Freckles & Doubt (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
freckles_and_doubt) wrote2006-06-27 11:47 am
freckles_and_doubt) wrote2006-06-27 11:47 am
Entry tags:
head a-splode
Who'd be a grrrl? Damned 2-day hormonal headache. Mutter. Not helping is the fact that I'm (finally) finishing up this wretched Disney encyclopedia entry, which entails digging around on the Disney site, which is (aargh) all Really Slow Flash Animation, punctuated with relentless advertising and cunning concealment of actual information. Deeply annoying.
I have, however, read a couple of rather enjoyable young adult fantasies this weekend. Holly Black's Valiant has just won the Andre Norton award, a new category in the Nebulas for young adult fiction. It's the gritty urban faerie thing she does in Tithe, but here is edgier, dealing with issues such as teenage drug addiction and running away from home to live homeless on the streets of New York. Nicely done: her faeries are downright nasty, even the Seelie ones, and way more sexy than they have any right to be. Also, judging from the fact that I wanted to slap them quite often, I'd say her angsty teenagers were fairly spot on.
Book Club last week netted me Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, another in the long line of contemporary Greek godscapades. I didn't have high hopes of this, which represents a Very Done theme. However, Riordan, whatever you might want to say about his originality, has a good sense of pace and character, a somewhat off-the-wall sense of humour, and a completely stunning ability to actually write full sentences. (The full sentence is a dying art, had you noticed? More and more writers who really should know better are scattering their work with these poor, mutilated, verbless things, which are presumably meant to sound punchy and with-it. There was a verb-deprived M&G article by Khadija Magardie this week which made me gnaw my own foot off in sheer irritation). I wouldn't say The Lightning Thief was great literature, or even great kids' literature, but it was a fun read, I wouldn't mind reading more in the series.
I also scored the next in the Lemony Snicket series, which I am still, in defiance of everyone else I've lent them to, really enjoying. Book 11: The Grim Grotto. Submarines, tap dancing, evil fungus, a missing sugar bowl, and more than you ever really wanted to know about precipitation.
Finally, in the Department Of There May Actually Be Something In Astrology*: I apparently share a birthday with Joss Whedon. It's not my fault I'm a devoted fan, the stars foretold it.
* not really.
I have, however, read a couple of rather enjoyable young adult fantasies this weekend. Holly Black's Valiant has just won the Andre Norton award, a new category in the Nebulas for young adult fiction. It's the gritty urban faerie thing she does in Tithe, but here is edgier, dealing with issues such as teenage drug addiction and running away from home to live homeless on the streets of New York. Nicely done: her faeries are downright nasty, even the Seelie ones, and way more sexy than they have any right to be. Also, judging from the fact that I wanted to slap them quite often, I'd say her angsty teenagers were fairly spot on.
Book Club last week netted me Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, another in the long line of contemporary Greek godscapades. I didn't have high hopes of this, which represents a Very Done theme. However, Riordan, whatever you might want to say about his originality, has a good sense of pace and character, a somewhat off-the-wall sense of humour, and a completely stunning ability to actually write full sentences. (The full sentence is a dying art, had you noticed? More and more writers who really should know better are scattering their work with these poor, mutilated, verbless things, which are presumably meant to sound punchy and with-it. There was a verb-deprived M&G article by Khadija Magardie this week which made me gnaw my own foot off in sheer irritation). I wouldn't say The Lightning Thief was great literature, or even great kids' literature, but it was a fun read, I wouldn't mind reading more in the series.
I also scored the next in the Lemony Snicket series, which I am still, in defiance of everyone else I've lent them to, really enjoying. Book 11: The Grim Grotto. Submarines, tap dancing, evil fungus, a missing sugar bowl, and more than you ever really wanted to know about precipitation.
Finally, in the Department Of There May Actually Be Something In Astrology*: I apparently share a birthday with Joss Whedon. It's not my fault I'm a devoted fan, the stars foretold it.
* not really.