Cat’s
Comments
(group member since Aug 02, 2017)
Cat’s
comments
from the Reading with Style group.
Showing 121-140 of 303
20.6 - OldTo Catch an Heiress by Julia Quinn
set in 1814
Despite my bad experience last time out with Quinn, still I persevered. And this one was worth it. All the necessary parts were present and correct: feisty, entertaining heroine, handsome, slightly emotionally constipated hero, some comic turns plus a baddy or two to generate the requisite scrapes (running away from EEEEvil guardian, capturing a spy ring) to throw our couple together and get the crucial “I love you”s exchanged.
And my gentle mocking of the formula to one side, (and it’s a winning one, no doubts about it) there is sufficient interest, especially in Caroline’s character to raise it above the dull formulaic and into good read.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+15 Combo (10.2; 10.8; 20.10)
Post total = 45
Season total = 1280
10.8 - Double Letter NameStranger than we can Imagine: Making Sense of the Twentieth Century by J.M.R. Higgs
This is a very entertaining look at the 20th Century, an attempt to put it into context and explore and explain the reasons and upheavals that occurred across science, art, politics and philosophy.
Higgs’ thesis is, much simplified, that the 20th Century was a period of change, to move society from Empire (with imposed behaviour and values flowing from the top) to a networked society (with behaviour and values arising from compliance to the network response). He makes this argument by exploring key points through the century, explaining how discoveries such as Einstein’s theory of relativity (time depends on the indivdual’s perspective) to Cubism (Picasso is exploring how different perspectives are equally valid ways of depicting something) or birth control (individuals taking ownership of their body) helped create the capitalist, individualist way of life. He sees hope that the new technologies arising from the internet and “digital native” generation will start to form a more balance society, where individualism is permitted, but with feedback from the network to reward good behaviour and curb bad.
Whether one agrees with the overarching thesis or not - and certainly it is very Western-centric (there’s a throwaway line “explaining” that difficulties with religious extremism - especially arising from the Middle East - is because the strong hand of dictators has prevented the exploration of what it means to be individualistic society, causing the clash) - he presents his snippets of history in a very engaging, relatable and understandable way. This isn’t, and has no real pretentions to be, a rigorous scholarly exercise; it is thought-provoking and entertaining, and recommended.
+10 Task
+10 Not-a-Novel (non-fiction)
+10 Review
Post total = 30
Season total = 1235
Can I combine "spy" and "spies"?To Catch an Heiress has 12 spy shelvings and 10 spies shelvings....
[hopeful grin]
20.5 - OldTraitor's Blade by Sebastien de Castell
(prev claimed in #453, but adding review)
set in medieval era world
Oh, this was a fun ride! The start of a fantasy sequence following the attempts of three friends, and brothers-in-arms to try and fulfill the last orders of their deposed king. The three are members of an elite group, who used to deliver the King’s justice before a coup overthrew him. Now they are scorned as traitors and turncoats.
Our main man, who has an inevitably bleak backstory, is snarky, angry and has a somewhat suicidal bent, which makes him willing to take outrageous steps in order to continue to try and do Right despite attitude of the new rulers of the land, who lean more to the view that Power is ends enough.
I enjoyed learning about the world in dribs and drabs, meeting the various players, who were all nuanced enough not to feel stock.
Overall fresh, fun, entertaining, and I’m looking forward to the next in the series!
+20 Task
+10 Review
+5 Combo 10.8
Post = 35 (10 new)
Season total = 1200
20.5 - OldThe Mislaid Magician: or Ten Years After by Patricia C. Wrede
(prev claimed in #454, but adding review)
set in 1830/40s
Epistolary novels can be hit or miss, in my experience. The first in this series was a hit, but this one is definitely a miss.
The plot was a mess, with random things chucked in at various points to… I dunno… make it more interesting? more exciting? Whatever the authors’ intention, it didn’t work for me.
So, what was the plot: one couple dump their kids on their best friends and go scouting round the North of England for a missing German magician, linked to the railway boom and ley lines, stone circles and a political power grab. The family with the kids have a snooper and acquire a mystery girl and… that’s about it for them.
At the unravelling I could see there was maybe an attempt to do some world-building, possibly with a view to another novel. If so, I’ll be passing.
+20 Task
+10 Review
Post = 30 (10 new)
Season total = 1190
20.5 - OldArrow's Fall by Mercedes Lackey
(prev claimed in #449, but adding review)
set in medieval era world
pub 1988
The last in the first (publication order) Valdemar trilogy, the subtle seeding of the Bad Guy comes to fruition in this one. But not very well.
The main part of the book is more piss-poor communication (see review of Arrow’s Flight) between Talia, her soul mate (locked at first glance. sigh. bleurgh.) and his best friend, the guy Talia scratched her itch with (no strings attached) in book 2. Of course, as this is the main element of the book, they can’t just be adults and say “it was NSA, I am fated to love you”, but instead sigh and mope and assume that there’s mind-reading skillz going on.
Luckily the Bad Guy, and his Puppet Master, plot line is there, which explodes in the last quarter of the book, with rape, torture, death and heroic magic. Our heroine is saved and united with her fated love, but nothing else is resolved.
Frustrating, I think, is the one-word review.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+5 Oldie
Post = 35 (10 new)
Season total = 1180
20.5 - OldArrow's Flight by Mercedes Lackey
(prev claimed in #448, but adding review)
set in medieval era world
pub 1987
The second (in publication order, anyway) in the Valdemar books, this focuses on our plucky heroine’s struggle with her magic powers. In book 1 Talia was, even if she didn’t think so, brilliant, wonderful, awesome, learning how to be the best Herald in the history ever. Everything came easy, in terms of learning at least. Now she’s sent out to learn the actual ropes, and things rapidly go to pot. Of course, it all comes good in the end, and she’s better than ever for having dealt with the knocks and come out the other side.
Things I genuinely liked: the portrayal of sex as a healthy itch for both partners (and of whatever sex), not tied up with slut shaming or the like; magic horses, because who doesn’t love magic horses?!.
Things I was less keen on: Talia is piss-poor at communication. Which is probably an issue, given she’s a Herald, which is a job all about communication. A growth area for sure!
+20 Task
+10 Review
+5 Oldie
Post = 35 (10 new)
Season total = 1170
20.7 - Single WordHexed by Kevin Hearne
(prev claimed in #450, but adding review)
This is the second in a long-running urban fantasy series, the premise of which is that our hero is the last Druid, who has managed to hang around for millennia, and who is a personal (very personal!) acquaintance of a number of Irish goddesses.
The first in the series was fun, and this one is too, though I do have qualms. This felt more like a filler story which was padded out - to its detriment - than a full-fledged story. A #1.5 in the series, if you like, not #2. There were fights - fisticuffs and trickery - which I enjoyed a lot; Hearne can write good action. What there wasn’t was much in the way of interesting plot or character development. It was linear, and served only to set-up number 3 in the series.
However, there was plenty of Oberon, the wolfhound sidekick, who is totally the reason for reading this series, so I’m not that upset, and will be reading #3 soon enough.
+20 Task
+10 Review
Post= 30 (10 new)
Season total = 1160
20.5 - OldBeauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley
set in medieval era world
pub 1978
900 lex
Retellings of the Beauty and the Beast story can be problematic, especially through a feminist gaze - the handing off a daughter to pay for her father’s crime, the Stockholm-syndrome isn’t actually love - or at least, not healthy love, generally the Beauty having little to no agency and being used for the Beast’s own ends.
McKinley’s version can’t get around all of these issues, though she does manage to soften down some of the lack of agency. What it does achieve is to tell the story well, populating it with real feeling characters, giving me, at least, enough to work with to happily disengage more critical faculties and to just enjoy the story. Quality escapism.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+5 Oldie
Post = 35
Season total = 1150
20.7 - Single WordBelgravia by Julian Fellowes
set in 1840
Julian Fellowes, he of Gosforth Park and Downton Abbey fame, turns his hand to an earlier age, though remains in the familiar zone of the clashes between upstairs/downstairs and old money (nobility) / new money (trade).
We have an opening chapter set in 1815, on the eve of Waterloo, to meet the spurs to the plot, then hop forward 25 years to 1840, to watch the fall out play out. All the stock characters are there: autocratic lords and ladies, servants faithful and faithless, clever up-and-coming youths and indolent, entitled ones. And they are, by and large, stock characters, running through a fairly stock plot, which, after a few twists and turns, ends up with happy endings for the good and the wicked get what they jolly well deserve.
I thought it was meh - there were some promising moments, but it all got tied up way too neatly all too quickly, with little ruffling of emotions. Even the jealous son had a Damascene conversion, based on very little indeed.
+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 Combo 10.8; 20.5
Post= 40
Season total = 1115
10.8 - Double Letter NamesScrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick
This is an autobiography delivered via essays, which sounds a bit odd, but is a decent enough way of getting through the interesting or relevant stories without having to plough too much through regular teen drama. On the downside, the picking and choosing does mean that some stories I’d’ve liked to hear are glossed over - the move from struggling auditonee to successful actor is glossed over super-quick, for instance.
Kendrick has a light touch over the emotional impact of events - this is entertainment, not a soul-baring exercise to help others deal with things. That’s not to say it’s not honest, which it is; ditto thought-provoking, as Kendrick explores concerns about growing up, becoming an adult, becoming a functional adult...
Overall, Kendrick’s head isn’t a bad place to spend some time in.
+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 Not-a-Novel
Post= 30
Season total = 1075
20.7 - Single WordAfterwards by Rosamund Lupton
(prev claimed in #451, but adding review)
This wasn’t great. It had moments where it worked, and moments where I hated the narrator so much.
Following a fire at a primary school, leaving mother and daughter in comas and fighting for their live in hospital, we join the mother in a weird out-of-body experience, where she is a floating spirit able to move around with whoever she wants, listening in to their conversations. How this happens isn’t explained, nor is the fact that the only people affected like this are the mother and daughter - all the other coma patients are stuck in their bodies, but our two are sufficiently special (they aren’t) that they can float about and chat to each other.
The mother, our narrator, is chatting constantly, addressing herself to her husband (lots of 2nd person narration going on here. Reviewers generally hated this, and the present tense, but listening to it on audio was only intermittently annoying. I also got to escape the abuse of italics commented on.) Her chat is either about solving the crime or meditations on love and the meaning thereof. Endless meditations on love and the meanings thereof. Ye gads, I could TOTALLY have lived with about 90% of that chat cut.
Both the solution to the mystery of who set the fire and the ending of the book (will they/won’t they live) were predictable. That said, I did enjoy the unravelling of the mystery, with our narrator being privy to information the detectives didn’t, but being too dumb to pull it together properly, so swooning with amazement at the reveals.
2*
+20 Task
+10 Review
Post = 30 (10 new)
Season total = 1045
20.5 - OldThe Mislaid Magician: or Ten Years After by Patricia C. Wrede
set early 19th C
+20 Task
Season total = 1025
20.5 - Old Traitor's Blade by Sebastien de Castell
set in medieval era world
+20 Task
+5 Combo 10.8
Post total = 25
Season total = 1005
20.5 - OldArrow's Fall by Mercedes Lackey
set in a medieval era world
pub 1988
+20 Task
+5 Oldies
Post = 25
Season total = 930
20.5 - OldArrow's Flight by Mercedes Lackey
set in a medieval era world
pub 1987
+20 Task
+5 Oldies
Post = 25
Season total = 905
