Back to DNF books...

[thistlechaser]

Current theme: Books with things with wings on the cover.

DNF #42: Dragons of Introvertia by James and Bit Barringer. Sometimes a book seems like it might be so bad that it would be funny, which is why I got this one.

The country's name is Introvertia. All the people who live in it are introverts. As opposed to the Kingdom of People Yelling and Having No Concept of Personal Space (is what the people of Introvertia call it, though its official name is Exclaimovia).

The names of the places were just as... different. "Rapidly Flowing River passed along the edge of Very Large Forest."

Maybe the book was supposed to be funny. Maybe young readers would find it funny. I didn't.

DNF #43: Song Walker by Zillah Bethell. I read very few "real life people set in real life places during current times" books, I'd rather read fantasy or scifi. I thought this one might be interesting enough to work for me (a young girl gets lost in the Australian outback, and a first nation girl finds her), but my attention quickly wandered. Seemed well written though.

DNF #44: Wolf Girl: Into the Wild by Anh Do. I'm fine with YA and MG books, but this one was a children's book. Every couple paragraphs there was a picture, even if just a picture of text "HELLO!" "MUM!" things like that. The book was so short (would have been less than two hours to read), but I read half of it and was bored, so dropped it.

DNF #45: Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton. I love crows, so when I saw this book was written from a crow's POV, I was really excited. Problem is, it was supposed to be funny. Very funny. "uniquely hilarious", the publishers describe it as. You'd think "zombie apocalypse, narrated by a crow" would be funny, but I wasn't amused in the least. Not once, not even the most minor bit amused. Instead of funny, it came off as really stupid to me (for example, the main character, the crow, was named Shit Turd). Guess it just wasn't my kind of humor.

DNF #46: The Inkwell Chronicles by J. D. Peabody. Did you know there are Christian middle grade fiction books? I hadn't, but now I do. Beautiful cover, but right from the get-go it was way too religious for me. I don't need Bible verses and scripture in my fiction. Edit: The review from the site "Books for Christian Girls" says "Negative Content- Minor cussing including: a ‘blast’, two ‘dumb’s, two ‘idiot’s, two ‘moron’s, and three ‘stupid’s". What wild "cussing"...

Comments

[jeane nevarez (from livejournal.com)]

That's pretty funny- I don't consider ANY of those cuss words. Minor cussing in my book includes words like 'hell' or 'damn' !

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I don't want to live in a world where "blast!" is considered a cuss!

[wizardelfgirl.livejournal.com]

Back before Disney+ was a thing, Disney content was divided into Disney Branded (stuff for the Disney channels) and non-branded (more "adult-oriented" stuff, like the marvel movies or stuff from ABC). Disney Branded stuff was already quite squeaky clean for younger audiences in terms of insults or cuss words, but for the Latin American dub our supervisors suddenly felt the insults we used in the translations were too strong (I'm talking the Spanish equivalent of terms like "silly", "darn it", "dumb") and for a time we were only allowed to use "absurd" as an insult in any disney-branded product. Literally only that word. I was lucky that during that time I managed to get acquainted with some higher-ups and I mentioned what was happening and they talked to our supervisors. Turns out, someone had asked to tone down the words used in a Disney Junior show for very small kids and somehow the supervisors thought it meant toning down every show, including teenage stuff. Those were very crazy months for all of us.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ha wow. That's pretty funny and crazy! What a mistake to make...

[wizardelfgirl.livejournal.com]

It wasn't the only time, either. I once had an argument with one of the language reviewers because he insisted that we couldn't use the word "massage" in Disney Branded products because massages implied being naked and could be misinterpreted as something indecent, and anyway he was sure no Disney show would ever show people getting a massage. I was like "One of my past TV shows had several episodes of people getting massages, and everyone was fully clothed and nothing indecent happened and I had no problem using the word massage". He didn't believe me and went to our supervisors. Guess who won that argument? :)