Throne of Glass - Intermezzo
Jan. 20th, 2013 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkI have a few more chapters deconstructed, but I'm going to hold off on posting them individually and post them together in a batch. (Although honestly I'm not sure anymore whether that'll make a difference.) Instead, I'm going to take a breather for my sanity.
I read a lot of bad books; not because I intentionally seek out bad books to read (I'd like to think I have a pretty good finger on the pulse of YA fiction and popular new releases), but because there are a lot of bad books out there right now. I generally have a low tolerance for writing style and put down many books because of it, even though my criteria are simple: (1) don't be overly descriptive/purply prose-y, (2) have natural-sounding dialogue, and (3) don't bore me with extraneous information that doesn't contribute to the plot and that could've been deleted without any adverse effect on the rest of the book.
I like the simple and direct writing style of books such as Harry Potter, Divergent, and The Demon's Lexicon. The writing style of The Hunger Games isn't exactly impressive, but it's adequately compelling. Hell, despite my hatred for the book, even Shadow and Bone's writing style is competent.
So I really mean it when I say that Throne of Glass is just not written well.
I'm constantly tempted to take out a red pen and slash half of the content. The book is horribly boring when it's not about the actual competition--which so far has taken up about 10% of the book. There are paragraphs, entire scenes, and possibly entire chapters that have no relation to the plot and are just there to give the reader random useless information. The dialogue isn't terrible (but then, I've read some really bad dialogue), but neither is it strong enough to carry scenes by itself, and the author's attempts at sparkling witty banter are rather dull. There's constant POV-hopping, ranging from the sporadic and unnecessary but somewhat excusable sections from the perspectives of characters besides Celaena to the amateurish leap to third-person omniscient to describe characters' physical appearances.
I've touched upon the ways in which this book suffers from the Plague of the Passive Protagonist. Despite the competition and the budding murder mystery, there is no drive whatsoever in the book. I presume Celaena has a goal--to win the competition to obtain her freedom--but since so much of the book is not about the competition, it feels as though she's not doing much to accomplish that goal. She's a reactive rather than active protagonist, and the plot itself is moving slowly enough that it can't even disguise that fact.
Realism is absent in ridiculous ways, ranging from lack of Google-level research into worldbuilding to the nonexistence of common sense reactions to murder and Mary Sueism.
Characterization has been really spotty and comes down to Beauty Equals Goodness for most characters (except the stock Jealous Pretty Girl character), while Celaena's characterization is completely inconsistent. I don't think the inconsistency of Celaena's character was intentional on the part of the author. If it were, the book would've been more interesting, but I haven't seen any attempt by the narrative to condemn Celaena's thoughts or actions, and typically we're supposed to hate every character who disagrees with or doesn't like Celaena (except Chaol, and that's for cheap romantic tension). Also, it isn't so much that Celaena has multiple facets of her personality so much as it's so severe, it almost comes off as Dissociative Identity Disorder.
The only saving graces in terms of characterization so far are Chaol and Nehemia, the only characters who seem to have working brains in this novel.
I've gone on enough about this novel's problematic treatment of gender, so I won't rehash that here. I will just reiterate my incredulity that people actually think this book is feminist in any way. Celaena talks the talk (...sometimes, when she's not obsessed about men's approval or her looks), but she has little to no power or agency of her own. Add to that the frequent girl-on-girl hate and the ways that female characters in the book are constantly outnumbered both by the number of male characters and by the number of positive male characters, and this book actually manages to amaze me with its sexism.
.
I've heard rumors that the original FictionPress story, "Queen of Glass," was "darker" and "more mature." While I certainly would've been curious to see how different it was, I don't buy that it was better than Throne of Glass. Adding a love triangle "to appeal to YA readers" is one thing, but bad writing, shoddy worldbuilding, gender issues, and paper-thin characterization? This is not the kind of stuff you do on purpose, even if (for whatever reason I can't understand) you wanted to "dumb down" your book for a younger audience.
I read a lot of bad books; not because I intentionally seek out bad books to read (I'd like to think I have a pretty good finger on the pulse of YA fiction and popular new releases), but because there are a lot of bad books out there right now. I generally have a low tolerance for writing style and put down many books because of it, even though my criteria are simple: (1) don't be overly descriptive/purply prose-y, (2) have natural-sounding dialogue, and (3) don't bore me with extraneous information that doesn't contribute to the plot and that could've been deleted without any adverse effect on the rest of the book.
I like the simple and direct writing style of books such as Harry Potter, Divergent, and The Demon's Lexicon. The writing style of The Hunger Games isn't exactly impressive, but it's adequately compelling. Hell, despite my hatred for the book, even Shadow and Bone's writing style is competent.
So I really mean it when I say that Throne of Glass is just not written well.
I'm constantly tempted to take out a red pen and slash half of the content. The book is horribly boring when it's not about the actual competition--which so far has taken up about 10% of the book. There are paragraphs, entire scenes, and possibly entire chapters that have no relation to the plot and are just there to give the reader random useless information. The dialogue isn't terrible (but then, I've read some really bad dialogue), but neither is it strong enough to carry scenes by itself, and the author's attempts at sparkling witty banter are rather dull. There's constant POV-hopping, ranging from the sporadic and unnecessary but somewhat excusable sections from the perspectives of characters besides Celaena to the amateurish leap to third-person omniscient to describe characters' physical appearances.
I've touched upon the ways in which this book suffers from the Plague of the Passive Protagonist. Despite the competition and the budding murder mystery, there is no drive whatsoever in the book. I presume Celaena has a goal--to win the competition to obtain her freedom--but since so much of the book is not about the competition, it feels as though she's not doing much to accomplish that goal. She's a reactive rather than active protagonist, and the plot itself is moving slowly enough that it can't even disguise that fact.
Realism is absent in ridiculous ways, ranging from lack of Google-level research into worldbuilding to the nonexistence of common sense reactions to murder and Mary Sueism.
Characterization has been really spotty and comes down to Beauty Equals Goodness for most characters (except the stock Jealous Pretty Girl character), while Celaena's characterization is completely inconsistent. I don't think the inconsistency of Celaena's character was intentional on the part of the author. If it were, the book would've been more interesting, but I haven't seen any attempt by the narrative to condemn Celaena's thoughts or actions, and typically we're supposed to hate every character who disagrees with or doesn't like Celaena (except Chaol, and that's for cheap romantic tension). Also, it isn't so much that Celaena has multiple facets of her personality so much as it's so severe, it almost comes off as Dissociative Identity Disorder.
The only saving graces in terms of characterization so far are Chaol and Nehemia, the only characters who seem to have working brains in this novel.
I've gone on enough about this novel's problematic treatment of gender, so I won't rehash that here. I will just reiterate my incredulity that people actually think this book is feminist in any way. Celaena talks the talk (...sometimes, when she's not obsessed about men's approval or her looks), but she has little to no power or agency of her own. Add to that the frequent girl-on-girl hate and the ways that female characters in the book are constantly outnumbered both by the number of male characters and by the number of positive male characters, and this book actually manages to amaze me with its sexism.
.
I've heard rumors that the original FictionPress story, "Queen of Glass," was "darker" and "more mature." While I certainly would've been curious to see how different it was, I don't buy that it was better than Throne of Glass. Adding a love triangle "to appeal to YA readers" is one thing, but bad writing, shoddy worldbuilding, gender issues, and paper-thin characterization? This is not the kind of stuff you do on purpose, even if (for whatever reason I can't understand) you wanted to "dumb down" your book for a younger audience.
