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thistlechaserSun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica George
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
A retelling of some fairy tale, I believe the same one Beauty and the Beast was based off of. A poor girl is stolen away by a talking polar bear, taken to a castle to live in for a year, but because women are weak willed and cannot help themselves, she doomed a prince to a horrible life.
I loved this book in the beginning, but the longer I read it, the less I enjoyed it. The turning point was this:
Trapped in the castle, every night a strange man got into the girl's bed. Unsurprisingly, she had issues with this. She tried to avoid sleeping in the bed, but he kept carrying her back. There were no lights, so she couldn't see who it was. Because she could not just accept that fact, because she was all sneaky and snuck a light in to see who it was, the stranger (polar bear in human form, a cursed prince) was doomed to marry a horribly ugly troll woman.
If she had only just accepted a stranger in her bed for a whole year, everything would have ended well!!!!!
The lesson of this book pisses me off to much. All the problems in the book were caused by her being unable to accept a stranger climbing into her bed every night. (I know fairy tales are old, I know the lessons in it are dated, but the author chose to write this book based on it.)
If I were rating just the latter half of the book, I'd rate it hated, but I did enjoy the first fifth or so of it, so going with disliked instead.
Space Is Just a Starry Night by Tanith Lee
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
It always feels odd when a famous author's books don't work for me. I think this is the first thing I've read by Lee, but I just didn't enjoy it at all. Wiki said critics described her writing as "use of rich poetic prose" which really also sums up why I didn't like it. It was so wordy, I would have described it as nearly purple, I just wanted her to get to the point of her sentences.
Stopped reading at 11%.
The Beginning (Dark Paladin Book #1) by Vasily Mahanenko
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Dislike (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
LitRPG still makes me so sad. It should be a completely perfect match for my tastes (people trapped in a video game), but almost without exception, they're nothing but poorly written, poorly edited, macho male fantasies. And so, a year or so back, I culled all the LitRPG off my Kindle. Or so I thought. Now and then I discover one I missed, like this one.
I really should have just deleted it, but instead I gave it a chance. In the 2% I read it actually had no typos/editing issues (wonder of wonders!), but it was still not a match for my tastes and I stopped reading.
Amusingly, like so much LitRPG, this one was translated from Russian. (Why is the lion's share of LitRPG by Russian authors?) In the middle of a conversation (in English), the main character said to himself something like "It's amazing how descriptive the Russian language is". Gave me quite a laugh.
Partial book credits:
Point reached in these books: 11% + 2%
Previous abandoned book total: 552%
New total: 565% (5 books)
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
A retelling of some fairy tale, I believe the same one Beauty and the Beast was based off of. A poor girl is stolen away by a talking polar bear, taken to a castle to live in for a year, but because women are weak willed and cannot help themselves, she doomed a prince to a horrible life.
I loved this book in the beginning, but the longer I read it, the less I enjoyed it. The turning point was this:
Trapped in the castle, every night a strange man got into the girl's bed. Unsurprisingly, she had issues with this. She tried to avoid sleeping in the bed, but he kept carrying her back. There were no lights, so she couldn't see who it was. Because she could not just accept that fact, because she was all sneaky and snuck a light in to see who it was, the stranger (polar bear in human form, a cursed prince) was doomed to marry a horribly ugly troll woman.
If she had only just accepted a stranger in her bed for a whole year, everything would have ended well!!!!!
The lesson of this book pisses me off to much. All the problems in the book were caused by her being unable to accept a stranger climbing into her bed every night. (I know fairy tales are old, I know the lessons in it are dated, but the author chose to write this book based on it.)
If I were rating just the latter half of the book, I'd rate it hated, but I did enjoy the first fifth or so of it, so going with disliked instead.
Space Is Just a Starry Night by Tanith Lee
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
It always feels odd when a famous author's books don't work for me. I think this is the first thing I've read by Lee, but I just didn't enjoy it at all. Wiki said critics described her writing as "use of rich poetic prose" which really also sums up why I didn't like it. It was so wordy, I would have described it as nearly purple, I just wanted her to get to the point of her sentences.
Stopped reading at 11%.
The Beginning (Dark Paladin Book #1) by Vasily Mahanenko
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Dislike (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
LitRPG still makes me so sad. It should be a completely perfect match for my tastes (people trapped in a video game), but almost without exception, they're nothing but poorly written, poorly edited, macho male fantasies. And so, a year or so back, I culled all the LitRPG off my Kindle. Or so I thought. Now and then I discover one I missed, like this one.
I really should have just deleted it, but instead I gave it a chance. In the 2% I read it actually had no typos/editing issues (wonder of wonders!), but it was still not a match for my tastes and I stopped reading.
Amusingly, like so much LitRPG, this one was translated from Russian. (Why is the lion's share of LitRPG by Russian authors?) In the middle of a conversation (in English), the main character said to himself something like "It's amazing how descriptive the Russian language is". Gave me quite a laugh.
Partial book credits:
Point reached in these books: 11% + 2%
Previous abandoned book total: 552%
New total: 565% (5 books)
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no subject
Date: 2019-09-01 11:48 pm (UTC)Don't feel bad you don't care for Tanith Lee. I read a few of her juvenile fic books, and was, not so impressed. I do feel bad when I don't like a classic, though!
Ugh for LitRPG again. Are these all written by men? I wonder if one authored by a woman would have a different slant and be more reasonable.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-02 12:03 am (UTC)It's funny in a comment on your post that I mentioned the book sounded really familiar. I spent half of this book thinking I had read it before. I must have read another retelling of the fairy tale...
I've read a couple LitRPG books written by women. A few of them were better, though I strongly suggested some were really written by men under a pen name. (When the author spends more time describing womens' bodies than even the setting... I suspect a male writer.)
I've read a very few LitRPG books that were good. Basically, if they're not self published, they have a higher chance of being good.