question for a number of reasons. Firstly, I think getting hung up on questions of what is and is not "racist" is often misleading and distracting. It tends to lead to people getting defensive and turns the whole discussion into one about individual white people. Ironically the more seriously we take race issues, the more sensitive we get about the "danger" of calling a white person a racist.

This touches on what Kat was talking about earlier: if somebody says "hey, anybody else notice how all the important people in this book are white" then a lot of people will respond by saying "OMG HOW DARE YOU CALL MY FAVOURITE WRITER A RACIST" which simply isn't helpful. The question is not "is Sarah Rees Brennan a racist" it's "are people of colour underrepresented in Sarah Rees Brennan's imaginary world". The answer to the first question is "I don't know, but probably a little bit but hell so am I" whereas the answer to the second question is "yes".

Sorry, that was a long and distracting preamble.

To answer your question, the problem here is that talking about "a white person's culture" - as Arthur and Cammalot have pointed out - is actually rather misleading. One of the big important items on the White Privilege Checklist is the fact that your ethnicity *is not* a major part of your cultural identity. Although as Arthur points out, a lot of *extremely racist* people like to argue that this is actually a huge injustice.

Because I am a white person living in a white-dominated country (more generally, because I am a member of my country's ethnic majority) my "culture" is the entire culture of my country. In fact since I'm English, my culture actually includes pretty much the entire English-speaking world. Hell, it arguably includes large parts of the *non* English-speaking world, because my cultural heritage includes amongst other things the British Empire and Christianity.

Because my culture - whether I like it or not - is the dominant one in the English-speaking world I have to accept that my culture *does* include non-white people, and gay people, and for that matter women all of whom have been historically margainalized by my culture and whose contributions *to* that culture have been minimized.

If I write a book about - say - being a student at Oxford and that book contains only white characters (which, to be honest, it probably would) then not only would I be erasing and margainalising non-white Oxford students (of whom there are a great many) I would in fact be *misrepresenting* my actual experiences and therein lies the problem. When a white person presents a fictional setting which ignores or margainalises non-white people, it *is* reflective of a wider cultural tendency to ignore and margainalise non-white people *in general*.

Now from the point of view of an individual text, it might be far better to ignore and margainalize a group than to tokenize, fetishize, or demonize it, but that's a different issue altogether.

To draw a rather peculiar analogy, it's sort of like recycling. I generally recycle all of my rubbish but sometimes I don't, sometimes I will throw plastic bottles in the dustbin. The fact that I recycle 90% of my plastic does not change the fact that the other 10% of the plastic I send to landfill sites contributes to global warming. Even if a person's portrayal of race (or gender, or disability, or whatever) is 90% perfect, it is still possible for the remaining 10% to *actively contribute* to a racist society.

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http://mary-j-59.livejournal.com/

at 16:43 on 2010-09-14Dan, in spite of saying mine was a misleading question, you answered it here:

Now from the point of view of an individual text, it might be far better to ignore and margainalize a group than to tokenize, fetishize, or demonize it, but that's a different issue altogether.

That's pretty much what I meant (and failed, initially) to say.

But it is interesting that, as far as I can remember, no one considered Sarah Rees Brennan racist when reviewing "The Demon's Lexicon". The issue arose in Kyra's review of "The Demon's Covenant", because Sin really does seem like a token person of color. As I said above, she is to be the narrator in the third book, and I'm reserving judgement on the series as a whole until after I've read the third.

I read "Covenant" a bit differently from Kyra. I thought the main issue was: would Jamie be seduced by Gerald into using his magic? And, if he was, would he be able to find a way to use magic for good, or is it always corrupting? That, to me, was the driving tension of the plot - Jamie's struggle with his magic, and Mae's struggle to protect him from the magicians. And I found it interesting.

Although I feel like I'm dancing around a live wire in even bringing it up again, as a white person, I'd be scared to do what Sarah Rees Brennan is attempting, and to write from the POV of a young woman of color in real, modern-day England. In a fantasy world, it's not so intimidating. But in a real-world setting, I'd be terrified to get it wrong - what do I know about being a person of color in England or America? Being an outsider - yes, I understand that. But what are the limits of imagination? Do I, as a white person, have any right to attempt to write from the viewpoint of a person of color? Especially when there are so many fine writers of color who cannot get the buzz that white writers get? As a writer, I do think I have an obligation to present the world honestly, and that definitely includes having varied casts in my stories. As a reader, I have an obligation to read actively and intelligently. As a librarian, I have an obligation to support and promote good writers of all types, and to aim for diversity on my shelves. I do take my obligations seriously. Sorry if I sound defensive here! As I said, I'm feeling a bit attacked, and I really didn't mean to say anything offensive. I apologize if I have given offense, nonetheless.

But - although I can see where Kyra was coming from in the original post, I do actually like Brennan's books so far. The questions Kyra has raised, and which others here have elaborated on, are good and valid, but, as I've said, I'm waiting to see how she completes her trilogy before judging it. After all, if Rowling had stopped her series with OOTP, I would have been convinced it was a good set of books. Even HBP didn't disabuse me of my love for the books entirely; it took DH to disenchant me and break my heart. It was only after the last book had been finished that I had all the information I needed to judge the series as a whole. I'm still a pretty optimistic reader, I guess, and I'm hoping Brennan won't disappoint me as Rowling did.

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http://cammalot.livejournal.com/

at 17:44 on 2010-09-14

I do agree with you about Nick, but I think the so-called lack of emotion isn't really such; Nick has lots of emotions. It's just that they are mostly what we would call negative - rage, frustration, etc. But he is capable of what we (or more accurately, I) would call positive emotions, as well. It's going to be interesting to see what happens to him in the final book.

This is kind of what I mean about the magical system not hanging together -- as presented so far, this feels like cheating, to me. I want more clarification as to what the source of emotion is in her mythos, so that the scenes of emoting don't feel so convenient. I don't want "It was inside him all along." That would destroy the 1st book's twist. (Although, if SRB chooses to pull something in the final book like “Alan gave Nick a part of his human soul through being so loving, and changed Nick’s essential nature while they were kids”...I might buy it. I disliked “Lexicon” until the final twist convinced me that there was some real brilliance in it, so I’m willing to hold out. And SRB has earned huge amounts of leeway from me for her depictions of Pansy Parkinson. She rounded out, redeemed, and made pretty feminist a character created to be Rowling's buttmonkey, in my opinion.)

@Kyra: Thanks for clarifying about Jamie and Sin, re: tokenism. Sin is definitely a hard character to get a handle on this time around. (In Lexicon, I found the *majority* of the cast difficult to get a handle on -- their quip-ful conversations really got in my way -- so I hope that’s reason to believe there will be more to Sin in the third volume). I liked Jamie, but 1) a lot of that is because I like SRB, and I *did* see a lot of authorial-insertiness about him (he also has a great many of the qualities of her version of Draco, but with less of the overt strength and anger), and 2) I remember having been an embarrassingly zealous Minority Warrior for gay rights in my early twenties, and have since erred on the side deferring to the more knowledgeable and keeping quiet. I’m also trying to navigate writing gay characters properly in my own fiction, so...yeah. Shutting up and learning from others now. And I will definitely look into this Bartimaeus business. :-)

And that segues into Stan’s post -- this is so very difficult to tell without seeing the writing in question. As I said above: To me, it’s less about topic or method and more about skill of execution. You should have beta readers, and some of them should of the groups you’re dealing with, or as close as possible (and even that *will not be foolproof* for all readers). If you don’t have such betas IRL, get hold of willing and trusted Internet ones. Your heart’s in the right place, but you shouldn’t take chances. There WILL be small but telling things, and you WILL miss them unaided (because what reason would you have had in your life to know them?), and readers from those groups will notice and be annoyed. Betas. Get 'em. But don’t assume that just because a person is from the group(s) in question that they have the time or inclination to educate you. Get someone enthusiastic, and choose carefully and respectfully.

And I agree with everything Daniel just said.

But it is interesting that, as far as I can remember, no one considered Sarah Rees Brennan racist when reviewing "The Demon's Lexicon".

@Mary — I don’t think anyone is calling SRB (or you) a capital-R racist NOW. We’re giving the “R-word” too much power in this conversation now, I think, which is distracting: SRB’s character isn’t the issue. It’s not about attacking any individual -- you or Sarah. But racism permeates our culture, and sometimes it will manifest in us. Privilege also exists and will manifest. This is not something we can help. This doesn’t mean that anybody is an evil, irredeemable person, or that liking the books makes you terrible. (Wanna know something awful? I liked “300.” And that shite was “problematic” up, down, left, right, and backwards. Racist, *heinously* ableist, *laughably* homophobic considering the people it depicted -- all kinds of crap. There now. I’ve ruined my fledgling reputation already. In my shallow defense, I thought the creators were being more tongue-in-cheek than they really were).

But it does mean that we need to be constantly aware and vigilant of the problems and possible problems that exist, and how to deal with them. And I don’t think anyone has written off the upcoming third book. Try to look at this theoretically, not as personal attack?

SRB has proven herself a strong and resilient young woman, and she has lots of support. I think she’ll be fine and can deal with the fact that there are people who take issue with her work (as there are people who will take issue with any work; nothing’s perfect). And you should write what you feel passionate about -- but writing in public is an act of self-exposure and requires bravery.

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Dan H

at 18:47 on 2010-09-14

Wanna know something awful? I liked “300.” And that shite was “problematic” up, down, left, right, and backwards. Racist, *heinously* ableist, *laughably* homophobic considering the people it depicted -- all kinds of crap. There now. I’ve ruined my fledgling reputation already. In my shallow defense, I thought the creators were being more tongue-in-cheek than they really were

I think you have, in fact, ruined your FerretBrain cred forever.

My favourite comments on 300 have been from my Iranian students. Highlights include: "In my country ... we do not have ninjas" and "We remember Xerxes as a great man. He was not a Gay!"

The latter comment highlights another interesting point about this kind of thing, which is that a person can be offended by something while themselves being *quite offensive*.

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http://cammalot.livejournal.com/

at 19:41 on 2010-09-14

I think you have, in fact, ruined your FerretBrain cred forever.

I know, I know. I am duly ashamed.

I was watching it with a bona fide history professor, at midnight, and we sat there going "La la la, swordy things, la la la, loinclothery, la la la, anachronistic rock music, whoo-HOO, half-naked acrobatics, and hey, isn't that the hot skinny demon guy from 'Hex' -- hey wait, did he just diss ATHENIANS for sleeping with boys?" And then it occurred to us that the rest of the theater wasn't reacting the same way, as in, no, that line was not coming across as hypocrisy, it was coming off as "time to giggle at the gay now". And then there were more things (like "holy shit, did they just VALIDATE throwing babies away??"). And then the lack of irony slowly dawned on me. Much too slowly, really. As in, not before I left the theater. Don't know what to say about that, I had thought I was more astute. And then I read the source comic. (I had not been familiar with Frank Miller before.)

I was also overly impressed that the film acknowledged that black people were around and involved in classical antiquity. Except, you know, then the beheadings and Unfortunate Implications and oh god I'm sorry I'm sorry...

(It's all...yeah, I don't know. I especially don't know what to say about the roars of theater laughter when the head flew through the air. This was, um, not a white theater, shall we say. Things are complicated. I think a lot of the audience were appreciating it as though it were a horror movie.)

a person can be offended by something while themselves being *quite offensive*.

Too true. :-)

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Jamie Johnston

at 16:49 on 2010-09-19Just caught up on this discussion. It was interesting! I have nothing to add to it! This comment may be pointless and excessively exclamatory!

Hi to Cammalot & 3stan, neither of whom I've seen around here before (as far as I remember).

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Montavilla

at 20:55 on 2010-09-28Coming to the discussion late, as I am wont to do.

Wow. This is a great discussion about writing different cultures from your own -- whether race, sexual orientation, so on. I really love how honest people are being about difficult it is to approach racial and cultural inclusion.

Long ago and far away, I edited children's reading textbooks and believe me, inclusion was a major consideration. Along with deleting any possible objectionable material, which makes for great stories. True one: I once as a joke scared my supervising editor by suggesting the team names in a story ("red" and "blue") might cause parents to think we were promoting Communism. She nearly fainted.

Anyway, we were tasked with making sure that the depiction of minority/majority race characters matched the current American demographic breakdown: 16% black, 12% Latino, 6% Asian, 2% Native American, 2% physically challenged, 2% "other." Since we were trying to use as much pre-published material as possible (as opposed to commissioned writing), we ended up changing race/gender in many cases. We also specced artwork to include crowds of racially diverse people whenever possible. Then we had to go back and actually count heads in order to justify the inclusion.

It was all very silly and artificial, but it did have the virtue of showing kids a world where not everyone looks the same. And the California State Board of Education eventually got savvier and started demanding that we follow a demographic breakdown of writers and illustrators, instead of making Ramona Quimby Hispanic. :)

As a writer, I do think about trying to include more diversity in characters. But it intimidates me at the same time. My racial heritage is Italian, Filipino, and Spanish-American. But I don't know diddly about any of those cultures, really. For me to write about a Filipina character would be as inauthentic as my writing about an Iranian woman. But I think I have to try. My only other choice is to set everything in a fantasy world where any real world culture doesn't apply. And don't think I haven't thought about it.

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Cammalot

at 17:03 on 2011-07-12RE: The Demon's Surrender, the last book in this trilogy -- Based on the first few bits... I really wish Brennan had been writing from Sin’s POV all along. I’m much more immediately sucked in, this time.

(Heh. She is also

much more obviously black/biracial now

. Thank you, British bookbinder.)

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Kat S

at 09:40 on 2011-07-18@Cammalot: The UK Cover of Surrender with Sin in front bothers me. It bothers me a lot. It is not in the same style at all as the previous two covers. When you line up the books, Surrender is a different size and the spine lettering is arranged differently. They did just about everything possible to make the book about the PoC look like if it was from a different series.

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Cammalot

at 21:03 on 2011-07-18Hmm. It’s food for thought.

I know that there’s been a shift across the board toward more photographic-looking covers (the background skyline still seems similar, though also converted to more photo style, as is the saturated color and the backdrop-to-face size ratio. I don’t have a copy in hand yet, and have refused to buy the US versions. I can’t stand the US covers. Everyone looks stiff and mannequinlike, and Sin is whitewashed. And aged way up).

I can only guess at the rest, though. It’s weird.

I tend to hate it in general when the look of a series changes midway, and it’s been happening more and more lately. Busting out with much-pricier hardcovers to capitalize on a heretofore paperback series’ steady sales, and thus upping the per unit price by almost double, or more than double in some cases, that sort of thing. I’ve begun waiting up to two years for paperbacks to come out in order to have consistency — among them Simon R. Green, Patricia Briggs, and Jim Butcher (Yes I read some fluff. More important, I can wait a very long time to read fluff, there are other piles o’ books on my poor floor waiting for me, I will not be suckered in. ;-D). Similar happened with the “Monster-Ink Tattoo” series, and Patricia Bray’s books went from trade to hc too, I believe.

As I said, I don’t have a copy in hand yet. Have you got the hardcover? Is there a trade paper even out yet? Is your copy larger or smaller than previous?

This complicates things in my mind, but in a weird way. Publishers are driven by the desire to make cash. And they tend to think in very short and direct ways about it. (This cover sold well last week, let’s imitate it fortyfold, right this instant! Or, more annoyingly: This did not sell a million copies instantaneously, let us never do anything like it again! This is exaggeration on my part, but you get me. That last mentality has especially hurt books about girls and people of color.)

The photographic thing is a definite trend right now and supposed to up sales; this, I am sure, is the thinking, from what I’ve observed. (I’m in publishing. Sadly, never in a Big Decider capacity so far.) I’m kind of surprised they didn’t go that route on the first two. That plus the size change (opposite of what I would expect if they were trying play down the non-white angle) might make me think they want to call even more attention to it...so perhaps the previous two were not selling very well? (Based on what I see on chain-store bookshelves here, what’s actually on the floor displays and what’s even kept in stock, I would tend to believe this: I’m not seeing her on the shelves. Her series has to be doing well enough for them to let her try another -- unrelated -- book, but I don’t know that it’s a blockbuster.)

Increasing the size of this last book to hardcover might say to me that sales *are* going well, and they expect to shift just as many twice-the-price hardcover copies as they did cheaper paperback ones, and will likely even re-release previous entries in the series as hardcovers if the sales on this one hold steady. (Jim Butcher had a similar mid-series redesign, and hc versions of older books are being released. Briggs has had the hc re-release without the redesign, possibly because her books started out with semi-realistic pics of people to start with.)

Smaller size, on the other hand, might say they want to lower the price in order to sell more, possibly because the previous ones did not do as well as they’d hoped. (In this case, though, I would not expect them to put a person of color, and a girl, on the front.)

Either way, change says, to me, an attempt to get more attention.

Now, if they specifically want to CAPITALIZE on the non-white angle (as opposed to thinking “Well, this is surefire and will sell either way, so let’s take an easy risk and put a biracial girl on the front” -- I can’t imagine they’re thinking the third option: “Let’s put a person of color on the front and then downplay everything so no one will notice the book to buy it, and also let’s confuse and misdirect existing fans”) -- If they think a larger size and a brown face is going to move more copies or attract new buyers -- well I say go for it. I feel very mercenary about that. I’d like it if there were more of that sort of opinion happening in the States.

All this, of course, with the caveat that I am not British and so can’t claim insider knowledge of what might drive the British/UK publishing mind-set on the issue.

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Kat S

at 15:57 on 2011-07-19The trend of photographic-looking covers was already on-going when the publishers produced the first two books. As for capitalizing on Sin's PoC-ness, they could have done that without completely changing the style of the covers. Frankly, I doubt it. The changes in Demon's Surrender versus the other books is too close to the way "Urban" romances are usually packaged by publishers.

Not sure how I gave the impression that the size was increased to hard-cover. Demon's Surrender is in paper-back.

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Cammalot

at 19:27 on 2011-07-19You wrote:

Surrender is a different size

I couldn't tell from that wording in what way it was different -- bigger or smaller. (Thank you for clarifying.) On the webpage with the cover version we are discussing, Bookdepository.co.uk has it listed as available in a hardcover edition and a paperback. (The hardcover could actually refer to the U.S. edition, but I find the setup ambiguous.)

Yes, the trend towards more photographic covers has been around for a while, but 1. it hasn't been anything near universal even for North American books and would not necessarily have affected any one particular book we could select; 2. it hasn't been pushed quite as much in the U.K. (Google the original British covers for Melissa Marr, Stephanie Meyer, Rachel Caine, and so on); and 3. it is still trending. In my experience, at least for the past decade or so (possibly before that), British books have tended far more towards the artsy covers than towards the more full and/or photorealistic human representation that U.S covers were going for, especially in fantasy. It's still more or less down to editorial/marketing whim, and still doesn't really tell me anything.

That cover is the British version, and I don't know that "Urban" fiction is that big a genre or a draw in Britain. I would posit that it isn't, just because in my experience of the “Urban” genre as it is (euphemistically) defined here, it has been wildly,

intensely

, and kind of annoyingly) U.S.-centric, and because I haven't seen those marketing categories delineated in the U.K. in the same way they are in the U.S.

at all

. They do not divide up their shelves of genres in stores in the same way; particularly, they haven't, in my experience, been separating out "'urban'-aka-'black'-books" from other types of fiction in the way our "African American interest" sections do, but integrate their authors of various colors onto shelves by topic and subject matter, not ethnicity.

But, y'know, I wouldn't swear to it, since I haven't been there since '09. It could be a new thing. They seem to have a thing called

street fiction

. But not much of it expressly delineated as such, and still, the covers...

do not look like that

. Codes and subtexts are not the same for the two markets.

"Surrender's" differences from the previous two are not striking to me. Spine text is not a large enough indicator -- variations in spine text happen frequently with all sorts of series. The face on the cover, though photographic, is positioned in the same place and at a similar angle and size relative to background to the previous two (though more of her face is showing), and like the other two, does not involve her body. The background, though also more photographic, employs the same shading as the second book (indicating a progression of artistic vision, to me). The cracked-letter effect in the cover font is identical on all three, and in the same place. The author blurbs are also positioned in the same place across the board.

(I also think that there's too much fire in the background of "Surrender" [indicating subject matter larger in scope and apocalyptic than the usual plot of the "Urban" stuff I've come in contact with] and not enough of the young woman's breasts are on display, nor is she positioned "tough-ly" enough, for me to mistake if for Urb-Lit or Urb-Rom.)

Sizing also doesn’t tell me much, as it is not unique to this series and is far more often an indicator of either financial concerns (cost of physical paper fluctuates and has been going up for some time now -- some hardcovers have leaped to nearly $27 from $22 in just the past five years and non-genre authors are under a great deal of pressure to keep their novels to 300 pages or less), or perhaps an overall push to make paperback sizes more uniform. A quick Google tells me paperback sizes across the board have been in flux both in the U.S. and the U.K.

since at least around 2008/2009

. (As Brennan’s book hit shelves in mid-2009, most of the plans concerning its manufacture and release would have been well underway anywhere from 2 to 4 years before that, and the size change could easily have simply missed those first two.)

I'm just not seeing the publishers doing "everything possible" to make the book look like some other series. It doesn't exactly match, true, but this is not unique to this series or to books with women of color on them, and it seems to me that many elements were intentionally retained (I'm looking at Amazon UK right now) in order to link this book to its predecessors. I believe a redesign was intentional, yes, but I can easily see this new full-face style as an improvement, and --*if* the books sell well enough to go to a subsequent printing -- I would not be surprised to see the other two altered to match this one.

Further, I haven't seen any big push to masquerade books as more U.S-esque "Urban" style in the U.K., even with those written by actual black British people: See

Katherine Bing

or

Mike Gayle

, and I'm sure others can be quick-searched. (The Mike Gayle covers have indeed been revamped -- those versions are not the ones I own, so there seems to have been ample time to take him more "Urban," but this is not the direction they went in.)

The two Urb-Rom imprints I worked for didn't have much of a footprint in the U.K. (that is to say, no corporate presence at all, but you can get books nearly anywhere nowadays what with the Internet), but I can only speak to what I know; some British people might have to weigh in on whether or not going "Urban" would be considered an intelligent marketing strategy in the U.K., especially for Y.A. It also does not seem plausible to me that the marketing team would take the very last book of a trilogy and purposefully disguise it as a new genre (especially in a country that genre is not native to or apparently very popular in) in hopes of drawing a whole new audience and abandoning the previous one.

This is not to say that British publishing doesn't have its own problems --

it does

. And I think your concern is valid. But at the moment, in the particular case of this book, I do not share the concern.

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Leia

at 09:28 on 2011-07-20The times I have noticed UK covers make changes, they tend to adapt the US covers. That's what happened with Twilight and the Cassandra Clare books. Spine text is a pretty big indicator when you line up the books side by side. Are there considerably more letters in "Surrender" than in "Covenant"?

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Cammalot

at 17:10 on 2011-07-20

Spine text is a pretty big indicator when you line up the books side by side.

But an indicator of what, exactly? Intentional genre and audience shift and exploitation, or general reconsideration of overall design? Reconsideration of overall design is a given, here; it was publically touted as such. They did in fact reconsider the design, and took it in a different direction -- that's not in dispute.

I'm simply not seeing how it's more likely that the

intent

of that new artistic direction would be to mimic "Urban Lit," a genre for which I have seen no evidence of popularity in the U.K.; a genre which is extremely U.S.-centric and reliant on U.S. tropes, codes, and cultural signifiers; a genre that a great many British blacks (who are predominantly of direct-African and Caribbean descent) would be far less likely to relate to, understand, or drawn to purchase. Nor do I see how it would make sense to hype such a thing in the U.K. Instead of the U.S., or to trust such a thing to generate any hype. (Unless the thinking here is that they’re trying to get the book to fail?)

For my own, personal self, I am very,

extremely

wary and distrustful of overextending/overattributing U.S. mindsets to people it has no reason to apply to. We do this all too often, us Americans (in all our ethnic variety), and it gives us an inaccurate and offensive understanding of other people. I am speaking for myself here, and not assuming U.S-ness in anyone else.

There are a vast number of books being published every year in the UK, many of which go to multiple printings and show an evolution of cover design. A great many of these titles are never even available in the U.S. Often several versions of the cover art remain in print and available simultaneously. (For a very long time, they had both "regular" and "less-embarrassing, grown-up" covers available for the Harry Potter series in the U.K.) Saying that U.K. covers "tend" to adopt U.S. cover design, assigning this to an entire national industry, linking this phenomenon wholly to nothing but some attempt to copy America, is an extremely big and kind of presumptuous stretch, for me. (Not to mention there’s often a lot less “adoption” going on and a great deal more “importing the actual U.S.-produced physical product, because it costs less”.) Maybe for popular Y.A. American authors, they might -- it's far cheaper to “adopt” an existing design, after all, see parenthetical -- but I would hesitate very much to apply that reasoning in this particular case, when the U.S. cover actually features a red-headed white guy in an entirely different art style.

And it still bears noting that U.K. books, particularly in the genres in question, tend to start out more artsy and less photorealistic. (Sometimes they even have wholly different titles. It’s a different market — different things appeal.) I do indeed believe that with this particular book, this move to photorealism is an attempt to mimic the similar U.S. shift toward such trends

in Y.A.

, since these sorts of Y.A. covers have proven themselves more popular (for now) in the U.S. market. That’s business, especially when speaking in terms of specific titles, and it doesn’t always go in one direction either (see the U.S. habitually copying Japanese horror films, or remaking Britcoms, or the fact that we get any translated works here at all — they have to prove popularity at home first). But I'm still not seeing a shift to "Urban Lit" in this particular case, when this specific book by Brennan is not readily available (not without high shipping fees, or secondhand purchase, or knowing about Book Depository’s no-shipping-fees policy — basically, you have to seek this thing out) to the audience that would appreciate or buy Urban Lit.

Sophia McDougall’s (UK, not available in US) books got redesigned mid-series, just in time for the last book of the trilogy to arrive this summer — a much bigger redesign, with no art elements in common with the originals at all. Terry Prachett’s Discworld went through this several times, the UK versions shifting from something that resembled a Benny Hill chase scene to a woodcut-type design. Ian Rankin’s (UK, can’t really find it quite as readily in the US) mystery/crime series underwent a spontaneous size change in or around 2009. Over here, Kelly Armstrong’s latest Y.A. series went from a something with architecture on the front for the first novel to closeups of the lower half of a girl’s face for the second two, and moved from mass market to trade paperback. Octavia Butler’s books got reissued under several different covers; the Patternmaster series that I owned had similar cover designs but a font and paper texture change midway through (less gold-leaf). Then they all got re-released with photos on the covers. This happens with a large number of manga titles in the past few years (money matters, again, as “flipping” manga for Western ease of reading costs more). Ranma 1/2 got size switched (not an improvement, IMO; I stopped buying) without even the excuse of switching to right-to-left reading. Samuel Delany’s “Neveryon” series came out under a redesigned cover quite some years ago, and there has since been a push to re-realease a lot of his older works with covers that resemble those, particularly his literary and social theory. I'm looking at the spine text on Simon E. Green's "Nightside" series (US version) and his "Drood" series, lined up on my shelf, and there is a noticeable spine text shift, particularly on the seventh Nightside one. (I actually think the text shift is very unattractive.) This doesn't, however, say "rebranding" to me. Fans of Green can still read his name very clearly and locate the book, even when only placed spine-out on the shelves. Fans of Jim Butcher were similarly not much deterred when his books stopped looking this way and started looking like this, and then gained nearly an inch in height (and a dollar and change in price).

And if we haven’t seen this happening as much with people of color on the covers, surely we must take into consideration hat getting people of color onto the cover of “mainstream” books has been and still is still a big huge fight, so no, we

wouldn’t

have seen that happening as much, but that was BAD.

Redesigns take place primarily for economic reasons, and the direction those redesigns take come with all sorts of rationales, most of which lead back to “we want more money out of this.” (Unless it’s “We can’t afford to do this anymore, how can we cut corners.” Which is more or less the same thing.) All too often this rush to the cash leads to oversimplified, racist, and other socially problematic decisions, yes. But I am not, in this case, convinced that a British publisher would have any sane reason to cynically target what we know as the “Urban Lit” audience with a book meant for release in the U.K., nor am I convinced it would be a sound financial decision for them. It just doesn’t make any sense to me at all.

I am not willing to outright go: “They don’t have Urban Lit in the United Kingdom, or indeed outside the U.S. much,” but searching for “urban fiction” on Amazon.co.uk gives me this:

http://tinyurl.com/3gjp8oq

An “Urban Lit” search leads off with “urban fantasy/paranormal romance” titles and rounds off with books from America and books on city planning:

http://tinyurl.com/3nd54zn

Searching for “street fiction” gives me this:

http://tinyurl.com/4xf895g

And “street lit”:

http://tinyurl.com/3fvrer4

— again, the one fiction book on that page that fits the bill is an U.S. book. Not even a re-covered Brit version of a U.S. book — the U.S. version. (The major-player publishers of Urban Lit are a very rare thing -- independent publishers -- and they do not have international presence, as I said before. Which is cool, in its way— they haven’t been snapped up by conglomerates.)

And only searching for both together gives me some semblance of the very, extremely US-spawned and US-centric genre that we are speaking of.

The codes and tropes and shorthands are simply not identical. We are both part of the “Anglosphere,” and so the codes and tropes and shorthands are not fully foreign or impenetrable, but they are also not the same.

Now, what’s INSIDE the book is a different matter, and frankly I am filled with a great deal of trepidation about that. But I need to finish it first.

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Cammalot

at 17:17 on 2011-07-20Arrgh. Dropped two links.

Old Jim Butcher:

http://tinyurl.com/3fdjgmy

New Jim Butcher:

http://tinyurl.com/3wfp5sd

And for comparison, Brit Jim Butcher:

http://tinyurl.com/3clzw7s

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Cammalot

at 17:50 on 2011-07-20Completely irrelevant, but eye-catching:

http://www.amazon.fr/Furie-du-Curseur-Jim-Butcher/dp/2352944600/ref=pd_rhf_shvl_2

http://www.amazon.fr/Dossiers-Dresden-F%C3%A9e-dhiver/dp/2811203427/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311180535&sr=1-5

(none of these referrings I'm doing should be considered any particular endorsement, by the way)

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Cammalot

at 19:17 on 2011-07-20Last edit for a bit: "and then gained nearly an inch in height (and a dollar and change in price)." should be "nearly half an inch."

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Leia

at 06:31 on 2011-07-21

Saying that U.K. covers "tend" to adopt U.S. cover design, assigning this to an entire national industry, linking this phenomenon wholly to nothing but some attempt to copy America, is an extremely big and kind of presumptuous stretch, for me.

I said the times *I* have noticed... You clearly know more about this than I do. For the record, I'm not a, American or b, inclined to go witch-racist hunting for the fun of it. And maybe you didn't mean it but the tone of your responses is border-line implying that. Bottom line: I don't have a bone in this and I'm just going to bow out of this conversation right now.

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Wardog

at 09:57 on 2011-07-21I'm sure nobody intended to suggest that you were witch-hunting - I think we've just hit on a topic which overlaps with Cammalot's professional experience.

I hadn't given much thought to this at all, to be honest, so I actually found this discussion really interesting. I remember feeling broadly positive about the UK covers of Lexicon and Covenant - I liked the stylised, slightly impressionistic art style for the characters (better for Lexicon than Covenant, though, Nick was very characterful, whereas Mae just looked like a girl with funny coloured hair). But equally I can see why you might have wanted Sin to look more "realistic", otherwise you've got a cover with an artist's impression of a black girl on the front. I think in this instance UK did way better than US, since I believe the US got a pouting pretty boy against an orange explosion? I do think replicates the major features of the previous covers, though - even if the artwork has changed. However, I do agree with Cammalot that the covers have enough stylistic elements in common (positioning, text style, etc) to seem to be recognizably connected to me. I certainly didn't see any attempt to distance Surrender from the other two books, because it has a POC on the front, or to make it look like another "type" of book.

And for the record, I know bugger all about this, so I could be talking out of my arse.

They do not divide up their shelves of genres in stores in the same way; particularly, they haven't, in my experience, been separating out "'urban'-aka-'black'-books" from other types of fiction in the way our "African American interest" sections do, but integrate their authors of various colors onto shelves by topic and subject matter, not ethnicity.

I do most of my book shopping online these days, but I have never seen anything like this in a British bookshop. You occasionally get "hey, read these books about black people!" displays but as a general rule you just get fiction, sci/fi fantasy, comics, crime, classic fiction, romance if you're very lucky and that's about it. The two genre emergences I've seen in the last few years have been "dark fantasy" and "young adult" - and I remember how tiny-mind-blown Arthur was the first time he saw a dark fantasy section in a bookshop. This being so, I can't imagine "urban" taking off any time soon, with relation to either adult or young adult fiction. But, as I say, that's an impression constructed from a position of absolute ignorance.

I haven't read this either, by the way - I am curious though. But it suddenly stopped being available on Kindle. MYSTERY!

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Arthur B

at 10:21 on 2011-07-21I admit to not really going out of my way to look for any, but the only time I've seen an "urban" fiction book in a UK bookshop it's been a lonely novel by 50 Cent crammed into the Crime/Thrillers section.

Oh, and if I'm remembering right it was a US import. I guess they bought it in due to the name recognition or something.

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Cammalot

at 15:04 on 2011-07-21I was in fact trying to be quite careful about assuming anyone else’s nationality when I said

"For my own, personal self, I am very, extremely wary and distrustful of overextending/overattributing U.S. mindsets to people it has no reason to apply to. We do this all too often, us Americans (in all our ethnic variety), and it gives us an inaccurate and offensive understanding of other people. I am speaking for myself here, and not assuming U.S-ness in anyone else."

However, in retrospect, I guess I used some pretty nonstandard grammar and orthography in there. :-)

This topic does ping on... nearly every aspect of me, really: For the record, I am a combo of a few ethnicities of black American; both the U.S. and the U.K. have played large roles in my educational and professional life; and I've worked in publishing for most of my adult life, although I promise to stop that fairly soon; and I have a

serious problem

with Urban Lit. I am never sure how much I can express how very big and angry and depressing a beef I have with Urban Lit without impacting myself professionally, so I do try to keep it vague online. (But this is a fairly anonymous place, I think?)

And I can be a very longwinded pedant. I like to at least attempt to make sure my assertions are covered. I hope I’m not sounding too Minority Warrior. Can I even BE a Minority Warrior when talking about the UK??? :-)

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Sister Magpie

at 18:00 on 2011-07-21

I do think replicates the major features of the previous covers, though - even if the artwork has changed.

FWIW, I would probably be more likely to compare it to the second book in the US version, since that one has Sin on the cover. She's dancing in a ring of fire, iirc.

Oh, and if I'm remembering right it was a US import. I guess they bought it in due to the name recognition or something.

Do you mean this cover is an import? It's not. The UK has different covers than the US versions for all of them (the UK's are better imo)--and I don't think the UK is publishing them for name recognition. It's a first novel series in both markets published at the same time.

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Cammalot

at 18:17 on 2011-07-21I think Arthur meant his Fitty-Cent book was an import. :-)

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Arthur B

at 18:48 on 2011-07-21That's exactly what I was saying. :)

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Sister Magpie

at 20:24 on 2011-07-21Ah! Now that I read it again that's obviously what you were saying. I think I ran several posts together in my head!

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Leia

at 08:29 on 2011-07-22@Cammalot: Sorry for jumping to conclusions there. I think I was projecting a little: just out of a conversation with someone about how the casting of the Prince of Persia wasn't in the least bit racist, at all.. *le sigh*

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Cammalot

at 17:17 on 2011-07-22@Leia -- Not at all, and rereading my thing I just want to make clear that I

do

think your and Kat’s question is an important thing to think about and ask, and keep asking, even though I don’t think it applies here specifically. There are a host of underlying daily frustrations and problems with publishing as an industry. When I said things like “not logical” I was talking about hypothetical British top-editors and marketers, not you guys.

(Actually I’m making assumptions by saying your question was the same as Kat’s; please correct me if I’m wrong.)

I’m sorry you had to deal with such a ninny. My own feelings on PoP are convoluted, filled with caveats, and pretty tl;dr (this is probably not surprising, by now ;-D), but it’s pretty ridiculous not to concede that they could easily have been much more inclusive.

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Robinson L

at 18:02 on 2012-04-16Warning: extremely long and probably ramble-y comment.

In response to the article, I find it pretty amusing that what

I interpreted

as "cool and intense character development," you interpreted as "nothing happens until the final thirty pages."

I'm also amused that what I read as really sweet fraternal affection between Alan and Nick, you read as blatant slashing.

Dan Ryves' journal struck me as stupid and artificial at first, and I suppose it was mostly just a lot of padding. But I did warm up to it by the end.

I'm ashamed to say I sort of missed Alan's creepiness when I read the book. I might have missed his assholishness too, had Rees Brennan not explicitly pointed it out a few times, as discussed in my review.

By now, I've also read

The Demon's Surrender

, and I think what Rees Brennan did with the Alan/Sin romance was pretty interesting. Granted, there were things about it which bugged the crap out of me (about which more later), but all through the first two books, he's like this untouchable master manipulator who can deceive absolutely anybody. Whereas in the third book, we see that he has limits, and he's not able to deceive people whose life circumstances also require that they be skilled at manipulation. (In this case, the metaphor is that of a performance, because it's from Sin's viewpoint and she's a performer.) The implication to me being that the only way Alan will be able to have a happy functional relationship is if his romantic partner is someone who can see through his subterfuges. Which I think is pretty neat.

I'm pretty sure

Surrender

has a call-back to that creepy line of Alan's: "Of all the girls I ever saw I dreamed of you the most." I don't have the book to hand, but I'm almost certain in

Surrender

, Alan tells Sin that he never dreamed about her because she was too unobtainable. I wish I'd been paying more attention when I read that line, because now I think about it, depending on the context, it could have been a really creepy pedestal line.

I'm so relieved that you liked Mae, though, because I really, really liked her in

Covenant

.

with Jamie being passed about like the magical McGuffin he so clearly is

I find this interesting in light of the fact that he also reads to you like a self-insert character. I'm trying to figure out what to make of that dynamic.

Interesting analysis of the whole self-sacrifice motif – something else I failed to pick up on at the time.

Re: Annabel

Kat Sullivan: She reminds me of Spock's mother in the 2009 movie: she appears in the story just long enough for her to have a Meaningful Death for the benefit of her children's own story.

Yikes, I wouldn't go that far. I mean, the portrayal of Spock's mother is probably one of my biggest personal irritants from Star Trek|| because she was blatantly there for no reason other than to get stuffed into the fridge and further Spock's storyline. If you took that aspect of her out of the movie, she wouldn't have had any reason for existing in it.

Whereas Annabel, apart from being awesome, had her own nice little character arc, and played a part in other characters' story arcs which went beyond passively providing motivation. You could remove her death from the story and her presence in it would still have meaning and purpose. (To be honest, I didn't pick up on the whole fridging angle until I read this.)

And continuing the theme of Stuff Robinson totally didn't notice until someone pointed it out, the only person of color in the first two books (Sin) is exoticized and a dancer (though not an exotic dancer). And the "let's bring in a white girl to take over instead of her" aspect (ick). I didn't so much mind the "two women vying over leadership of the Market" scenario at the end of this book, but that was partially because I didn't realize what a large role it would play in

The Demon's Surrender

. (To be fair to Rees Brennan, it was significantly less terrible than it might've been, but it still wasn't pretty.)

Cammalot: I’m going to be a be anti-Barthian and resurrect The Author

I'm going out on a tangent to gush about how much I adore this wording; lovely. And only slightly more on-topic, I think in this post-TeXt Factor Season 2 world, citing the Author in this manner is entirely reasonable. (I'm thinking about how much people's perceptions of "The Host" were filtered by the knowledge that it was written by Stephenie Meyer).

Maybe it's better at this point to go bigger with it, especially for minor characters? It's unwieldy to say "The East Asian girl at the corner table," but it might just be what needs to be done.

Maybe so. Unfortunately, this

still

doesn't work if you're trying to write far-future or alternate world speculative fiction (like I am. Still haven't entirely figured out a solution yet).

and for a preternaturally emotionless guy, Nick seems to be emoting left and right. (Which for me raises an interesting question — how clueless can you honestly be about human emotions and still manage to always be bitingly quippy? Can you *be * humorous, on purpose, if you don’t have emotions?)

The part which always strains my suspension of disbelief is how, as a demon who finds human speech difficult, he's incapable of telling a lie, but is completely comfortable dishing out sarcasm. The characters even lampshade it in this book, but Rees Brennan never explains how it's supposed to work.

Kyra: I will second the recommendation of the Bartimaeus Trilogy - I LOVED those.

I'll throw in on this one, too; great trilogy. The more recent installment,

Solomon's Ring

is somewhat weaker, but still very enjoyable, and the title character at least is entertaining as ever.

Dan: The question is not "is Sarah Rees Brennan a racist" it's "are people of colour underrepresented in Sarah Rees Brennan's imaginary world"

Superbly articulated as usual.

Mary J: That, to me, was the driving tension of the plot - Jamie's struggle with his magic, and Mae's struggle to protect him from the magicians. And I found it interesting.

I think that's more-or-less how I related to it, too.

Jamie: Just caught up on this discussion. It was interesting! I have nothing to add to it! This comment may be pointless and excessively exclamatory!

Out of curiosity, were you

trying

to imitate the “Jamie” from the books there? If so: good job!

Cammalot: I can’t stand the US covers. Everyone looks stiff and mannequinlike, and Sin is whitewashed. And aged way up

I read

Covenant

with the US cover and I missed that there was an age-up, but I couldn't for the life of me tell if the character on the cover was supposed to by a whitewashed Sin or a Mae with undyed hair. Answer: whitewashed Sin. Figures.

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Kat S

at 12:08 on 2012-06-25

The whole thing is incredibly colonialist, and indeed functions as a miniature of the colonial narrative: Mae, the rich, white foreigner comes in and revolutionizes a native's land with "superior" organization and technology. But it's all for the better, and the "native" (in this case, Sin) admits that, and eventually comes to support the usurper.

This is an excerpt from a review that pretty much highlighted every issue that I have with this book. The way Sin was portrayed in contrast to Mae sickened me at every turn.

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Wardog

at 12:40 on 2012-06-25I have the third book sitting in my tbr pile and I keep looking at it and making this face:

:/

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http://melaniedavidson.livejournal.com/

at 21:26 on 2012-06-25

...I’ve found that I much prefer to *not* see people like me in the books of authors who might not be able to pull it off properly. I’m not keen on the idea of reading practice-run depictions of people like me in the works of authors who are just learning how. It’s upsetting, not entertaining, and it’s gotten more upsetting as I get older and more exposed to subtler types of fail.

I know this is old (but recently commented-on! Who else watches the recent activity page?), but I feel pretty much the same way. I know there are good arguments on the other side*, but for my personal enjoyment I would MUCH rather read, e.g., a story which "just happens"** not to have any women in it, than one which is horrible and faily with its female characters.

*Like the "token x" thing being in some sense a step forward from an implied "x's just don't fucking exist". I guess I see it as being that they both fail, but in different ways, and it's legitimate for someone to be bothered more by one way than the other. I was going to also say something about it possibly being, for some authors, a step towards

actually

writing non-faily depictions (if they're doing it in good faith, I mean) and that they won't get there if they don't ever try, even if the trying itself can be pretty bad--but you're right; their "practice runs" don't need to be public.

**That's a little sarcastic because I don't really mean that I honestly think it

actually

just sort of happens by pure coincidence that a story is like that, but you see what I mean, right? In-universe there could be a plausible reason or it could be sort of coincidential, like being explicitly set in a single-gender environment, or your example of just small groups of characters which wouldn't necessarily be representative.

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Cammalot

at 01:48 on 2012-06-26

And the "let's bring in a white girl to take over instead of her" aspect (ick). I didn't so much mind the "two women vying over leadership of the Market" scenario at the end of this book, but that was partially because I didn't realize what a large role it would play in The Demon's Surrender. (To be fair to Rees Brennan, it was significantly less terrible than it might've been, but it still wasn't pretty.)

Yeahhhhh... I did not like that at all. I did try to think well of it, as I liked much of what was done with the character beforehand (especially her mixed family, which is something I'm noticing a lot more in London now). But as the story veered more and more in that direction... It's like when you're used to driving on one side of the road, and you go off to a place where they drive on the opposite side, and you're sitting in what your lizard brain can't quite grasp is now the passenger's side, and you find yourself desperately trying to slam on the "brakes" to no avail...

I did NOT want it to go there. And then I hoped it might be going there in a different way... but no.

Also, thank you, Robinson.

@ Melanie -- yes! Ha ha -- this is why I try not to be too harsh on fanfiction. Practice does need to happen. (Of course, I also tend to avoid fanfiction -- some, not all -- so that might not be saying much, on my part.)

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Wardog

at 09:37 on 2012-06-26Hmm... I'm not sure but I think one of the, ah, 'problems' with fanfic is that is not, and should not be perceived, as 'practice' for 'real' writing (sorry for all the scare quotes). I think it's an entirely different entity, written in a different way, with a different purpose, for a different audience. I tend to get a lizard brain effect when I'm reading published books by authors who are influential in (and influenced by) fandom - it's rather like tea from the nutrimatic machine, y'know, almost but completely unlike a book. To be fair to SRB she's made the transition better than others I've experienced (peers at Cassie Clare).

Also I'm not sure if fandom could be sensibly relied upon to be a sensible practice audience - in the post you linked to, there's a response from SRB in which she basically criticises fandom for only being interested in straight (?) white boys.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not sure it is possible to practice run at these things. I mean if you 'practice' on yourself and your friends you'll just confirm your own prejudices and sit around congratulation yourself on your splendid portrayal of somebody who is not you.

On the other hand, published and be damned and upsetting a bunch of people doesn't seem a legitimate way forward either...

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 10:19 on 2012-06-26The only thing I can imagine fanfic being good "practice" for might be some technical issue like writing reasonable-sounding dialogue for an established character or setting up a scene. If the tv-writing business were less impenetrable, a lot of fic writers would probably do much better as guest writers on long-running series than they would as novelists.

As far as creating original characters or coming up with plots that haven't been done to death, I think fanfic-writing probably does more harm than good. I think another of Rowling's many crimes is making hackery look easier than it is.

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Wardog

at 10:25 on 2012-06-26Yes! Hackery is a fine old art and should be treated with the respect it deserves! (and I mean that seriously).

Sorry to randomly bring up an old article written by me (!) but I remember trying to read

City of Bones

and being struck by how ... oddly it was constructed. I probably articulated it in a way that would enrage all fanfic writers everywhere but I found even the technicalities of it (the way characterisation worked, the dialogue) noticeably different from original fiction.

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Arthur B

at 10:48 on 2012-06-26Genuine question: could there be a publisher-side role in helping writers get the sort of practice we're talking about without necessarily unleashing harmfully offensive texts on the public? I mean, commercial publication via a publisher is more or less the only place where writers are obliged to hold to any standard other than their own whim; self-publishing and fanfic doesn't really have any filters that an author couldn't bypass when it comes to getting a text to market. If editors took it on themselves to say things like "Are you sure your portrayal of this character isn't problematic for X reasons?" alongside points like "This looks like a typo but I'm not sure what you intended with it" and "Hang on, isn't this a continuity error?" then at least

someone

is flagging areas for improvement before a text is finalised.

Then again, that'd rely on the editors themselves being clued-in sorts who by and large "get it", and the publishers being willing to hold a book back until the author gets it right. And we live in a world where publishers are willing to put out

The Straight Razor Cure

so clearly offensive handling of race isn't enough of a commercial liability to put them off provided that there's a genre audience that's willing to accept it.

So basically bad authorial habits + fandom of enablers = more fail to come. :(

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Sister Magpie

at 15:39 on 2012-06-26It's an interesting question, though isn't it, exactly how bad it is to recognize fanfic styles in an original work? Is it just jarring or actually bad? I mean, the CoB article imo does a great job in pointing out the ways it can be a problem (and I didn't take it as insulting to fanfic, but that's me), but otoh there's probably a lot of things in fanfic that aren't bad when done in original work because people enjoy them in fanfic and will also enjoy them in original fic.

Like the post above, I do think fanfic can be helpful in improving some things--any writing can be good practice. It's just that there are other things it's not going to teach you how to do, and it can also give you bad habits. At least some of the fanfic writers who have gone pro were *very* popular writing fanfic, and while there are a lot of dismissive reasons for why they were popular (right pairings, right friends etc.), I think part of it was that they were often doing things that a lot of fanficcers lack or ignore.

That is, just as one can read a novel and recognize a fanfic style, one can also be reading a fanfic and realize hold on, this person's actually writing fic like an original work, which can be great. Rare, but great.

I'm not even sure that fanfic is always a good starting point for writing for a series, actually. I've never really written much fanfic (I've done Yuletide twice now, but since that's a fest for small fandoms and a couple of the stories I did wouldn't even qualify as fanfic because of the source material), but I've done tie-in novels and I think they rely much more on the standard "pro-fic" model rather than fanfic. Not that one can't crossover--as at least some Star Trek fic authors did, of course. I don't make the distinction that notorious anti-fanfic author Lee Goldberg does b/w tie-ins and fanfic but most fanfic couldn't be a tie-in novel any more than it could be an original novel. When I read the Sarah Monette books they also seemed very heavily influenced by fanfic to me, yet I don't think she's ever written any. (She does read it, though, so it could still be there.)

Basically I'm just wondering about whether fanfic is fundamentally different from any other type of writing that can influence an author. Like, I've noticed that I'll pick up habits from different writing jobs. The magazine that I work for has a very specific style (a fiction style, that is) that I have to remind myself isn't the law.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 15:52 on 2012-06-26

Sorry to randomly bring up an old article written by me (!) but I remember trying to read City of Bones and being struck by how ... oddly it was constructed.

Yeah, I was actually thinking of that article. Like you said there, that stupid scene with the boy at the piano would have worked if he had been Draco Malfoy. If you have a reasonable idea of who a character is, or at least the fanon version of him, you can put words in his mouth and make him do things that feel authentic. That's why I think the skills used in fanfic would actually transfer to writing for established tv shows in a way that they absolutely don't transfer to writing novels. It's not that fanfic makes you better at writing original fiction, it's that it makes you better at writing fanfic.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 16:00 on 2012-06-26

I've done tie-in novels and I think they rely much more on the standard "pro-fic" model rather than fanfic.

I didn't know that, but that makes sense too. I'm thinking of the few really good tv-based fics I've read where the dialogue sounds like it could have been on the show itself, and I wonder why this person isn't writing for the show. But of course there are other issues involved in tv writing that I don't know anything about.

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Sister Magpie

at 16:11 on 2012-06-26

If you have a reasonable idea of who a character is, or at least the fanon version of him, you can put words in his mouth and make him do things that feel authentic.

Within reason. Because let's not forget that OOC! is a common criticism of fanfic. The Draco Malfoy discovered playing piano is, after all, often referred to as fanon!Draco for a reason. The key is to sit the sweet spot where you're revealing something new about the character that deepens them and feels authentic but also doesn't feel like shifting the gravity of the piece to revolve around how deep they are, or make the audience feel like you're just fangirling that character, which has certainly been known to happen too. If you start doing that you might get the same "it's like fanfic" criticism.

The CoB example, for instance, really brings up the conundrum. The reveal of the piano scene lacks something because it's not actually Draco. But was Draco in HP lacking something because he had no "piano scenes?" (He did have something close to one in the bathroom in HBP, but compared to the fanfic version that scene's cut brutally short and the emotional fallout immediately smothered. I admit I did find the canon version unsatisfying because it didn't follow through emotionally, but a full-out fanfic version would undoubtedly be out of place even without the porn!)

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 16:48 on 2012-06-26Yeah, the piano scene fits Draco because it calls up the popular conception that he has a lonely inner life and a genuine but somewhat strained connection to his family and his upbringing. I think the suicide mission of HBP fulfills essentially the same purpose. At this point it's arguably moot what anyone thinks is in character for anyone in HP, but back in the day I found fanon!Draco a reasonable interpretation of the character, mostly because there was so little to him that pretty much anything would have fit.

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Cammalot

at 18:53 on 2012-06-26Kyra, I think I really, really need you to read book three. I find myself craving an article on it. :-)

in the post you linked to, there's a response from SRB

Please pardon my dumb -- can you point me to this? I've scrolled through several times and can't find this link.

My opinions on fanfic are complicated and changeable, and affected by the fact that I haven't been involved in it since about 1999, which was a bit pre-Livejournal and pre-Google and was indeed a time when you wrote the fic predominantly for your friends of like mind in "webcircles," and there was, for the longest, just one guy out there called "Minotaur" (now sadly deceased) who had a website "workshop" to teach people (mostly straight girls) how to write (gay) sex. It was not an enlightened time.

I agree that fanfic writing and fiction writing/novel writing are two different things and require significantly different skill sets. (The fanfiction skill set might overlap more with comic-book or television writing. Not necessarily with tie-in novels, as there's often a great deal of backstory creation and filling in internal-thoughtstream and motivational blanks going on there.) And proficiency at one doesn't mean proficiency at the other.

But it also looks to me, from the periphery, that in the fanfiction world of today, especially since the advent of more community-based (and less Geocities-esque) Livejournal-type sites and large fic archive-type places, there is a wider audience for it, more opportunity for feedback from people who don't know you, and more opportunities for education archived in the Wank blogs and fan history wikis and the various "Sue" and other critique (and snark) communities -- especially post Racefail.

So I'm thinking somewhat selfishly that if people are going to screw up, it might be best for them to do it there, under a pseudonym, in a place where I can comfort myself post-rage by saying, "Well, it's an amateur and at least they are not getting paid for this," or more likely, where I can avoid it entirely.

Also I'm not sure if fandom could be sensibly relied upon to be a sensible practice audience -- in the post you linked to, there's a response from SRB in which she basically criticises fandom for only being interested in straight (?) white boys.

I've read far too much critique of poor handling of characters of color in fiction to believe that fandom is [em]only[/em] interested in white boys. People are producing these versions of characters that are getting critiques. Overall, fandom might be [em]predominantly[/em] interested in straight white boys, but that is also true of the world at large (see the debacle over Rue in the Hunger Games). I feel like there is a growing movement to be inclusive and to get it right. Possibly not as large or as fast-growing as it could be. And there are still areas that need a lot more work having awareness raised than others -- awareness of racism far outstrips awareness of ablism, and acceptance of gayness is more prevalent and even more understood than issues of gender fluidity -- but [disclosure] I was born in the early 70s, so a lot of the progress I see around me looks HUGE.

So it might not be the best practice for excellent novel-writing skills, but overall, if done in public, I think it is at least starter practice for not pissing people off by being socially insensitive.

Tangentially, I saw a huge billboard covering the side of a bus for Cassie Claire's "Angel" series two days ago. I felt very resigned.

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Cammalot

at 19:12 on 2012-06-26(Correction -- not pre Google, but it was very new, and I hadn't heard of it when I sort of petered out of fandom. It was all "search.com.")

Oh, and I've got typos in my html. Darn...

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http://melaniedavidson.livejournal.com/

at 20:11 on 2012-06-26

Genuine question: could there be a publisher-side role in helping writers get the sort of practice we're talking about without necessarily unleashing harmfully offensive texts on the public?

That is more or less what I was thinking of when I said it didn't need to be public, actually--it is at least the publisher's/editor's job to make sure the book is up to standards and ready to be published (as opposed to it

not

being the job of all [insert group here] everywhere to have to educate authors about how not to fail miserably when writing about [insert group here]). But that's thinking ideally (well, sort of ideally--

ideally

the problem wouldn't exist!) and the practical problems are as you said.

But it also looks to me, from the periphery, that in the fanfiction world of today, especially since the advent of more community-based (and less Geocities-esque) Livejournal-type sites and large fic archive-type places, there is a wider audience for it, more opportunity for feedback from people who don't know you, and more opportunities for education archived in the Wank blogs and fan history wikis and the various "Sue" and other critique (and snark) communities -- especially post Racefail.

Yeah, it does seem that with fanfic there is a bit less distance between author and audience and possibly therefore a better chance that they will actually see that type of criticism (because it's more likely to be in the same actual community they're part of), either about their own work or about someone else's (as sometimes you see something someone

else

has done criticized and go, "oh shit, I've done that, too, time to stop").

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Cammalot

at 20:29 on 2012-06-26

Genuine question: could there be a publisher-side role in helping writers get the sort of practice we're talking about without necessarily unleashing harmfully offensive texts on the public?

I wonder about this a great deal.

On one hand, yes, they should. On the other, A) the primary goal of publishing corporations (maybe not academic presses, but they're included, to an extent) is to make money -- to find the hit that will appeal to large numbers of people and make the cash so they can stay in business, and B) the publishing industry seem to be very homogenous, to me -- a lot of the individual editors mean *very* well but might not *know* what they're looking for in order to correct it. I spent more of my time in magazines than in books, and so I'm sure my viewpoint is limited in that way, but I have also spent time as the Only Black in the Village attempting damage control at relatively late stages in the production process pointing out things that simply did not occur to my white colleagues. Also C) the people who are doing the hands-on selection of books aren't the corporate bigwigs who actually make the decisions that stick.

I have to sort that out in my head some more.

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Cammalot

at 20:46 on 2012-06-26(I forgot to disclaim I'm talking about the U.S., and the east coast U.S., for that matter.)

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Robinson L

at 22:02 on 2012-06-26You're welcome, Cammalot; I greatly appreciate getting your viewpoint on the issues on this thread.

Cammalot: Kyra, I think I really, really need you to read book three. I find myself craving an article on it. :-)

I'd like that, too. I've read

The Demon's Surrender

and I'd really like to see - and take part in - a discussion about it. I don't feel motivated to write a review myself (although I suppose I'm somewhat open to being badgered into it).

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Cammalot

at 02:38 on 2012-06-27*puppy eyes at Kyra*

I've read far too much critique of poor handling of characters of color in fiction to believe that fandom is [em]only[/em] interested in white boys. People are producing these versions of characters that are getting critiques.

CRIKEY. That was supposed to be "critique of poor handling of characters of color in "FANfiction." You know, I truly did do a preview...my screen is small... my dog ate my keyboard...

[50bookreadingchallenge]

L#37 Charm School by Anne Fine

I wanted to read a girly girly girl book.  The cover of this one is pink and sparkly and has a picture of a perfume bottle on it so I thought I was on the right track.  Unfortunately I found myself faced with a character (and maybe author) who are actively disdainful of girly girly things!  Ugh.

Bonny is a bit of a tomboy. She gets shunted off to ‘Charm School’ because her mother needs to take a bookkeeping course and doesn’t have appropriate childcare.  So Bonny ends up completely out of her depth and surrounded by girls with interests completely alien to her.  

The girls aren’t nice to each other; they put each other down and are constantly making snide remarks and trying to sabotage one another.  That is not a nice thing to do – but it isn’t unique to the beauty industry. Bonny witnesses the goings on of this beauty pageant and comes to various conclusions about the industry, like that it’s all a big scam and can’t these silly girls see that they’re being conned into thinking they’re ugly by companies that are just selling them expensive soap?  Etcetera blah blah blah.  

I was very disappointed. Bonny seemed to make it her mission to enlighten these silly girls about the fact that their interests don’t matter. It doesn’t matter, she says, who has the best dress or who has the whitest elbows!  

Well if you’re so wise ‘Bonny’ why don’t you tell us what IS important!  What DOES matter???  Because it seems to me that sports don’t matter either but I can’t imagine someone writing such a condescending, sneary, and prejudicial book about a boys’ football team.  It doesn’t matter who can dribble the fastest or do the most keepyuppies!  

What we actually have here is a case of blatant misogyny.  Taking an interest in anything feminine should not automatically be demeaning! Who cares if it doesn’t matter? It’s a fucking hobby!  And it’s not like people who are into model trains or badminton, or computer games don’t spend a fortune of their hobbies!  Why should we assume that girls and women are being ‘tricked’ into wanting to be pretty.  How fucking presumptuous and offensive.  Are boys who want the latest football strips being ‘tricked’ into thinking they have to have them?  

If you’re going to say that then you obviously have an issue with capitalism and consumer culture far beyond a simple kids’ beauty pageant and I would therefore advise you to pick on a group that isn’t already marginalised, looked down on, and belittled to make your point.  

I know I have a lot of issues with Anne Fine.  Anyone who read my review of Madame Doubtfire knows this already.  But seriously – have a think about what you’re saying here.

Also – throughout this book, Anne Fine uses the word ‘Twink’.  I don’t think she actually knows what it means.  We all know that a twink is a young, attractive, gay man.  According to one online dictionary I found, the word twink comes from the word Twinkie, meaning that a twink is sweet, soft, and full of cream.  RUDE! Another definition suggests that the Twinkie connection is because of the cake’s phallic shape.  RUDER AND RUDER!  

This book was jarring, disappointing, and ignorant.  

L x