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More Summer Reading
Jul. 14th, 2011 10:51 amA Kiss Before Midnight, Eloisa James
Not as good as the others that I read in Mexico. It just felt like James wasn't trying. Maybe she was pushed into doing a fairy tale series by her publishers? Because this is the first book in a fairy tale series - this one is Cinderella, and the next is Beauty and the Beast. I didn't feel much of a connection to the characters, except maybe Victoria (the step-sister), who was beautiful and sweet and a little dim and nice to Kate. I didn't feel like Kate (heroine) had been that mistreated because it was hardly shown - step-mother Mariana was hardly in it. Part of what I like about Cinderella stories is the emotional release of the "oh, at last we can be together!" part, and I just didn't get it.
Interesting subversions: Victoria is actually Kate's illegitimate half-sister; the prince has an awesome illegitimate half-brother who is his right-hand man (and should have been the hero); the prince is poor; Kate was going to leave for London with her godmother, the awesome Lady Wrothe (who used the phrase "wardrobe malfunction" at one point and part of me was thinking, "that sounds SO wrong here," and part of me was, "hahaha, BRILLIANT") at the end anyway, which is an interesting subversion but also ruined the tension, imo; the prince was into archaeology and (anachronistically) proper ways of doing it.
Final score: don't bother.
The Watsons/Emma Watson, Jane Austen and Joan Aiken
I've only just started it but I may not finish. My god, Aiken, you not only can't write in Austen's style (which is very obvious when you go straight from the original chapters to hers) you can't pick up on all her characterization! It seemed pretty obvious to me from the beginning that Elizabeth wasn't as anti-Tom Musgrave as she pretended to be. And Aiken has a horrible habit of making everyone either dreadful and you want to kill them, or pure and perfect with everyone else being mean to them. FFS.
Not as good as the others that I read in Mexico. It just felt like James wasn't trying. Maybe she was pushed into doing a fairy tale series by her publishers? Because this is the first book in a fairy tale series - this one is Cinderella, and the next is Beauty and the Beast. I didn't feel much of a connection to the characters, except maybe Victoria (the step-sister), who was beautiful and sweet and a little dim and nice to Kate. I didn't feel like Kate (heroine) had been that mistreated because it was hardly shown - step-mother Mariana was hardly in it. Part of what I like about Cinderella stories is the emotional release of the "oh, at last we can be together!" part, and I just didn't get it.
Interesting subversions: Victoria is actually Kate's illegitimate half-sister; the prince has an awesome illegitimate half-brother who is his right-hand man (and should have been the hero); the prince is poor; Kate was going to leave for London with her godmother, the awesome Lady Wrothe (who used the phrase "wardrobe malfunction" at one point and part of me was thinking, "that sounds SO wrong here," and part of me was, "hahaha, BRILLIANT") at the end anyway, which is an interesting subversion but also ruined the tension, imo; the prince was into archaeology and (anachronistically) proper ways of doing it.
Final score: don't bother.
The Watsons/Emma Watson, Jane Austen and Joan Aiken
I've only just started it but I may not finish. My god, Aiken, you not only can't write in Austen's style (which is very obvious when you go straight from the original chapters to hers) you can't pick up on all her characterization! It seemed pretty obvious to me from the beginning that Elizabeth wasn't as anti-Tom Musgrave as she pretended to be. And Aiken has a horrible habit of making everyone either dreadful and you want to kill them, or pure and perfect with everyone else being mean to them. FFS.
