Two books I couldn't finish
Feb. 9th, 2009 06:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
megwrites1. Valley of Strength - Shulamit Lapid. Got this one from the Early Reviewers program at LibraryThing. It's a great story, but the translation of this novel into English was so bad that I couldn't go on. Which is sad, because the story itself had me hooked from the word go. A sixteen year old girl who meets a man who marries her just to take care of his kids going from Ukraine to pre-state Israel with her nutcase brother and her rape baby and doing her best to make her way in difficult times is a story worth telling. I may try to find a less headache inducing translation later.
2. Touch the Dark - Karen Chance. Wow, but this book sucked like an electrolux. I should have been warned when I read this lovely little passage:
Oh, fuck noes, I know she just didn't take time out of running for her life from dangerous hitmen sent by a vampire mafia don to give me the backstory behind her footwear. Why, in the middle of all this, do I need to know why she had over-the-knee boots? Why?
If I never see another urban fantasy "heroine" (I use that term loosely, because this protagonist was a self-absorbed airhead) talking about her clothing and her fashion obsessions, it will be too soon. Why do people think that just because I'm female and the protagonist is female that suddenly describing useless bits of clothing becomes important? I'm seriously about five minutes from going nuclear with rage. I am so tired of this.
I don't fucking care what she's wearing. Either have something interesting happen or GTFO, thanks please. This book is just another example of everything that's wrong with Urban Fantasy. Because of course, all the vampires are so hot and sexy and they all want to touch her and make sex with her. And of course, when she feels betrayed by a character who only lied to protect her, she swings back from flouncing like a teenager to thinking that he's so pretty and she wants to trust him.
Not to mention her utterly stupid plan to go after the guy who killed her parents by walking into a casino and fighting a vampiric hit man with nothing but her girly rage, apparently. Of course, though, she has to be properly dressed before she can go avenge her family. *facepalm*.
I spent the next four chapters really hoping the protagonist would die in a fire or get eaten. It didn't happen, so I moved on. I can't believe I spent money on this book. I am so selling it to the Book Barn so I can at least get some of my wasted dollars back. The only thing I got out of this book was the burning desire to know what editorgot paid a backhander read over this and thought this was okay?
Apparently you can't rely on editors to stop crap from making it's way to shelves, because they won't. I guess it's up to the author to make sure the book won't burn people's eyeballs.
And by the by, the little blurb on the back of the cover should have also tipped me off to the stupidity: "The ghosts of the dead aren't usually dangerous..." Uh, as opposed to what? The ghosts of the living?
2. Touch the Dark - Karen Chance. Wow, but this book sucked like an electrolux. I should have been warned when I read this lovely little passage:
I took a while to get there on foot, since I was trying to stay out of sight and avoid breaking an ankle in my new, over-the-knee, high-heeled boots. I'd bought them because they matched the cute leather mini a salesgirl had talked me into and I'd planned to wow them at the club after work.
Oh, fuck noes, I know she just didn't take time out of running for her life from dangerous hitmen sent by a vampire mafia don to give me the backstory behind her footwear. Why, in the middle of all this, do I need to know why she had over-the-knee boots? Why?
If I never see another urban fantasy "heroine" (I use that term loosely, because this protagonist was a self-absorbed airhead) talking about her clothing and her fashion obsessions, it will be too soon. Why do people think that just because I'm female and the protagonist is female that suddenly describing useless bits of clothing becomes important? I'm seriously about five minutes from going nuclear with rage. I am so tired of this.
I don't fucking care what she's wearing. Either have something interesting happen or GTFO, thanks please. This book is just another example of everything that's wrong with Urban Fantasy. Because of course, all the vampires are so hot and sexy and they all want to touch her and make sex with her. And of course, when she feels betrayed by a character who only lied to protect her, she swings back from flouncing like a teenager to thinking that he's so pretty and she wants to trust him.
Not to mention her utterly stupid plan to go after the guy who killed her parents by walking into a casino and fighting a vampiric hit man with nothing but her girly rage, apparently. Of course, though, she has to be properly dressed before she can go avenge her family. *facepalm*.
I spent the next four chapters really hoping the protagonist would die in a fire or get eaten. It didn't happen, so I moved on. I can't believe I spent money on this book. I am so selling it to the Book Barn so I can at least get some of my wasted dollars back. The only thing I got out of this book was the burning desire to know what editor
Apparently you can't rely on editors to stop crap from making it's way to shelves, because they won't. I guess it's up to the author to make sure the book won't burn people's eyeballs.
And by the by, the little blurb on the back of the cover should have also tipped me off to the stupidity: "The ghosts of the dead aren't usually dangerous..." Uh, as opposed to what? The ghosts of the living?
