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chocolatepotWell, I quite liked it, but of course I have some gripes. I always have gripes, about everything.
+ My train of thought - sped up - was something like, "This is so much like I Capture the Castle, wow, only on a grander scale. But I don't like it when the heroine obsesses over a guy, I just can't identify with it, and what I really, really miss from YA, now that I think about it, is the Diana Wynne Jones type of romance. If Veronica and Simon got together (providing he doesn't turn out to be her brother), that would be classic DWJ - having the grand, fighty romance go to impressive side characters. Hmm, but Toby/Simon is good, I hope that doesn't get proved to not actually be going on in the next book."
+ It's actually quite Diana Wynne Jonesian in general, though. It should have clicked for me at once, but it wasn't until the other villagers left that I realized how incredibly beyond fucked up the adult situation was that was being treated as normal, which is another classic DWJ thing. Seriously, Rebecca was the most repellant character in the cast and I'm including the Nazis.
+ Sophie suddenly realizing that Simon was not a god was also so very DWJ.
+ I suddenly want to reread Everard's Ride, but I don't own it and it's not available on the Kindle or a torrent anywhere.
+ I know liking first person (especially first person present) has become the cool hipster thing to like because it's unpopular, but the thing about it is that, as I've said before, unless you give the character a really strong voice it just does not work. Katniss. Pagan. You feel like they're talking to you. Part of what reminded me of The Pursuit of Love was that Sophie just blends in as a narrator like Fanny, but Fanny was supposed to be a sort of invisible nonentity while commenting on the not-Mitfords. Sophie's voice just comes off like ordinary narration, like the book would have been exactly the same if you replaced the "I"s with "she"s.
+ I had a hard time suspending my disbelief that they could survive on a barren rock with only a couple of other people for so long, but I suppose it's possible.
+ I am 95% certain that they will change the laws and make Veronica queen. Because they have to. (Though I'm not sure why they were under Salic Law in the first place, as Montmaray was started by an Englishman, and anyway once you lose all of your subjects surely you can do as you like? Who was going to go, no, that's illegal? Toby and Veronica could have just formally agreed that she could be queen.)
+ My train of thought - sped up - was something like, "This is so much like I Capture the Castle, wow, only on a grander scale. But I don't like it when the heroine obsesses over a guy, I just can't identify with it, and what I really, really miss from YA, now that I think about it, is the Diana Wynne Jones type of romance. If Veronica and Simon got together (providing he doesn't turn out to be her brother), that would be classic DWJ - having the grand, fighty romance go to impressive side characters. Hmm, but Toby/Simon is good, I hope that doesn't get proved to not actually be going on in the next book."
+ It's actually quite Diana Wynne Jonesian in general, though. It should have clicked for me at once, but it wasn't until the other villagers left that I realized how incredibly beyond fucked up the adult situation was that was being treated as normal, which is another classic DWJ thing. Seriously, Rebecca was the most repellant character in the cast and I'm including the Nazis.
+ Sophie suddenly realizing that Simon was not a god was also so very DWJ.
+ I suddenly want to reread Everard's Ride, but I don't own it and it's not available on the Kindle or a torrent anywhere.
+ I know liking first person (especially first person present) has become the cool hipster thing to like because it's unpopular, but the thing about it is that, as I've said before, unless you give the character a really strong voice it just does not work. Katniss. Pagan. You feel like they're talking to you. Part of what reminded me of The Pursuit of Love was that Sophie just blends in as a narrator like Fanny, but Fanny was supposed to be a sort of invisible nonentity while commenting on the not-Mitfords. Sophie's voice just comes off like ordinary narration, like the book would have been exactly the same if you replaced the "I"s with "she"s.
+ I had a hard time suspending my disbelief that they could survive on a barren rock with only a couple of other people for so long, but I suppose it's possible.
+ I am 95% certain that they will change the laws and make Veronica queen. Because they have to. (Though I'm not sure why they were under Salic Law in the first place, as Montmaray was started by an Englishman, and anyway once you lose all of your subjects surely you can do as you like? Who was going to go, no, that's illegal? Toby and Veronica could have just formally agreed that she could be queen.)
