What I'm reading
Feb. 16th, 2019 07:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
readerjaneThis week the menfolk and I reached the chapter of Alan Garner's The Weirdstone of Brisingamen which I now recognize sparked my claustrophobia. (Well, Weirdstone and The Silver Chair, but TSC's crawling-through-possibly-flooded-underground-cracks scene was considerably shorter and milder.)
I almost never need to be in a tight space IRL, so this has mostly affected my choices of media. Hub loves disaster movies, and in the past few years I've gotten more comfortable with saying, "I'm not going to watch that one. Feel free to go without me."
I'm bouncing off Kelly Barnhill's Iron-Hearted Violet. I've lost patience with the sort of story that's all "ooohhh, something bad is gonna happen, ooooh, it's coming and it's freaky and scary." For a chapter or two, sure. But after several chapters I just want the author to get on with it. Let the scary come! Then let's see how our heroes deal with it, or not. Tension for the sake of tension is tedious.
[ETA] Also, what is it with publishers who accept a story that describes its main character as ugly (and Barnhill is doing something interesting with that, too) and then hire an illustrator who draws that character as sweetly pretty and adorable?? I'm assuming Barnhill was not allowed a veto on this.
And whee! Another chapter of Rahirah's Parliament of Monsters! I love her Spuffy - and Scoobies - better than all the rest.
I almost never need to be in a tight space IRL, so this has mostly affected my choices of media. Hub loves disaster movies, and in the past few years I've gotten more comfortable with saying, "I'm not going to watch that one. Feel free to go without me."
I'm bouncing off Kelly Barnhill's Iron-Hearted Violet. I've lost patience with the sort of story that's all "ooohhh, something bad is gonna happen, ooooh, it's coming and it's freaky and scary." For a chapter or two, sure. But after several chapters I just want the author to get on with it. Let the scary come! Then let's see how our heroes deal with it, or not. Tension for the sake of tension is tedious.
[ETA] Also, what is it with publishers who accept a story that describes its main character as ugly (and Barnhill is doing something interesting with that, too) and then hire an illustrator who draws that character as sweetly pretty and adorable?? I'm assuming Barnhill was not allowed a veto on this.
And whee! Another chapter of Rahirah's Parliament of Monsters! I love her Spuffy - and Scoobies - better than all the rest.
