I'm back! Sorry about that. Here's a new book review for yall to enjoy.
I like to say occasionally that there's only room for one Twilight on my shelf. The meaning should be pretty obvious. I liked the books, and they entertained me. But I have never been, nor is it likely I will ever be, a lover of modern vampire lit.
Logically, it then follows that while YA literature does interest me, the rise in popularity (re-rise? constant presence?) of paranormal romances and leaves me feeling, well...frustrated because it's just a teeny tiny bit all the very same and I end up desiring something fresh and quality for the upcoming generation.
When I heard of the success of Amanda Hocking's self-published novels, I decided to read into some of her books, several of which are available on Amazon in digital and traditional formats. A few of the Kindle ones are 99 cents. (I just looked for a "cent symbol" key. It's not there. I feel old.) One of the 99 cent offerings was My Blood Approves, obviously a vampire novel. But it had good reviews from others on Amazon. I figured I'd give it a shot.
It was...okay. It, like all books, had its high points and low points.
My Blood Approves was written in the first person person perspective, and Hocking does display a gift for making one feel at home with her main character. The casual manner of Alice's speech made you feel like someone was telling you the story between classes. I liked that. I also liked the main male vampire. He wasn't the epitome of "brooding sexiness" that seems to come standard with vampire novels (or X-men movies.*) He was immature, annoying, and boyish. That I liked, because it was refreshing. And, honestly, pretty funny.
However, the book does have the dreaded stock characters. You know. The mom and dad figure vamps who are so nice that you imagine they probably run a puppy rescue on the side. The vamp brother who is brooding and angry and all "thirsty" and stuff. The sensitive little human brother who cooks delicious food.
The climax of the story comes suddenly and with little buildup. An anticlimax, maybe. By then, I wasn't sure I cared much anymore.
The accomplishments of Ms. Hocking do not protect My Blood Approves from being standard vampire fare. Though far from being sloppy, the novel was full of stock characters and a lackluster, well-worn plot. I won't be partaking of the remainder of the series, though I might check out Hocking's Trylle Trilogy. It's recently been published by a major house, and I'm, quite frankly, curious.
*Yeah, not a Wolverine fan here. I don't dig sideburns.
Showing posts with label books like Twilight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books like Twilight. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Book Review: Shattered, by Sophia Sharp
Say what you will about the Twilight series, but it must always be conceded that the books have been successful in the six years that they've been out. With the rising popularity of self-publishing and the ready availability of resources for such, lots of sad, sad clones of Twilight have appeared on the digital bookshelves of the Kindle store.
Shattered, by Sophia Sharp, popped up as a "YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS" sort of thing in my Amazon account, while I was poking through author pages. It was 99 cents, so I thought "heck, why not" and downloaded it to my Kindle app. (The app was free. Awesome.*)
The book started out okay, but it felt a little first draftish, and the wording tended to be a little juvenile. The male lead (Logan) brooded and mystified the girl (Laura) in an all too familiar way.
And then people begin to disappear.
No, really. Entire sets of characters disappear, including all of Laura's friends. Though the dialogue among them could be stiff and unconvincing most of the time, the characters didn't deserve the horrific fate of being erased from reality altogether. As far as her family, though they are mentioned, you never meet them. Even the dog is a faceless entity that exists, apparently, to underscore the All-American main character.
An unlikely situation involving Laura's soon to be former crush which could totally get the jerk arrested is lifted straight off the pages of Twilight and solved by Logan and mixed martial arts. Very little is described in the book, except for a detailed view of a river-powered mill somewhere in the boonies and Logan's distinctive pale and emo look. The conversations between Laura and Logan aren't badly done, but like the rest of the book, they do need some work.
It's a clone of Twilight, so the SUPRISE I'MA VAMPIRE moment is pretty obvious before it comes, though the "visit the dream world" concept that Sharp includes is interesting and not something I was expecting, though it does make the vampire element seem a little more intrusive and contrived. Logan goes to high school, and Laura first meets him when he transfers to hers. However, he is a 400 year old vampire and travels alone, and there's never given any reason for him to keep up appearances as a high school student. Maybe he fears arrest by a truant officer even though he's totally old enough to drop out and get his GED.
On the bright side, Shattered only cost 99 cents, and the grammar and spelling were clean, something not seen much in a self published novel. It's also refreshingly free of that dreaded pair, Mary Sue and Gary Stu. Sophia Sharp is a 19 year old college student, so writing this novel, however flawed it is, is a commendable effort. I won't be reading the rest of the series, but feel free to check them out yourself in the Amazon Kindle Store.
*Seriously, get it. The app is free for all devices that it's available on. Your iPad could be that much more awesome, my friend.
Shattered, by Sophia Sharp, popped up as a "YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS" sort of thing in my Amazon account, while I was poking through author pages. It was 99 cents, so I thought "heck, why not" and downloaded it to my Kindle app. (The app was free. Awesome.*)
The book started out okay, but it felt a little first draftish, and the wording tended to be a little juvenile. The male lead (Logan) brooded and mystified the girl (Laura) in an all too familiar way.
And then people begin to disappear.
No, really. Entire sets of characters disappear, including all of Laura's friends. Though the dialogue among them could be stiff and unconvincing most of the time, the characters didn't deserve the horrific fate of being erased from reality altogether. As far as her family, though they are mentioned, you never meet them. Even the dog is a faceless entity that exists, apparently, to underscore the All-American main character.
An unlikely situation involving Laura's soon to be former crush which could totally get the jerk arrested is lifted straight off the pages of Twilight and solved by Logan and mixed martial arts. Very little is described in the book, except for a detailed view of a river-powered mill somewhere in the boonies and Logan's distinctive pale and emo look. The conversations between Laura and Logan aren't badly done, but like the rest of the book, they do need some work.
It's a clone of Twilight, so the SUPRISE I'MA VAMPIRE moment is pretty obvious before it comes, though the "visit the dream world" concept that Sharp includes is interesting and not something I was expecting, though it does make the vampire element seem a little more intrusive and contrived. Logan goes to high school, and Laura first meets him when he transfers to hers. However, he is a 400 year old vampire and travels alone, and there's never given any reason for him to keep up appearances as a high school student. Maybe he fears arrest by a truant officer even though he's totally old enough to drop out and get his GED.
On the bright side, Shattered only cost 99 cents, and the grammar and spelling were clean, something not seen much in a self published novel. It's also refreshingly free of that dreaded pair, Mary Sue and Gary Stu. Sophia Sharp is a 19 year old college student, so writing this novel, however flawed it is, is a commendable effort. I won't be reading the rest of the series, but feel free to check them out yourself in the Amazon Kindle Store.
*Seriously, get it. The app is free for all devices that it's available on. Your iPad could be that much more awesome, my friend.
Monday, August 22, 2011
More Awkward Than Your 5th Grade Photo
"Not in our arsenal of snappy comebacks." - Walter
So let's say you grew up bookish and introverted. (Like me. Yay! Friends!) You probably read whatever you could get your hands on. I know I did. I vividly remember helping myself to a Reader's Digest my family had lying around. Good stuff. Some of it was a little deep for my age then, but I got the basic idea. Reading "Mike's Flag" and something that was like a Bieber fan's guide to Romeo & Juliet possibly had an interesting effect on my taste now. (This will be important later.)
Naturally, when I discovered that the Wilson County Public Library's Bookmobile* rolled around to my neighborhood every couple of weeks, I thought it was pretty cool. Crammed into a small bus that would probably send my current 5 feet 9 inches self into a claustrophobic panic attack, were, well, books. They had whatever I might be interested in, which at the time included The Babysitters Club, Goosebumps, and American Girl magazine.** Anything else that might be a ghost story was also welcome.
I grew up in the 90s. In that decade and the one previous, there was a wealth of kids' books that were available (but never required for me...ah the miracles of private school.) Now, granted, kids did slack off reading for a while there, but there were more readers than the intellectual elite would like to admit.*** (Why do you think The Babysitters Club was so popular?) This created a generation of kids who are quite intelligent and possibly a tad apathetic about academia (or, if they're like me, inwardly ambitious, painfully procrastinating, and somewhat snarky.)
All this boring intro actually has a point, so stay with me.
Let's say that after a crash course in Narnia, you graduated on to greater and higher works of literature. Great. So you're all up into some Austen and some Stoker and maybe a little Melville, all shunning the television in your quest for academic and philosophical greatness. So after you take a break and pull your pasty head out of the wood-pulp, you find after some assignment or such that you enjoy writing, shoot, that it's downright awesome. Not content to stick with mere poetry with its paltry sound devices and subtle imagery, you try your hand at writing some short fictional stories. Then the biggie. The novel. Yours is a high and lonely destiny, writing such works of intellectual amazement. Triple syllable words and old-fashioned ideals are reanimated, lurching across the page like so many undead.
And your dialogue's probably terrible.
But what? You're well-read! All writers should read widely. You've done it all right. You've read the classics and the manuals and the instructions on plot and characters and setting and structure.
You don't get to know a person based on their surroundings. Nor is any person likely to hand you a paper when you meet them that lists things like "sarcastic" and "nice." Description can only take you so far. I have brown hair (most of the time) and blue eyes (all the time.) No matter how long you dwell on what I look like, you will never know me. When I open my mouth, you'll start to get to know me.
Dialogue will tell you most of what you need to know about a character. Actions are helpful, but if your dialogue is stiff and formal (when it doesn't need to be,) well, that's a turnoff. Your characters aren't natural. But you've read all those books!
Watch tv. Or a movie. Maybe you could listen to how people talk around you.
*GASP*
Yeah. I said it. If you want to know how to write good dialogue, you have to hear it first. A good television show to start with is The Office. No, really. Drama is too much, and comedy not enough, but The Office is just about perfect. Conversations on the show flow at a natural pace, and that's what you're looking for. As far as movies, I'd shy away from the new Star Wars trilogy, but the original three movies are for finding some amazing banter and such. (Han and Leia, obviously.)
So now you've got your characters who talk like normal people. Their words move with a wonderfully accessible rhythm. But please refrain from...
The Campfire Tale.
One of the mechanical faults that I will now criticize the Twilight books for is that some characters start talking.
And don't stop for several pages.
This really isn't seen much until you get to know three of the Cullen "siblings." One's like "Eh, my family put me in an insane asylum and told everyone I was dead. *shrug* How ya been, I'm feelin' Italy, how 'bout it?"
And then you get stories from the blond sister and brother. She is not as long-winded as he is. This guy tells this story about how he was a Confederate soldier (and apparently the actor has amazing accent power in the film) who went to Mexico, and vampireness, and blah blah blah. Ya boy talks for like a whole chapter. There's never any interaction with other characters, except the in-narration dialogue (not realistic, really.) And at the end of it all, the rest of the Cullens are doing other stuff, like cleaning up the kitchen and manicuring their nails out of sheer boredom. Dang, dude, you coulda just said "This Mexican chick turned me. I met my wife in a bar the next century, and then we came here. Nice town."
Do not have your characters go on and on and on with no interruptions or questions. Your work requires dialogue that's smooth and flows. Too much talking from one person, and your novel takes on the tone of a wiki. Not cool.
*I think they don't run the Bookmobile anymore. This is sad, because for me, it was like mini-Christmas every couple of weeks.
**Don't laugh, I watched the end of Red Dawn and followed it up with 27 Dresses. I'm all eclectic like that. Or just, you know, human.
***I did not read a Newberry book until A Wrinkle in Time when I was in high school. Seriously, those award winners aren't popular among the kiddies. They're picked by teachers who probably cry over them and pick them because of that. I don't want to read sad junk now, and I especially didn't when I was nine.
So let's say you grew up bookish and introverted. (Like me. Yay! Friends!) You probably read whatever you could get your hands on. I know I did. I vividly remember helping myself to a Reader's Digest my family had lying around. Good stuff. Some of it was a little deep for my age then, but I got the basic idea. Reading "Mike's Flag" and something that was like a Bieber fan's guide to Romeo & Juliet possibly had an interesting effect on my taste now. (This will be important later.)
Naturally, when I discovered that the Wilson County Public Library's Bookmobile* rolled around to my neighborhood every couple of weeks, I thought it was pretty cool. Crammed into a small bus that would probably send my current 5 feet 9 inches self into a claustrophobic panic attack, were, well, books. They had whatever I might be interested in, which at the time included The Babysitters Club, Goosebumps, and American Girl magazine.** Anything else that might be a ghost story was also welcome.
I grew up in the 90s. In that decade and the one previous, there was a wealth of kids' books that were available (but never required for me...ah the miracles of private school.) Now, granted, kids did slack off reading for a while there, but there were more readers than the intellectual elite would like to admit.*** (Why do you think The Babysitters Club was so popular?) This created a generation of kids who are quite intelligent and possibly a tad apathetic about academia (or, if they're like me, inwardly ambitious, painfully procrastinating, and somewhat snarky.)
All this boring intro actually has a point, so stay with me.
Let's say that after a crash course in Narnia, you graduated on to greater and higher works of literature. Great. So you're all up into some Austen and some Stoker and maybe a little Melville, all shunning the television in your quest for academic and philosophical greatness. So after you take a break and pull your pasty head out of the wood-pulp, you find after some assignment or such that you enjoy writing, shoot, that it's downright awesome. Not content to stick with mere poetry with its paltry sound devices and subtle imagery, you try your hand at writing some short fictional stories. Then the biggie. The novel. Yours is a high and lonely destiny, writing such works of intellectual amazement. Triple syllable words and old-fashioned ideals are reanimated, lurching across the page like so many undead.
And your dialogue's probably terrible.
But what? You're well-read! All writers should read widely. You've done it all right. You've read the classics and the manuals and the instructions on plot and characters and setting and structure.
You don't get to know a person based on their surroundings. Nor is any person likely to hand you a paper when you meet them that lists things like "sarcastic" and "nice." Description can only take you so far. I have brown hair (most of the time) and blue eyes (all the time.) No matter how long you dwell on what I look like, you will never know me. When I open my mouth, you'll start to get to know me.
Dialogue will tell you most of what you need to know about a character. Actions are helpful, but if your dialogue is stiff and formal (when it doesn't need to be,) well, that's a turnoff. Your characters aren't natural. But you've read all those books!
Watch tv. Or a movie. Maybe you could listen to how people talk around you.
*GASP*
Yeah. I said it. If you want to know how to write good dialogue, you have to hear it first. A good television show to start with is The Office. No, really. Drama is too much, and comedy not enough, but The Office is just about perfect. Conversations on the show flow at a natural pace, and that's what you're looking for. As far as movies, I'd shy away from the new Star Wars trilogy, but the original three movies are for finding some amazing banter and such. (Han and Leia, obviously.)
So now you've got your characters who talk like normal people. Their words move with a wonderfully accessible rhythm. But please refrain from...
The Campfire Tale.
One of the mechanical faults that I will now criticize the Twilight books for is that some characters start talking.
And don't stop for several pages.
This really isn't seen much until you get to know three of the Cullen "siblings." One's like "Eh, my family put me in an insane asylum and told everyone I was dead. *shrug* How ya been, I'm feelin' Italy, how 'bout it?"
And then you get stories from the blond sister and brother. She is not as long-winded as he is. This guy tells this story about how he was a Confederate soldier (and apparently the actor has amazing accent power in the film) who went to Mexico, and vampireness, and blah blah blah. Ya boy talks for like a whole chapter. There's never any interaction with other characters, except the in-narration dialogue (not realistic, really.) And at the end of it all, the rest of the Cullens are doing other stuff, like cleaning up the kitchen and manicuring their nails out of sheer boredom. Dang, dude, you coulda just said "This Mexican chick turned me. I met my wife in a bar the next century, and then we came here. Nice town."
Do not have your characters go on and on and on with no interruptions or questions. Your work requires dialogue that's smooth and flows. Too much talking from one person, and your novel takes on the tone of a wiki. Not cool.
*I think they don't run the Bookmobile anymore. This is sad, because for me, it was like mini-Christmas every couple of weeks.
**Don't laugh, I watched the end of Red Dawn and followed it up with 27 Dresses. I'm all eclectic like that. Or just, you know, human.
***I did not read a Newberry book until A Wrinkle in Time when I was in high school. Seriously, those award winners aren't popular among the kiddies. They're picked by teachers who probably cry over them and pick them because of that. I don't want to read sad junk now, and I especially didn't when I was nine.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
The Friday Night Death Slot
Once upon a time, there was a hit television show that was moved to Friday night.
The end.
No, really.
The original Star Trek's cancellation had a lot to do with being moved to Friday night. Why is Friday night so fatal for television shows? That one's easy. Most people have a lot more exciting things to do on Friday nights than sit at home and stare at a screen, no matter how good the show is. Today, things like DVR and Tivo are close to making the death slot a non-issue (but not quite.) The concept is still true, though. Watching a good show at home is good; dinner and a movie or a party or whatever is better. Want an alternative to shows? Movies on cable. Aw yeah.
The best way to slip into obscurity is to be just good enough to have readers. Not readers who are particularly interested or pulled in, but readers. They picked up your book because Books-a-Million or Barnes & Noble slapped a label on it claiming that it's "for fans of [insert famous book series with tons of subsidiaries]" and stuck it in a special bay for two weeks. They want their fix of something and their paperback version of whatever has either been lent out to a friend, read too many times, or come apart at its dry, gluey seams. They buy your book, they read it for a taste of their obsession, and possibly never pick it up again. You've given them exactly what they want, and unless you were memorable about it, they're not going to bother when the next installment hits the shelves.
So what got me thinking about this? Well, it was actually Abra Ebner's blog. (You remember I've reviewed three of her books in the past.) On the right side of the landing page of her blog is a little picture that says "Books Like Twilight" and leads to a website that I believe is no longer working. But really, all I needed to see was the name of that link. Apparently, there are people who are looking for some lovely, good enough fiction that will give them their Twilight fix. And there are also authors who will provide that, just to get readers. Just to be good enough, in terms of sheer concept.
So what would you rather be? Good enough? Riding on the coattails of a swiftly passing fad and fading into obscurity before you ever had any notoriety? Having young reviewers on Amazon ranting that your book, your baby, wasn't as good as Twilight/The Hunger Games/Percy Jackson?
Be the best, always.
The end.
No, really.
The original Star Trek's cancellation had a lot to do with being moved to Friday night. Why is Friday night so fatal for television shows? That one's easy. Most people have a lot more exciting things to do on Friday nights than sit at home and stare at a screen, no matter how good the show is. Today, things like DVR and Tivo are close to making the death slot a non-issue (but not quite.) The concept is still true, though. Watching a good show at home is good; dinner and a movie or a party or whatever is better. Want an alternative to shows? Movies on cable. Aw yeah.
The best way to slip into obscurity is to be just good enough to have readers. Not readers who are particularly interested or pulled in, but readers. They picked up your book because Books-a-Million or Barnes & Noble slapped a label on it claiming that it's "for fans of [insert famous book series with tons of subsidiaries]" and stuck it in a special bay for two weeks. They want their fix of something and their paperback version of whatever has either been lent out to a friend, read too many times, or come apart at its dry, gluey seams. They buy your book, they read it for a taste of their obsession, and possibly never pick it up again. You've given them exactly what they want, and unless you were memorable about it, they're not going to bother when the next installment hits the shelves.
So what got me thinking about this? Well, it was actually Abra Ebner's blog. (You remember I've reviewed three of her books in the past.) On the right side of the landing page of her blog is a little picture that says "Books Like Twilight" and leads to a website that I believe is no longer working. But really, all I needed to see was the name of that link. Apparently, there are people who are looking for some lovely, good enough fiction that will give them their Twilight fix. And there are also authors who will provide that, just to get readers. Just to be good enough, in terms of sheer concept.
So what would you rather be? Good enough? Riding on the coattails of a swiftly passing fad and fading into obscurity before you ever had any notoriety? Having young reviewers on Amazon ranting that your book, your baby, wasn't as good as Twilight/The Hunger Games/Percy Jackson?
Be the best, always.
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