1) I was just getting into South of Broad
, starting to feel the tension, wondering what would happen next, when he jumps forward in time 20 years. What the heck? It took you 120 pages to make me care what happened at all, and then you take away any tenuous connection I felt for these characters. I think this one's out the window.2) I'm only 15 pages into The Land of Painted Caves
, but it's a little painful. The whole thing reads like the second chapter of a Babysitter's Club book. "I'm Ayla. I'm blonde and have blue eyes. My senses are really well-developed, and I have kind of a weird accent because I was raised by the Clan. More about them later. Jondalar is my mate, and he's very tall and sexy, also with blonde hair and blue eyes. He invented a spear-thrower that lets you throw spears from much farther away. He has a brother and a sister, and his father is the leader of the Lanzadonii."3) I'm really enjoying The Left Hand of God
more and more, in spite of the frequent use of cliches and awkward POV switches. But my new complaint is that all the female characters are kind of awful. There have been four speaking women so far, one of whom is sexy and stupid, one gorgeous and kind of blank, one evil and dumb, and one just kind of a harridan. None of them are major characters. I'm not usually someone bothered much by things like that, but as the women pile up and get more and more annoying, I get more and more depressed.Okay, I'm done complaining. Thanks for listening.
5 comments:
Give South of Broad another chance. I just read it and thought it was one of Conroy's better novels. The jumping around makes the eventual conclusion work. Really.
Does it go back and forth, or further forward, or just stay in '89? I'm actually really relieved to hear that all of high school isn't just summed up with "and we had a life changing senior year."
It does go back and forth, and by the end, all of the important, life-changing times are fully explored...
All right, you talked me into it. I'm still reading. Though I have to say, I sometimes (often) wish Conroy's characters would just spend less time interacting with the horrible, cruel, abusive people in their lives, instead of going to parties at their houses and politely making cutting remarks at each other.
Have you gotten around to reading Matched yet? I just read i last month, and would be interested to read what you think.
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