Mike > Recent Status Updates

"The conflict is resolved. WHY ARE THERE MORE PAGES?"

I wrote that two years ago, as a status update when I was reading Clockwork Princess. And it applies equally well here. Clare's books seem to stretch on long after the villain is defeated. That said, I appreciate that there's some legitimate sacrifice to this ending, rather than everything being rosy. That's new for Clare.

SPOILERS:

All of Clare's villains are defeated in huge anti-climaxes. It's never a big battle or anything - it always comes completely out of nowhere, in a scene that doesn't feel like the climax of the tension, just more buildup. I never know when one of Clare's climaxes has occurred until the falling action has already begun.

Perhaps I'm asking this in the wrong place, but I need a movie recommendation. I want a teen movie that deals heavily with religion. It would be helpful if the movie also dealt with how sex relates to said religion, although that's not necessary. (I've already seen Easy A, but other than that, I'm not familiar with any movies like this.) Let me know if you have suggestions.

The more Clare tries to make Sebastian look like a super-powerful, undefeatable force of evil, the more she makes his inevitable defeat predictable.

It fascinates me how deeply hypocritical the framers were. John Adams seemed to think he believed in a fundamentally egalitarian society, despite doing little about slavery, the oppression of women, or the plight of Native Americans in this era. It's interesting that so many people thought this way.

This is really sweet. Alix and Liana are by far Peters' most compelling characters.

Clare, stop trying to make Sebastian interesting. Just cut your losses - he'll always be a boring villain. With these faux-insightful monologues about wanting to rule this demon dimension... you're just embarrassing yourself.

I don't really know what else there is to say about this. It's not getting any more interesting.

This is taking me back to when I was first getting into YA. I mean, this is kinda like The Fault In Our Stars meets Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist, with maybe a little This Is Not a Test in there.

This is, overall, remarkably uninteresting to me. I dunno, a lot of people seem to have enjoyed it, but it's not doing anything for me.

This is, overall, remarkably uninteresting to me. I dunno, a lot of people seem to have enjoyed it, but it's not doing anything for me.

Goddamn, has the fanservice in this series always been so shameless? I mean, that sex scene served no real purpose within the narrative except for romantic wish fulfillment, and it went on for like 15 pages. Thank god it wasn't very explicit, or it would've been downright pornographic.

King has no sense of restraint, in terms of characterization. Everyone, except maybe Barbie, is an over-the-top caricature.

This is kinda nice. It's not that I don't have problems with this book - there's a lot of missed potential in Joss' story, and the technology in the book feels a little dated. But in terms of character development and realism, this is head and shoulders above everything else Peters has done.

Ellis' writing is kind of engaging, even if what he's talking about isn't. I'll give him that.

This is mostly a character study of the framers. Which would be fine, except that the ways in which their actions affected Americans is an essential part of that study, and it's completely neglected.

""I don't want to feed on my friends' blood," [said Simon].
"Why not?" [Jace said.] "We've been here before, haven't we? Last time you were starving, I gave you my blood. It was a little homoerotic, maybe, but I'm secure in my sexuality.""

Y'know, I'm afraid that with all my talk of how bad the prose is, I've been neglecting the awfulness of the dialogue.

The people here are going crazy way faster than the people in Gone did. I mean, in just the last 30 pages, we've had murder, rape, and necrophilia. And the border's only been up for two days.

I just don't find the founding fathers as interesting as Ellis does. I'm not gonna be invested in this.

Here's something I've noticed about Peters' novels: Christianity always equals homophobia. In almost every one of her novels, there's been a character who was homophobic because of his/her Christianity. Which strikes me as a little dated, for a book that came out in 2014. Sure, there's a lot of homophobia among Christians, but it's far from a universal connection.

Sebastian is a terrible villain. He's driven by two things: the fact that everybody but Valentine always hated him for his entire life, and the fact that he has demon blood. Moreover, he was hated because of his demon blood, which makes it justified that everyone hated him, in the logic of this world. So, long story short, he's evil because demons are evil, and everyone who's good hates them.

The problem with this book is that Ellis treats the early U.S. government more like a philosophical RPG than an actual government. He rarely acknowledges that the actions of the founding fathers had a profound effect on the people that they governed. It's unabashed Great Man History, and it ignores the most important part of the story.

For all this book's flaws, I guess Big Jim is a pretty compelling character.

My only real problem with this book is that Liana is kinda bland.

This is very decidedly pro-Founding Fathers. Which I guess is what you get with an analysis that completely overlooks the effects that their actions had on the masses.

SPOILERS:

Wait, that's how Maureen dies? Easily the best villain in this cannon, and she dies with no buildup and no chance for her plans to actually go into effect? That was the biggest anticlimax of all time.

I think the characters are the real place this novel fails. None of them are distinct enough for me to connect to - they all just read the same to me, and there are too many of them to keep track of.

Alix is a great character. Finally, Peters has gotten her standard protagonist right - Alix reads her age unlike Antonia, she has personality traits unlike Reagan and Daelyn, and the melodrama in her voice feels warranted, unlike Alyssa's. It's what I've been waiting for in all of Peters' books.

Guys, it's messing with my mind that I'm enjoying this. I genuinely did not expect this to be good.

James Madison: the original bloodsucking American politician.

I can't tell if the writing is getting better, or if I'm just growing numb to it.