I've about decided that some amazon reviews are crazy.
LOL! So too are some of the Good Reads reviews. Honestly, I wonder about some of these people.
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.
Exactly. I've discovered this as well. POV is a major deal for me. It's actually one of the reasons I stuck with GRRM as long as I did - he does POV very very well.
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.
Quite true. Judith Ivory's The Beast got ripped apart, as did Beguiling the Beauty. (I read the worst and best reviews.)
I can only think that the reviewer was looking for one thing and totally missed that the author was focusing on something else.
I sometimes think reviews tell us more about the reviewer than the work being reviewed. Not always the case. But sometimes.
A lot of readers get angry at a book for not being what they wanted it to be, ignoring what the writer was trying to do. (I've read a lot of the reviews that were upset that the writer didn't include an epilogue that showed the couple having babies and happily ever after. In fact that seems to be a huge criticism of Thomas' and Milan's novels.)
And your discussion of Beguiling the Beauty intrigues me (again, more than Amazon's blurb and reviews did.)
It has a reference to a same-sex relationship and handles it in a realistic and interesting way.
I can see why the book pissed a lot of reviewers off - it has some extremely strong and dominant women characters. (which personally, I prefer and find to be a breath of fresh air). A lot of female reviewers have issues with strong and assertive women in books - it's weird. I've even scene the term "alpha female" used and in a derogatory sense.
Though I think I'm back to needing a light book before delving back into the angst.
I'm thinking the same thing. I may jump to The Proposition before attempting either The Beast or the Milan trilogy. Or maybe Tempting the Bride - which is supposed to be lighter. Beguiling the Beauty isn't that dark at the moment - but I'm only 36% of the way through.
nd 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.)
No. I should try her. I loved to see a twist on those myths. I remember reading Piers Anthony's take on the Greek myths as a kid. My favorites were the ones on "Death" and "Hades". (Yes, I have a fictional bad-boy character fetish...but only in fictional narratives.)
True...I'm learning I can't trust what I liked as a teen either. I recently re-read a book I loved as a teen and thought it was ...well not that good.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2014-02-13 12:44 am (UTC)LOL! So too are some of the Good Reads reviews. Honestly, I wonder about some of these people.
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.
Exactly. I've discovered this as well. POV is a major deal for me. It's actually one of the reasons I stuck with GRRM as long as I did - he does POV very very well.
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.
Quite true. Judith Ivory's The Beast got ripped apart, as did Beguiling the Beauty. (I read the worst and best reviews.)
I can only think that the reviewer was looking for one thing and totally missed that the author was focusing on something else.
I sometimes think reviews tell us more about the reviewer than the work being reviewed. Not always the case. But sometimes.
A lot of readers get angry at a book for not being what they wanted it to be, ignoring what the writer was trying to do. (I've read a lot of the reviews that were upset that the writer didn't include an epilogue that showed the couple having babies and happily ever after. In fact that seems to be a huge criticism of Thomas' and Milan's novels.)
And your discussion of Beguiling the Beauty intrigues me (again, more than Amazon's blurb and reviews did.)
It has a reference to a same-sex relationship and handles it in a realistic and interesting way.
I can see why the book pissed a lot of reviewers off - it has some extremely strong and dominant women characters. (which personally, I prefer and find to be a breath of fresh air). A lot of female reviewers have issues with strong and assertive women in books - it's weird. I've even scene the term "alpha female" used and in a derogatory sense.
Though I think I'm back to needing a light book before delving back into the angst.
I'm thinking the same thing. I may jump to The Proposition before attempting either The Beast or the Milan trilogy. Or maybe Tempting the Bride - which is supposed to be lighter.
Beguiling the Beauty isn't that dark at the moment - but I'm only 36% of the way through.
nd 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.)
No. I should try her. I loved to see a twist on those myths.
I remember reading Piers Anthony's take on the Greek myths as a kid. My favorites were the ones on "Death" and "Hades".
(Yes, I have a fictional bad-boy character fetish...but only in fictional narratives.)
True...I'm learning I can't trust what I liked as a teen either. I recently re-read a book I loved as a teen and thought it was ...well not that good.