YA, toujours YA

[snugglekitty]

Fearless by Francis Pascal was a short YA book that I found deeply unsatisfying. It was too gimmicky. It had too much bolding, and each chapter was excerpted on its title page. How annoying. It also was too short and had a cliffhanger ending.
This book brought up for me the idea of, what does it mean to be fearless? But not really in a good way. The main character says that she doesn't have the fear gene. But she does have an adrenaline response to dangerous situations. It's like what's missing is the idea that she should treat danger with caution. To me, that's not fear, it's common sense. Two stars.

The Dream-Maker's Magic by Sharon Shinn was the third in a trilogy which started with The Safe-Keeper's Secret. I enjoyed this book just as much as the other two. I think my favorite thing about it was that the plot didn't revolve around romantic love the way it did in the previous books. Also, one of the characters was gender variant, which came as a big surprise, but made me happy. Four stars.

Past the Size of Dreaming by Nina Kiriki Hoffman was the sequel to A Red Heart of Memories. I preferred the first book, but the second one was okay. The themes of family, dangerous urges, not belonging, and manipulation that are common to Hoffman's work were found here, too. I'm planning to track down the short stories featuring Matt Black that fill in some of the gaps in these books. In general, Hoffman reminds me of deLint. If you like his books, you should give her a try. Three stars.

Monster Blood Tattoo:Foundling by DM Cornish didn't really work for me. It was a loan from 7j, and her YA tastes overlap with mine about 90%. What didn't I like about it? Much of it offended my sense of fairness. When, in fiction, a main character gets in trouble due to no fault of his or her own, and subsequently is blamed for that trouble, it bothers me a lot. Yup, I'm totally aware that that happens all the time in real life. Part of the reason I like fiction so much is that it isn't real life. I'm not sorry I finished it, but I won't read the sequels. Two stars.

Comments

[dilletante.livejournal.com]

When, in fiction, a main character gets in trouble due to no fault of his or her own, and subsequently is blamed for that trouble, it bothers me a lot.

yeah, this drives me nuts. it seems to be a common theme in anime, and in particular in the series urusei yatsura (often titled "lum" in english), it made the first several episodes unwatchable for me. (my roommate was into it and later it moved past that and i started watching again.) although it might have been intended as a sort of counterpoint to the other big running theme which is also something that really bugs me: when the main charcter has few or no redeeming qualities. (the effect was that all other characters constantly correctly treated him like scum, but often for ostensible reasons that made no sense. ugh.)

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

Yes. I understand that it is necessary for authors to do terrible things to nice people in order to make their books interesting, but it is not necessary that everyone think the terrible things are their fault. Especially not permanently. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.