Book ramble
Aug. 27th, 2017 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
impyLet's talk books, shall we? We shall. We'll start in the land o' kiddos, I guess. I re-read Tenney's books because they were on my Kindle and why the heck not. I'm not sure if I ever mentioned/mini-reviewed them here, so we'll do that now.
I liked Tenney's stories way more than I expected to. Truly, a country singer/songwriter at the ripe ol' age of like, 12 who gets a record deal is not really something that I would think appealing. But I was curious and since I knew I wasn't likely going to buy Tenney (ever) I'd have to read the books. They're definitely fluffy but they're fun. I thought they'd veer more into total wish fulfillment and they're remarkably grounded, all things considered. It's sort of like how all the Historical stories require you to accept that Kirsten's house burns down but there's a house right nearby they can buy so it' s not a problem, or that Rebecca wound up in a movie and got a rock thrown at her when speechifying... like, these aren't your every day things to happen, but they could. In theory.
While I'm not jumping at the idea of buying Tenney, I'm glad we're getting more books.
Onward. I found and read Addy's Journey book and that is essentially a love letter to one Addy Walker. Seriously. It was fun so I'm not complaining.
I finally accepted that I'm not going to get Gabby in the next... month or so (ha...likely longer. Woe) so I caved and bought her books for my Kindle. I enjoyed them but they (and Tenney) both played out one of my least favorite tropes: the bully who suddenly becomes your friend because you're nice to her. Ummmm... no? No, your average bully will not stop making your life hell, kids, if you are nice to them. Especially if you are nice to them when other people (their bullies?) have just kicked them when they are down. They will be out for blood and the moment you cross them, you will light up like the bullseye you are. I'm not saying that you should never be nice to people, even those who are awful to you but... I wouldn't be holding out on them being your bestest best friend in a matter of days, either.
I will say that Gabby's stories did seem to try and subvert this a little in that Gabby's bully obviously thought Gabby had been mean first. Like... it was painfully obvious this was where that storyline was going once we moved beyond "oh no, it's HER!" So her conversion I'll buy. Tenney's started out a little more believable than it progressed to by the end of book 3. I'd buy that Holliday (is that her name?) made friends with Jaya and that she made more of an effort to be nice to Tenney when Jaya asked her to and when she realized Tenney wasn't completely awful. I don't buy that she'd be ride or die for Tenners quite so quickly.
Annnnnnnnd then I caved and bought Z's first book. It was weird reading about someone 'playing' with AG dolls in an AG book. So very weird. Once the story veered off from that, I enjoyed it more but it was still very, very strange reading a book that had a character who made AG stop motion vids as her thing. o_O
Finally, I read Shadowed Souls which is a short story collection that defied all the odds and had every single story be good. Some were excellent, some were simply good, but not a one did I think, "Well, there's twenty minutes I'll never get back," or anything similar. In fact, I think the one story I had the most issues with was the Dresden story and that's because it's been so fucking long since I read a Dresden book that I'd forgotten what Molly was up to and also it read less like Molly and more like Dresden himself. Which isn't a bad thing when you're in need of a Harry Dresden fix but not so great when you know that Molly should have her own distinct voice.
Then again, Mums is less enamored of the other story (stories?) she's read in it so take my love with a grain of salt. That said, the paranormal books we enjoy don't always have major crossover with one another. We both thoroughly enjoyed Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan series but I suffered through LKH's Anita and Merry books and she never did. Smart woman, though I maintain that Merry's first few books were worth the pain.
Annnnnnd now I think I'm going to go check on the cat and open my box. Nanea!
I liked Tenney's stories way more than I expected to. Truly, a country singer/songwriter at the ripe ol' age of like, 12 who gets a record deal is not really something that I would think appealing. But I was curious and since I knew I wasn't likely going to buy Tenney (ever) I'd have to read the books. They're definitely fluffy but they're fun. I thought they'd veer more into total wish fulfillment and they're remarkably grounded, all things considered. It's sort of like how all the Historical stories require you to accept that Kirsten's house burns down but there's a house right nearby they can buy so it' s not a problem, or that Rebecca wound up in a movie and got a rock thrown at her when speechifying... like, these aren't your every day things to happen, but they could. In theory.
While I'm not jumping at the idea of buying Tenney, I'm glad we're getting more books.
Onward. I found and read Addy's Journey book and that is essentially a love letter to one Addy Walker. Seriously. It was fun so I'm not complaining.
I finally accepted that I'm not going to get Gabby in the next... month or so (ha...likely longer. Woe) so I caved and bought her books for my Kindle. I enjoyed them but they (and Tenney) both played out one of my least favorite tropes: the bully who suddenly becomes your friend because you're nice to her. Ummmm... no? No, your average bully will not stop making your life hell, kids, if you are nice to them. Especially if you are nice to them when other people (their bullies?) have just kicked them when they are down. They will be out for blood and the moment you cross them, you will light up like the bullseye you are. I'm not saying that you should never be nice to people, even those who are awful to you but... I wouldn't be holding out on them being your bestest best friend in a matter of days, either.
I will say that Gabby's stories did seem to try and subvert this a little in that Gabby's bully obviously thought Gabby had been mean first. Like... it was painfully obvious this was where that storyline was going once we moved beyond "oh no, it's HER!" So her conversion I'll buy. Tenney's started out a little more believable than it progressed to by the end of book 3. I'd buy that Holliday (is that her name?) made friends with Jaya and that she made more of an effort to be nice to Tenney when Jaya asked her to and when she realized Tenney wasn't completely awful. I don't buy that she'd be ride or die for Tenners quite so quickly.
Annnnnnnnd then I caved and bought Z's first book. It was weird reading about someone 'playing' with AG dolls in an AG book. So very weird. Once the story veered off from that, I enjoyed it more but it was still very, very strange reading a book that had a character who made AG stop motion vids as her thing. o_O
Finally, I read Shadowed Souls which is a short story collection that defied all the odds and had every single story be good. Some were excellent, some were simply good, but not a one did I think, "Well, there's twenty minutes I'll never get back," or anything similar. In fact, I think the one story I had the most issues with was the Dresden story and that's because it's been so fucking long since I read a Dresden book that I'd forgotten what Molly was up to and also it read less like Molly and more like Dresden himself. Which isn't a bad thing when you're in need of a Harry Dresden fix but not so great when you know that Molly should have her own distinct voice.
Then again, Mums is less enamored of the other story (stories?) she's read in it so take my love with a grain of salt. That said, the paranormal books we enjoy don't always have major crossover with one another. We both thoroughly enjoyed Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan series but I suffered through LKH's Anita and Merry books and she never did. Smart woman, though I maintain that Merry's first few books were worth the pain.
Annnnnnd now I think I'm going to go check on the cat and open my box. Nanea!
(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-27 06:36 pm (UTC)I read Gabby's first book awhile ago and enjoyed that one a lot, but the second one was dull. It could have been in almost any kids' line with the characters swapped out. I thought Aaliyah's bully backstory was annoying, because she clearly was super oversensitive, but too much so. Don't approach two brand new people and expect them to immediately respond to you, especially when you should have seen them in action enough to realize that one is the stuttering girl that can take awhile to speak. And it's Gabby she targets so it was her she expected to say "Yeah, sure, sit down" right away. What also annoyed me is that the older kids just take their bullying role in stride and make it seem like Gabby and Isaiah are wrong to be upset. Bria does this especially with her "go with the flow" bullshit and she's never called on it. Like these are the kids you're so into in your poetry group but they can't even have your back enough to realize that they're bullying a bunch of younger kids including you? The boys were handled a little better, but not one of them stood up and said "Yeah, this is bullying. It's wrong."
Tenney I got through the first two last night. I enjoyed the first much more than the second. I thought Jaya overreacted a lot. Like your friend has a musical CAREER. She is working with professionals and you need to respect that. She's not blowing you off because she's fucking around writing songs in her bedroom. She has sessions with professional music people as the beginning of her DREAM CAREER. Just because your charity cause is a good one doesn't mean she has to set her career on hold to help you. I didn't mind Holliday's turnaround as much, because she seemed less outright bully and more jealous. Logan was the one who annoyed me, because I feel like he doesn't respect Tenney at all. Like if you have that much attitude about "backing up" a singer, you're not in the right business. There isn't a long string of drummer soloists out there. Your role is to provide the musical background to people's songs. Deal with it. And while I haven't read the 3rd book yet, I have a feeling it's going to be more of him being a douche, which makes me annoyed that he's the one that got the first AG boy doll. They could have made Stirling, but no, this douche.
Z I love. The AG thing was more of a focus in the first book than it was in the second. Amazon got a few copies of the book early and I managed to get my hands on one before Mattel realized it and stopped them from selling them. I think that's what happened because they went back to "currently unavailable" too quickly to have sold the last 11 copies. The second I liked and I think it teaches a really important lesson: Do not live on your phone. Live your life first instead of thinking about what parts of it you're going to capture in photos and videos online. The only thing I didn't like was that it had one of my least fave tropes: Adult treats kid badly and certain aspects of it are never resolved. And it felt like Z fucked up a few too many times. Like they could have had this lesson without her seeming super incompetent. A lot of the problems would have also been resolved if her mom, who was basically her boss for this book, had a rule: no phones on set. She at least realizes she's putting too much on a 13-year-old with zero experience. I still love Z's character though. She's just fun.
I read the first Like Sisters, too, and that was pretty fun.
After Tenney's third is Melody's mystery and then I need to get back to Julie, my final character in my reread that's taken years. Or I might take a break from Tenney and go right to Melody. I dunno if I'm in the mood for more Logan yet.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-27 11:26 pm (UTC)I think the whole having it be obvious that it was all a ~misunderstanding~ gave me more time to accept we were going to wind up with Aaliyah as a friend but oh, if the cat could talk she would tell you all about my grumblings about the bully turned friend thing. Agreed on Aaliyah being too smart to not realize the girl with a stutter would need more time to speak and say sure, yeah, join us.
If it had just been the water balloons, I could see Bria (and everyone else) trying to pull off the go with the flow thing but the nicknames crossed the line. On the flipside, it's probably the most realistic part of the book, having the older kids just choosing not to get it because they'd gone through it too. Boo, Bria. Boo.
Good to know that Z's second book is worth a read, though I expect more from Z's mom based on how awesome her parents were in the first book.
Ooh, I'd forgotten the Like Sisters series!