Throne of Glass update
Feb. 18th, 2013 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkYeah yeah, I know I said I'll probably finish sporking the entire book because I have nothing better to read, but it's getting to the point at which it's hard for me to take the book seriously in any capacity anymore.
The CW's Beauty and the Beast was a shock to my system in terms of reminding me what a good romance actually looks like. Comparatively, Throne of Glass's "romance" looks like something that crawled out of the reject heap. The terrible part is, before watching BatB, I could resign myself to the lowest of low standards when it came to romance, but now that I'm following BatB, I don't feel inclined to give Throne of Glass a pass anymore "just because" it's YA fantasy. I mean, that should never be an excuse to begin with.
Also, when I open a published book, I generally trust that the author isn't completely incompetent. Maybe that's an increasingly unrealistic expectation these days, considering how many books have shoddy plotting, but Throne of Glass made me lose any trust I had in the author due to the completely inconsistent characterization, to the point where I don't think the author actually understands what the personality of the protagonist is.
That's not even getting into the rampant sexism in the book.
Okay, I will confess that I have one chapter write-up I haven't posted yet (because it's really short), and I stopped reading further when I ran smack into Dorian's POV again. Dorian is such a douchebag and his POV sections only make it so much worse.
.
I thought about doing a fake rewrite outline for the book, as for how it could've been improved, but honestly I have no idea what the book is actually supposed to be about. The tests (I refuse your arbitrary capitalizations, author) fade into the background partway through, despite being the central premise of the book. The murder mystery never seems to worry anyone. Assassinating? Never even part of the story. The "political intrigue" has always been shoddily done, if not also nonexistent. The Chosen One Save The World plot has entered so late in the game I can't make any sense of it. The only thing left is the romances/wearing pretty dresses/fooling around in the court, but that's just plain boring unless you can write the hell out of a romance. And by now, it's abundantly clear that the author can't.
The CW's Beauty and the Beast was a shock to my system in terms of reminding me what a good romance actually looks like. Comparatively, Throne of Glass's "romance" looks like something that crawled out of the reject heap. The terrible part is, before watching BatB, I could resign myself to the lowest of low standards when it came to romance, but now that I'm following BatB, I don't feel inclined to give Throne of Glass a pass anymore "just because" it's YA fantasy. I mean, that should never be an excuse to begin with.
Also, when I open a published book, I generally trust that the author isn't completely incompetent. Maybe that's an increasingly unrealistic expectation these days, considering how many books have shoddy plotting, but Throne of Glass made me lose any trust I had in the author due to the completely inconsistent characterization, to the point where I don't think the author actually understands what the personality of the protagonist is.
That's not even getting into the rampant sexism in the book.
Okay, I will confess that I have one chapter write-up I haven't posted yet (because it's really short), and I stopped reading further when I ran smack into Dorian's POV again. Dorian is such a douchebag and his POV sections only make it so much worse.
.
I thought about doing a fake rewrite outline for the book, as for how it could've been improved, but honestly I have no idea what the book is actually supposed to be about. The tests (I refuse your arbitrary capitalizations, author) fade into the background partway through, despite being the central premise of the book. The murder mystery never seems to worry anyone. Assassinating? Never even part of the story. The "political intrigue" has always been shoddily done, if not also nonexistent. The Chosen One Save The World plot has entered so late in the game I can't make any sense of it. The only thing left is the romances/wearing pretty dresses/fooling around in the court, but that's just plain boring unless you can write the hell out of a romance. And by now, it's abundantly clear that the author can't.
