sophia_sol | Entries tagged with rating: *

When this book was first announced, I was both excited and skeptical. Katherine Addison's previous book, The Goblin Emperor, is one of my top comfort-reads and a book I find an endless delight. (as evidenced by the fact that I've read it 5 times in the 6 years since it was published) So I was excited about the possibility of another Addison book! But on the other hand it's a Sherlock Holmes fanfic, featuring the Jack the Ripper murders, and I am a) a bit burned out on Sherlock Homes, and b) not interested in Jack the Ripper. But I figured I would give the book a try anyway, because I trusted Katherine Addison.

And unfortunately I found myself really disappointed in the book, and for unexpected reasons! (And now I'm feeling a lot more trepidatious about the Goblin Emperor sequel coming out next year...)

Usually when I write reviews of books I try to be fair, and acknowledge that books that don't work for me often do have their right readers out there even if I'm not one. But this book has enough stuff going on that I'm uncomfortable with that I don't think I can do that, even though it DOES have some genuinely good aspects too.

( cut for extensive spoilers and negativity )

At first I was just mildly annoyed at this book for things like not doing enough to make me believe the fake marriage was a reasonable idea for the characters in question, and then making the premise less fun by having both characters already into each other before they even get fake married. Also the book opens with the female lead getting a large batch of posters from a printshop with a mis-spelling of her name and I was just like. HOW. Either she provided the design file to the printshop, in which case she made the mistake, or she paid the printshop for design work and did not look at a SINGLE PROOF of the design, so it's also her fault. And then she's mad at the printshop for making the mistake! (I realize this is a niche complaint. But. It's literally how the book opens! It did not start me off on the right foot.) Anyway, I didn't really enjoy the book but I was going to give it a relatively forgiving review.

But then it ends with the aspiring-politician female lead dropping out of politics (which she enjoys and is good at!) for the sake of her man. And now, instead of being like "it's a shallow but well meaning book that doesn't work for me" I'm like "I AM ACTIVELY MAD AT THIS." I actually had to go back and read the end a second time because I didn't believe what I'd read. HOW DARE. Honestly! Well, I guess this is what I get for picking up a book from the Kobo free ebook shelf.

SFF written by a white man in the 1960s, so it is, unsurprisingly, rather sexist and colonialist. It's a very readable book but I don't actually like it.

The general premise: GOTTA SPREAD DEMOCRACY TO THE UNIVERSE but the Interplanetary Relations Bureau cannot force it onto other people (actual IRB motto: "Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny"!), so agents are embedded in planets to kind of work from underneath to make a world become a planet-wide democracy without it realizing it's being influenced. (Which obviously isn't forcing!!)

This one planet is proving difficult to manipulate, until one man comes along who understands the locals' interest in BEAUTY and uses that to help turn them against the king. Success! Democracy! Okay.

I think the book is trying to make a point about the importance of the arts? Which, I'm charmed by a Serious Science Fiction book of the era trying to make that point. But even though the main character purports to be interested in art for art's sake rather than for how he can use an understanding of art to manipulate people into democracy, he's certainly perfectly happy to use it that way, and the book as a whole is definitely a little too much about How To Make Backwards People Into Civilized Democracies. Hello colonialism. Gross.

Also there is exactly one female character and she's the love interest, and there's way too much narrative focus on how she's less attractive when she's in one of her various disguises.

ALSO as if the above weren't enough, there's an uncomfortable disability narrative. The despotic king likes to cut off one hand of anyone who displeases him. And these people all then go to "one-handed villages" even though they're not forced to go there. As if people with disabilities cannot (or do not deserve to) function in normal society and need to go live in their own private enclaves cut off from the rest of the world. And yes, one-handed people become instrumental in bringing about the revolution, but the idea of the villages is, uh. Bad. And also the one-handed trumpet players are only so important because of what they mean to the king, and not for their own sake, so there's that too. Disabled people as props in other people's stories!

Also, I just googled the sequel and it involves subhuman slaves SO THAT'S COOL. *shudders*

Back in the days after I'd started keeping a list of all the books I read each year but BEFORE I started posting reviews of them, I kept desultory personal notes (ranging from a single word to quite a few paragraphs) on some of the books. And I always vaguely forget I have, and forget where exactly to find them, and I'd like to just have them on my dw so they're FINDABLE again for me. And also some of you might find these interesting/amusing? (N.B. some of these contain what I would now classify as INCORRECT OPINIONS.)

SO HERE'S THREE YEARS' WORTH OF BOOKS IN ONE POST, OKAY GO.

( expand this cut to see nested cuts listing all the books )

Okay so I spent a few days in June reading a bunch of Courtney Milan. Apparently she's a "betcha can't ~~eat~~ read just one" kind of author for me. I read ten. Most were rereads, which I don't have anything new to say about, but this time I did get around to reading a few books of hers that I hadn't read in November when I last did this. Namely: the Carhart series, the first romances that Courtney Milan ever published! This was back when she was being conventionally published by Harlequin instead of being a self-published author.

This Wicked Gift, by Courtney Milan (Carhart #0.5)

( cut for discussion of rape )

Proof By Seduction, by Courtney Milan (Carhart #1)

And so I continue with the Carhart series despite the extremely inauspicious beginnings. This one, well, at least it didn't have a rapist main character? I still didn't love it though. I dunno, I didn't write down my thoughts soon enough after having read it so I don't remember all the reasons. But it doesn't have the things I like about later Courtney Milan (such as strong female friendships and interesting families) and also doesn't have a romance that I enjoyed reading about. And the leading man was pretty uninteresting to me, and the leading woman kept making baffling life choices.

Trial By Desire, by Courtney Milan (Carhart #2)

The Carhart series continues to improve! This one was actually mostly enjoyable. I liked the leading woman's mission in life, and I enjoyed the nature of the romance being one of having to develop a relationship between a husband and wife who don't really know each other and have been on different continents for years. But although this is closer to the Courtney Milan I know and love, this book just didn't get me excited the way her later books do.

Ugghghgh this book is my object lesson in making sure to bring enough books with me when I'm away from home. I went away for a weekend and was all "oh I'll be restrained and only bring one and a half books. That's a good reasonable number, I can't possibly want more than that." WRONG. I wanted more than that. And usually I can count on my family members to have brought books that I wouldn't mind borrowing, but that weekend they failed me and this book was the best of the bunch. I went into it knowing it wouldn't be up my alley, and within very short order was hate-reading it because as well as not being up my alley it's also annoyingly sure of itself while also being wrong. I HAVE LEARNED MY LESSON, in the future I will always bring profligate numbers of books with me whenever I'm away from home.

Religion talk follows, put below a cut so people who don't care for such things can easily avoid.

( Read more... )

In conclusion I was very unimpressed with the book and would recommend people interested in a more mystical approach to christianity instead seek out christian mystics from actually within the christian tradition. And for people who are interested in buddhism, maybe look up stuff by people who aren't white dudes.

(also I'm never gonna get over the fact that the publisher of this book is called "Sounds True" ahahahaha that reads entirely too much like the publisher is more interested in truthiness than truth, which feels sadly accurate for this book.)

Crossposts: http://sophia-sol.livejournal.com/249358.html

( Eight Cousins, or the Aunt Hill, by Louisa May Alcott )

( The Stories of our Christmas Customs, by NF Pearson, illustrated by Frank Hampson )

( Branch: A Memoir With Pictures, by John L Ruth )

( Rose in Bloom, by Louisa May Alcott )

( Blood of Tyrants, by Naomi Novik )

Crossposts: http://sophia-sol.livejournal.com/197539.html

I am unimpressed by this book. The entire thing has this cutesy ~ooh so romantic~ tone that's all about how you the reader CLEARLY wish you lived in Jane Austen's time.

UM NO THANK YOU.

Here, let me quote you a bit of the introduction:

How to explain the sheer tingling joy one experiences when two interesting, complex, and occasionally aggravating characters have at last settled their misunderstandings and will live happily ever after, no matter what travails life might throw in their path, because Jane Austen said they will, and that's that? How to describe the exhilaration of being caught up in an unknown but glamorous world of balls and gowns and rides in open carriages with handsome young men? How to explain that the best part of Jane Austen's world is that sudden recognition that the characters are just like you? If you are nodding, Gentle Reader, this book is for you.

I should have just abandoned the book after reading this paragraph instead of going on to read THE ENTIRE BOOK.

This is clearly a book written by someone who sees Austen as nothing but a writer of romances. I do enjoy the happily ever afters, but I don't read for the "glamorous" set-pieces and characters that are just like me. I don't actually identify with any of Austen's characters -- I admire that Austen manages to make characters that are so recognizably themselves, full and entire human beings that are distinct enough that they clearly AREN'T just a reader-stand-in. And talking about Austen's glamorous world? UM NO Austen was writing some PRETTY BITING SOCIAL COMMENTARY about her world in and amongst the love stories.

This kind of romanticisation of the past (of ANY era of the past) really bugs me, not least because it a) decomplexifies the reality of history and b) inevitably involves imagining yourself in the position of the people of privilege.

So anyways. There's some decent information in here, but all couched in that obnoxious ~ooh so romantic don't you wish you were there~ tone.

The most admirable thing about this book is that it has a really great sewn binding, none of this flimsy slice-and-glue crap.

Crossposts: http://sophia-sol.livejournal.com/187252.html

So I just reread The Great Gatsby for the first time since my grade 11 English class, lo these many years ago. I utterly hated it at that time.

My opinion now: well, I can see its virtues. On a word-by-word and sentence-by-sentence level the writing is rather good. And the whole thing is very evocative of time and place and mood. But wow, I still hate every single character in this book! And am completely unsympathetic with their problems! And just wish they would all shut up and go away!

I guess my problem here is that I am really really really not into that particular genre of "literary fiction" that is all about horrible people being miserable. It is a celebrated genre and many people are into it and there are lots and lots of books in it published every year but I am NOT THERE. (see also: why I hated Lev Grossman's "The Magicians" so much, because it was written in the patterns of that genre despite being also a fantasy novel. NO GET YOUR LITERARY MISERY OUT OF MY SFF PLSKTHX)

So I think the highest praise I can give The Great Gatsby is that it is a really excellent example of horrible-people-being-miserable literary fiction? Because it is! BUT I STILL HATE IT.