esmenet | (no subject)

So I have finally read another novel: Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone. And I am starting to wonder if I am doing something wrong, because I know several people who really liked this book, but (as with Cinder, as with very nearly every novel I've tried to read lately) I kind of hated it.

I don't even want to go into detail, really; let me just say that if it had had a more cohesive theme or mood or . . . whatever it is that lets me enjoy a book as a whole, I would have liked it better. As with Cinder, I would say this book does not quite hang together as well as I would have liked.

Look: you can write a book about living semi-unwillingly under someone else's control, you can write a book about choosing your own master, you can write a book about discovering how to be master of yourself. But you have to stick with it. You can't take all those themes together and jumble them up in different orders without committing; it just doesn't work.

Shadow and Bone has a twist that is only really a twist if you read nothing but young adult romances, and is not terribly well executed. If the author had taken that twist and then used it to do something else, I would have enjoyed the book much better than I did.

For instance, if Bardugo had kept the 'he wants to take over the world' twist, but gone instead in the direction of 'young man we need to have a word with you about your life and your choices', I think this book would have been both more interesting and more fun. I mean, I sort of don't care about 'secondary love interest is eeeeevil' plots? I much prefer 'secondary love interest we like you man but we really need you to take a look at these decisions you're making' plots.

Or, idk, maybe we can stop having narratives about Girls With Power And The Guys Who Want To Romantically Control Them? I spent the whole time I was reading this thinking gosh, I could be watching Sailor Moon instead.

I dunno, a lot of popular/semipopular novels read like absolute dreck to me lately, it's weird. I may simply be reading in the wrong genres; I know it's not 'popular things are bad' because I started reading The Book Thief and that completely lives up to its hype. I think I may need to go read nonfiction for a few weeks before trying any new novels.