I've about decided that some amazon reviews are crazy. I think that while there's an audience for deconstructed tropes and more complex psychological stories, there are readers who just don't get it. (Seriously, there are reviewers who really do. not. get. how characters may be flat out lying to themselves and thus to the reader as well. I've seen confusion over that more than once in Amazon/Good Reads reviews recently. I love that Milan and Thomas do psychological POV things like that. It's one thing in GRRMartin books that I like, too. POV should matter. And sometimes a character is so caught up in their view or in such deep denial that it's going to take the reader figuring out what's 'really' going on.)
I've loved some of Milan's, Thomas' and Ivory's deconstructions. To me they've made them more interesting. And yet for each of my favorites works I can think of an Amazon review that just did not get it.
There were a couple of terrible reviews of one Milan $.99 novella. Complaints about certain aspects. Enough that I just didn't read it until recently. When I did, I was totally 'what the hell was that person talking about?!" (Had a similar reaction to reviews of one Ivory novel and a Thomas as well.) I can only think that the reviewer was looking for one thing and totally missed that the author was focusing on something else.
I love the aspects that deconstruct tropes or deeply delve into a psychological point. It raises those books to being better books. But its clear from some reviews that this isn't a universal point of view.
And your discussion of Beguiling the Beauty intrigues me (again, more than Amazon's blurb and reviews did.)
Though I think I'm back to needing a light book before delving back into the angst.
And have you ever read any of Roberta Gellis's reconstructed mythology? She re-did both the Minotaur myth as well as the Hades/Pesephone myth. (As mythology (meaning its still about gods). It's been decades since I read the Hades/Pesephone one, but I remember liking it. I wonder if I can trust my memory. Sometimes what we liked as a teen we don't like as an adult.)
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branchandroot
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Date: 2014-02-12 01:42 pm (UTC)I've loved some of Milan's, Thomas' and Ivory's deconstructions. To me they've made them more interesting. And yet for each of my favorites works I can think of an Amazon review that just did not get it.
There were a couple of terrible reviews of one Milan $.99 novella. Complaints about certain aspects. Enough that I just didn't read it until recently. When I did, I was totally 'what the hell was that person talking about?!" (Had a similar reaction to reviews of one Ivory novel and a Thomas as well.) I can only think that the reviewer was looking for one thing and totally missed that the author was focusing on something else.
I love the aspects that deconstruct tropes or deeply delve into a psychological point. It raises those books to being better books. But its clear from some reviews that this isn't a universal point of view.
And your discussion of Beguiling the Beauty intrigues me (again, more than Amazon's blurb and reviews did.)
Though I think I'm back to needing a light book before delving back into the angst.
And have you ever read any of Roberta Gellis's reconstructed mythology? She re-did both the Minotaur myth as well as the Hades/Pesephone myth. (As mythology (meaning its still about gods). It's been decades since I read the Hades/Pesephone one, but I remember liking it. I wonder if I can trust my memory. Sometimes what we liked as a teen we don't like as an adult.)