Polite Paradise

I just started House of Names by Colm Toibin. It's a retelling of the story of the House of Atreus, alternating between the points of view of Clytemnestra, Orestes, and Electra. My book club just read Circe by Madeline Miller, which put me on a Greek mythology kick, and this is filling the bill quite well.

I just finished The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenof for my book club and oh mercy, was it bad. It should have been awesome- I mean, it's about English women acting as spies in France during WWII- but it was just blah. The writing was really bad, the characters were undeveloped, interchangeable cardboard cutouts (well, one of the three main women was noticeably dumber than the others), there was a clumsy, forced romance between two characters who had had literally three scenes together and exchanged maybe 15 lines of dialogue (none of which was meaningful or emotional or did anything to show any kind of emotional connection between them- the author basically just announced "Oh, hey, they're in love now," and that was that ), the "plot" was ridiculous and sort of just thrown together willy-nilly, one of the main characters had no apparent reason or motivation for anything she did other than to move things along, and there were all kinds of stupid little errors, made all the worse by the fact that the author apparently has a Masters degree in history (for example, there was one part where the ceiling of a hotel was described as being decorated "with the seals of all fifty States," which would be fine, except it's 1946 and there aren't fifty States yet). To top it all off, despite the title of the book, only ONE SCENE actually took place in Paris, and it lasted for maybe...three pages? If that. LITERALLY NOBODY IN THE BOOK SPENT ANY REAL TIME IN PARIS, INCLUDING THE TITULAR "LOST GIRLS." I honestly just skim-read the last half of the book because I just could not take it anymore.

My book club meets on Sunday. I'm really hoping everybody else disliked it as well and we can have a good old bitchfest about it BECAUSE IT WAS BAD.

I finally got around to reading Bird Box.

There are a few changes in the movie. Some tamer. Some scarier.

I just set aside a novel called Betrayal by Mayandree Michel. It was supposed to be a Greek mythology tie-in, but I never got that far. The writing was just so awkward. Long sentences, misuse of commas and apostrophes, disagreement in lists--like, "sightseers toured mansions, saloons, and rode the train." Plus problems in logic, pacing, tone. The narration repeated facts that had just been stated a page earlier, made a big deal about how long something would take then said "it took all of five minutes" (when irony/humor was not the point), and called the climate in Nevada "dry and sticky." I guess I don't know about the last one personally, but usually when people describe climates they're "hot, humid, and sticky" or "hot, dry, something really bad about how dry it is." You don't usually hear "dry and sticky" together. The lead character lives in Nevada and she wants to go to college someplace with a different climate, so she takes her college applications for Texas and Arizona out of her desk drawer and throws them away... why did she even have applications for those states to begin with? Plus, the dialogue doesn't sound like what people actually say. The lead character's mom says, "Some stew wouldn't hurt your slim frame." That is not a direct quote in casual conversation from anyone, ever.

Looking at the reviews on Amazon, I see the book was self-published, and most people agree the grammar was awful and that it could use a good editing!

It reads like it was written by someone who always got B-pluses in high school English, and everyone is always telling them they're "such a great writer"--which really just means they love to write, they can write a LOT, they're a pleasant person, they can spell (or at least use spellcheck), and they have ambition. Like, they're a better writer than most of the kids in their class and moreover, they want to write, so yeah, they're a "great writer." And they took that to heart and poured out this 660 page novel, the first in a series, and somehow never encountered anyone who said, "Actually, having a LOT of words doesn't actually mean it's GOOD." Which I guess is easier to avoid if you self-publish. And apparently neither they nor any friends who read the story have ever read anything well-written before.

Generally I think self-publishing is a neat option to have, but yeah, in the end you just get mad if you actually pay for something and you get dreck that hasn't even been edited properly. A lot of fanfic is badly written, but I read it anyway because it's free and I can put up with the poor writing to get to the cool ideas that are often buried within it. And, this book was a lot better-written than a lot of fanfic.

But, I think it does point out exactly what a decent editor does to earn their living. Many of the reviews on Amazon were from people who actually finished the book (bless them!) and they said it had really cool ideas. It's definitely salvageable. But if you want to be a professional, you have to put out a professional product.

Oof. I just bought The Lost Girls of Paris and had read a few chapters, but realized I wasn't in the mood for a war story where there would be death and destruction, so I put it away again. I guess I'm less likely to get it out again any time soon! And one of the reasons I picked it up was because we just booked a family trip to Paris and I thought it would be fun to read something that takes place there, so ...

Have you read The Sweet Life in Paris? The author, David Lebovitz, is a chef who, after his partner died, moved to Paris to get a fresh start in life. The book is all about adjusting to life there and learning to become a Parisian. It's really good, hysterically funny, and also has a whole bunch of recipes included in it. If you're looking for a book set in/about Paris, I'd definitely recommend that one over Lost Girls.

The Rose Legacy by Jessica Day George and The Restless Girls by by Jessie Burton are ones I just finished this week and loved. George's book is great for any horse-crazy girl, and Burton's is a new and fascinating spin on The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Loved both.

The latter one sounds very interesting! I'm into fairytale retellings. I know George has also done some of those.

Quote from: Winterlight on March 17, 2019, 07:32:29 pm

The Rose Legacy by Jessica Day George and The Restless Girls by by Jessie Burton are ones I just finished this week and loved. George's book is great for any horse-crazy girl, and Burton's is a new and fascinating spin on The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Loved both.

The latter one sounds very interesting! I'm into fairytale retellings. I know George has also done some of those.

George did a YA series that starts out with a version of The Twelve Dancing Princesses. I liked it, but not as much as Rose Legacy.