Exclusive Insanity

Okay, this response article to a piece on why boys aren't reading enough (published in the NY Times) is so full of win. It's long, but a really good read, and it says a lot of things that I wish more people would read and take to heart (I find it incredibly sad that more people will read the original article than its response).

There are some gems in the comments, too: I particularly liked JupiterPluvius's response to Jackie Snyder's comment. I recommend reading the whole way down if you find the article interesting, because there's a lot of good stuff here.

Lately I've been on the lookout for fantasy books with female protagonists who get involved in adventure with some cute romance on the side. I've downloaded a number of samples and I'm slowly working my way through them (if I like the sample, I'll buy the book and read it, which then sometimes means buying more books by the same author and reading them, so this process is going slowly).

I just finished reading a couple of books by Sherwood Smith, and I felt like talking about them - hence this post.

Now, I loved Sherwood Smith when I was younger (still do, as her writing style appeals to me a lot) for her 'Wren' books. Wren was my hero when I was about 12 or so. I'd only read the three at the time - now I've read 'Wren Journeymage' as well, which I didn't like as much as the others (but it was still a decent read). One thing I didn't notice at the time but which I have now come to realize is that I like her books that much more when nothing exciting is going on.

Does that seem weird? It sure does to me. It wasn't so apparent with the Wren books (there are so many action sequences that I adored), but with the ones I'm going to talk about now, it became obvious.

The first was 'A Posse of Princesses'. This is a book about a young princess with some unrealistic ideas about romance who gets invited to a gathering of her peers for the first time with the hope of potentially marrying this rich prince. She makes a number of friends, and there's a twist with the prince that I found obvious pretty much from the time she arrives (the mileage of other readers may vary). And, well, the scenes where she dances and chats and makes friends and basically engages in court activities are fantastic and engaging. Then the plot starts to unravel, and my connection to the story began to unravel with it. The main character becomes less likeable. The book becomes harder to read. I found myself skimming long passages. Then we go back to the ending, where the romance is resolved... and I found myself shaking my head and saying out loud, 'What?' Who could possibly think this is a good way to test whether a romance will hold up? Bleh.

Anyway, I still feel it's a pretty good book, but it's not a re-read.

The next was 'Crown Duel/Court Duel' - two books in one. And what a difference between the two! Crown Duel was so frustrating to get through for me... There were flashes of cleverness here and there, little golden moments that reminded me why I enjoyed Smith's work, but for the most part it was just hard to read. The heroine was almost completely unlikeable. She was abrasive, willfully ignorant, and - well - incompetent. Not saying I'd do any better in that situation, but it was almost embarrassing to read about this girl because of the way she thinks and acts. I think I read the next book mostly out of curiosity (and because I already had it, as they were part of the same big ebook purchase), but it ended up being a much better read. Suddenly Mel was someone much less abrasive (although she still had moments that made me roll my eyes) and more interesting to read about. And this book is about 90% non-action. The action sequence at the end was even pretty decent, and it meshed well with the story. The romance seemed believable (and was actually decently developed, although it was easy to figure out who was sending the letters). And the characters were interesting and fun to read about. All in all, a vast improvement.

One thing that struck me in both 'A Posse of Princesses' and 'Crown Duel/Court Duel' is the clear dividing line that seems to exist between women and men. I'm sure Smith didn't set out to do this (I don't remember it from the 'Wren' books - maybe I need to re-read them), but it felt like the women in the books were naive, ignorant things while the men were worldly and knowledgeable but still were willing to humor these poor uneducated and vulnerable women because they had spirit and were nice and honest and pure. I didn't care much for that. The books were good, but they're not going on my favorites list.

I'm moving on to a new author now (and I have a lot of samples to get through), but I'm still open for recs on fantasy/romance with fun female protagonists!

More book-reading! I have been doing a lot of this lately.

I read the second of Mercedes Lackey's 500 Kingdoms series, and enjoyed it more than the first. The plot held more direction, and I found several of the characters more interesting. The main conflict resolved itself a little too quickly - and almost seemed too easy - but it wasn't as rushed and contrived as in the first book. I like the fantasy world that's been created, and it's a lot of fun to read about. Unfortunately, I had trouble getting into the romance yet again. Not because of the unusual nature of the romance, but more because I wans't feeling the chemistry. The sense of companionship between the main character and her love interest was very nice, and I felt bad for her when she didn't think it would work out, but there was no fascinating pull to the relationship that made me very eager to find out what happened with it. And the second romance in the story seemed altogether too convenient. I liked it, but still.

I remember being enthralled by some of the romances in the Valdemar series when I was younger, so I'm not sure if ML is doing something different now or if my tastes have changed, but I haven't really been that into the love stories in these books. They're nice enough, but nothing really exciting. That would be a deal-breaker on a normal harlequin, but these ones have some other fun things about them that keep me entertained.

I'll probably read the third book eventually, but I decided to take a break and re-read some older books with a similar theme: Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest series.

I still find these pretty enjoyable. They're lively and fun, and have a cast of pretty colorful characters. Perfect for some light reading. I'm already through Dealing with Dragons and Searching for Dragons, and just getting started with Calling on Dragons. Much like the books above, the romance is not all that compelling, but this is okay because it plays such a small part in the overall story that I just don't care much. Plus, the way the characters play off of each other is fun. Simple and light-hearted fantasy like this is just fantastic to read - at least for me.

So, I recently finished reading the five-book series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Which was pretty good.

( Thoughts )

All in all, this series was very fun to read. I'm glad I picked them up, and I recommend anyone who hasn't done so to... well... do so.

I'm basically only making a second post today because I've decided I'm going to work on my Philosophy paper in my free time at work and now I want to procrastinate. Whee...

I finished some new (to me) titles by David Eddings a while back, but never bothered to say anything about them because it never occurred to me until now (when I'm looking for stuff to keep me from doing actual work - go figure).

( Random book stuff (minor spoilers) )