Reserved for the Cat (Elemental Masters, #5) in Once Upon A Fairy Tale

Aug 06, 2010 Ruby Hollyberry rated it did not like it

Shelves: covers-i-like, library, fantasy-sci-fi, not-owned

My thought so far is that Mercedes Lackey may be going downhill. Foundation and the first part of Intrigues which I haven't finished, really did not give me this impression but they did give me a slight feeling of uneasiness due to some bits where it sounded like polemic, like the believe-your-own-hype problem had started to set in. Agenda sticking out from behind the curtain. Haven't had that problem with this book so far, but it is also not as good. It is more like the usual problems I have wi My thought so far is that Mercedes Lackey may be going downhill. Foundation and the first part of Intrigues which I haven't finished, really did not give me this impression but they did give me a slight feeling of uneasiness due to some bits where it sounded like polemic, like the believe-your-own-hype problem had started to set in. Agenda sticking out from behind the curtain. Haven't had that problem with this book so far, but it is also not as good. It is more like the usual problems I have with Mercedes Lackey (the same problems I have with my beloved Anita Blake books): lots of sloppiness, bad spelling and grammar not caught by editing, general lack of attention to small detail, are worse here than I remember in a while. Is this the devil of commercially successful authors? Is it that editors don't bother to edit what they know people ARE going to buy? Anyway, I've always known I have other problems with M. Lackey - for instance I don't like cops and I do like Aleister Crowley. This I don't exactly have to worry about with LKH. I don't care if LKH goes crazy and believes all her own hype, I don't care if she decides to spend the rest of her life in bed being fed strawberry ice cream by her own personal ice cream feeding servant as long as there is a laptop in there and she keeps writing books about Anita. But sometimes I worry about the peculiar philosophy of life in Lackey's books. She seems to have a very black and white trapped-in-childhood view of the world. Personally I think that, looking at reality today, it makes more sense to be obsessed with werewolves and serial killers than obsessed with how cool and nice cops and firemen are. It seems a little too Richard Scarry. Just me? On the other hand I don't guarantee to stop buying Lackey-books either. She really has a way of causing you to read the entire book very fast, sometimes a little breathlessly. Just not as breathlessly as Anita Blake gets read about!

Update: yes, downhill is the word. Social polemic, sloppiness, no editing to speak of, AND major logical holes in the plot. >:( ...more

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Apr 16, 2015 Danielle rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fairytale-retellings, historical-fiction

The premise of this story interested me. It opens up with the dancer Ninette being made the replacement for the lead in the matinee of the ballet the Parisian Ballet is preforming that day. But then after Ninette gets a really good review on her preformance which angers the lead ballerina she replaced, Ninette is fired. This leads to her meeting the cat who tells her to go with him, so she won't have to live on the streets. The entire part with Ninette at the ballet and her going to England up u ...more

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