Okay, that is the general part. Now comes the part where my friend Lianna and I had a great chat about this book and how we felt about it. I asked if she wanted to do a joint review, where we each publish half on our blog. Her blog is really more of a writing journal, though, so she suggested I keep the whole thing for myself. Which makes me feel greedy, but here we are!Major, huge, enormous spoilers below; this post is really only for people who have read the book, or who are never, ever going to read the book but for some reason really want to read about it. Which, they exist; I love spoilery reviews of books that I'm never going to read. Go figure.
And thank you, Lianna, for letting me share this; I think it captures a lot of interesting angles on both the best and weakest parts of this wonderful, wonderful book that you should totally read before you come back and read this review full of spoilers which start.....NOW!
--------------
Lianna:
First of all, I have to share that every time I mention this book to my
husband, he thinks it's called "My Daughter is Smokin' a Bone".
So,
I FLEW through the first half of this book in a day, then slowed down a
lot and took three more days to finish it. I felt that the action
started getting bogged down by the love story, and that a lot of things
that I loved about it-- the careful balancing of Karou's two worlds, the
hallucinatory wonder of Brimstone's shop, Karou's art education, the
acerbically witty best friend-- were kind of shoved aside to make room
for the Instalove.
I
wasn't that annoyed by the Instalove itself, partly because you had
forewarned me about it, and partly because I could tell from the hints
that this was a reincarnation story of sorts. So, it's Instalove based
on a prior relationship. I'm basically cool with that. But THEN, when
the story flashes back to Akiva and Madrigal/Karou falling in love, it's
STILL Instalove! That's the point at which the love story began to
annoy me to the degree of souring my opinion of the book as a
whole.
Don't
get me wrong-- I'm totally reading the second book. I adored the
world-building, and the cliff-hanger ending hooked me good. I also
appreciate that she didn't drag out the mysteries of "why was Karou was
raised by demons?" and "wtf is the deal with
Brimstone and the teeth?" any longer than made sense. I respect the
hell out of an author who's not afraid to give answers in the first book
of a trilogy.
But the love story thing has been rattling around in my mind. Here are the questions I've been pondering
as I fold laundry:
1) Why does Instalove not do it for me, Romance-wise?
2) Why is Instalove so appealing to teenage readers?
3) What is the role my own personal taste in men plays in the way I judge Romance plots?
4) Is there a way to do the "our love will save the world!" plot that isn't eye-rolling to anyone over the age of 19?
And my thoughts about these questions:
1) As I said in my comments on your Instalove blog post, I am a Pride and Prejudice fan. I am just more interested in and excited by love stories in which the connection and attraction build slowly.
2)
If my teenage self were reading DoSaB, she'd be alllllll over it.
Mostly for the style (Blue hair! Tattoos! Prague! Chimaera demons!), but
also for the love story. I think it has something to do with the
intense adolescent longing for unconditional acceptance, coupled with a
certain immaturity in regards to personal decisions. If your love is
fated and eternal, then you don't have
to struggle to catch the boy's attention or work to get to know him. No
matter what you do, he'll still love you, and no matter what bad
choices you make, you'll still wind up together in the end.
As
an adult, this just doesn't appeal to me, maybe because Fated,
Eternal Love now seems like such a slim thread to hang a real
relationship on. If love is born so effortlessly, isn't it also more
likely to die without a struggle?
3)
If I'm honest, I think part of my problem here is that I'm just not
feelin' Akiva. He's a brooding,
melodramatic sourpuss, and I do not believe I would be attracted to him
if I met him in real life. I just don't see what he has going for him
beyond being otherwordly-gorgeous. This is my problem with a lot of
Instalove heroes; the Fated Love starts to feel lazy to me, like if the
guy is really hot and really into the heroine, he doesn't need any other
redeeming qualities (except perhaps a stalker-ish overprotectiveness
that I am proud to say I have NEVER found appealing).
It's
not that I'm immune to male beauty, but if a guy is really that
jaw-droppingly perfect (a la Edward Cullen/Christian Gray), I've always
been more inclined to look at him as an amazing piece of art, rather
than as a potential romantic partner. Call me reactionary, but I prefer
to be prettier than the men I sleep with. And I am no jaw-dropping piece
of art.
I
like my romantic interests more on the beta side. I'd rather break
through the facade of the wisecracking sidekick than the brooding hero.
4)
The Instalove device often goes hand-in-hand with the "only our
super-special love can save the world" trope. I don't like how smug this
usually comes off, implying as it does that the lead couple's
superiority over everyone else in their world-- not only are they more
attractive than everyone else, they are nobler, wiser, braver, and the
only ones capable of seeing what really matters, dammit! It rankles.
I
saw some of this in DoSaB. For example, the whole Chiro thing went over
the line into Mary Sue territory for me. Chiro is ugly! And she envies
Madgrial for being sooooo amazingly beautiful! But Madrigal is so
awesomely above it all she doesn't even realize that she is pretty and
Chiro is ugly! And so Chiro betrays her, 'cause ugly people are petty
like that. Bitch, please.
Have you read Warm Bodies?
I just saw the movie this weekend, and I've been trying to work out why
the "teen love saves the world" thing did not bug me in that story. I
think it was the sense that it wasn't so much THEIR love specifically
that was curing the zombie
plague as it was love in general. If it hadn't been R's resurrected
ability to love that started it, it could have been someone else's.
Also, while R feels Instalove, it's not the Fated, Eternal kind-- more
like, "underneath my zombie-ness I am still a typically romantic and
horny teenage boy, and you are cute and in immediate need of saving".
And Julie feels no Instalove whatsoever; it is a completely one-sided
thing for quite a while.
And those are my feelingful feelings.
Et vous?
Sharon:
This exactly echoes my reaction down to the details. I flew through
the first half and then, when the love story started, slowed down
considerably--to the point where I'm pretty sure it's been weeks. I did
not figure out the reincarnation thing before it happened--well, when
Akiva realized he knew who Karou was, I figured she was probably his
dead girlfriend, but that's not much in
advance. Once I got that, I was able to let it go, though it still
bugged me a bit--mostly it just bugged me that the story was ABOUT their
love, instead of about Karou trying to find her family and solve her
mysteries.
The
Instalove between Madrigal and Akiva didn't bother me as much, because
their first moment together--on the battlefield--was
really more of a sensible moment in context. They had a moment of
shared humanity, and there was some intensity and attraction there, and
it stayed with them as a snapshot memory. It meant more to Akiva
because he was already kind of disillusioned, and because the seraphim
have more inhuman/irrational negatives about the chimaera.
But
the fact that they threw themselves at each other so aggressively was a
bit of a problem. At that point, though, I just wanted the Madrigal
backstory to go fast so I could get back to Karou, so my disbelief was
sacrificed to speed reading.
Aside:
I tell Adam stories at bedtime--Mike reads, I tell. No repeats, so I
often end up bowdlerizing whatever I'm reading for him. He's been dying
to hear what happens next in this book, and I can't figure out how to
explain flashbacks, never mind reincarnation!
Re:
1) Why does Instalove not do it for me, Romance-wise?
2) Why is Instalove so appealing to teenage readers?
3) What is the role my own personal taste in men plays in the way I judge Romance plots?
4) Is there a
way to do the "our love will save the world!" plot that isn't eye-rolling to anyone over the age of 19?
1)
is easy--I've never been someone who was all about the physical stuff.
I mean, instalove is clearly based heavily in physical attraction--at
least, a
reader's sympathy for it is. And, forgive the TMI and the
high-handedness, but I've never been someone who's so swept up in the
FEELINGS of the moment/body that I have not known where I was. So it
just doesn't hook up with my experience in general, and I suspect that
for most people, the further you get from adolescence the less familiar
that sense of "lust/not thinking clearly" becomes.
2)
goes the same way--this is something we discussed in my library science
YA class. Basically, young adults are dealing with all this stuff for
the first time, and so it's way more confusing and intense to them. It
feels more REAL, because they haven't felt all excited about someone and
had it mean absolutely nothing a million times the way us grown ups
have.
3)
I agree that Akiva did almost nothing for me, and standard hotness does
pretty much nothing for me. I mean, I'll look at the guys in the
movies as much as the next lady, but what I'm going to pine for is the
personality, and Akiva is definitely thin on that. Another reason the
book took a dive when he showed up.
4)
Three words: His Dark Materials. Literally the only books I can think
of that really gave me a reason why two people could actually matter
that much without being the Chosen Ones (which is ludicrous), and why
their relationship would matter. I mean, I guess Adam and Eve, but they
were the whole world at the time, so not a fair comparison. For
examples of this done poorly--oh, I could go on forever. I actually
love the ending of The Amber Spyglass just because that whole relationship turned that expectation--our love will Change the World!--on its head.
Okay, I'm going to bed now and haven't even finished the book; more tomorrow though. And I'm already waiting for Days of Blood and Starlight
(which title already has a dozen permutations in my head involving
words like Nights of Dust and Diamonds and is starting to sound like a
romance novel) from the library!
Lianna:
I guessed the reincarnation because of the way Karou kept seeing
glimpses of an "other" Akiva-- smiling, with less tattoos, etc.
And
yes about the book becoming about their love instead of their love
being one of the things happening in the book. It's like the love story
ate the rest of the book.
Sharon: I
think the problem was not that the story was structured around their
love story--because if you have a story about two people who defy their
nations to bridge a gap of war, there are only so many kinds of bonds
you can make that about. It's that all the MEANING of the story was
tied up in their love. I definitely think it's partly a factor of being
an adult that you really understand all the many variations of
motivation that exist in the world. Honestly, the relationship between
Karou/Madrigal and Brimstone seemed way more compelling to me than the
relationship with Akiva, but of course, the Akiva one is going to change
the world. I love the idea of Brimstone "using" her like
that, and how morally ambiguous that is, but also how good and right.
But now I'm rewriting the book, and that's not fair. You can't judge a book on what it could have tried to be.
But now I'm rewriting the book, and that's not fair. You can't judge a book on what it could have tried to be.
I'm
actually hoping the next one might be a bit more interesting, because
Akiva is clearly kind of cranky and grim, but his fluctuation in his
feelings about the seraphim and chimera vary so widely that I'm really
hoping his trajectory gets more interesting. But I'm also hoping that
we stay with Karou a lot more.
Akiva is now firmly in Gale territory with me--I was fine with him till he got all warlike, and then he lost me. And he only regrets it now that she's back--boo hoo. I kind of wish he'd turn out to be the bad guy, or a character who has to die to be redeemed. Not likely in a romance, though.
I assume it's a trilogy. I hope the next one doesn't fall prey to middle book syndrome!
Lianna: I'm looking forward to watching Karou get her vengeance on.
I've realized I'm doing quite a bit of complaining about a book I really enjoyed. Allow me to touch upon the Awesome again: Daughter of Smoke and Bone is
smarter and grittier than most YA Fantasy
I've read. Karou successfully walks the heroine line between kickass
and vulnerable, and I loved the world building so much I want to jet
over to Prague and wander the meandering back alleys until I come across
the entrance to Brimstone's shop. And that's pretty much the highest
compliment I can bestow on a work of Fantasy: it makes me wish that it
was all real.
No comments:
Post a Comment