It's been a long time since I read the original Graceling, though I read the rest of the series in the past two years, so they are more fresh in my miIt's been a long time since I read the original Graceling, though I read the rest of the series in the past two years, so they are more fresh in my mind. I really loved this, and I'll add that I don't like high fantasy and yet I love this series. A great adaptation that should make people want to dive into the source text if they're not familiar with it. And mad props to Cecilia Cackley, who did the actual embroidery to represent the embroidery Queen Ashen did! it's gorgeous....more
I mean, it's honestly just meh, but if you want my full thoughts you'll have to wait for me to read it again (did the ARC, now time to dive into the fI mean, it's honestly just meh, but if you want my full thoughts you'll have to wait for me to read it again (did the ARC, now time to dive into the final edition as published) and then you can read my dissertation....more
I liked Graceling fine enough and I thought Fire was cool, but damn if this isn't the most impressive book of the series, not to mention just a reallyI liked Graceling fine enough and I thought Fire was cool, but damn if this isn't the most impressive book of the series, not to mention just a really fucking impressive book in the grand landscape of books. And I don't even like high fantasy! Like, at all. I don't care about military shit and I don't care about European-inspired shit and I don't really care for made-up politics when our own real life sociopolitics are so complex, but this book has all of that and more and I am fucking here for it. It absolutely hurts to read, but in a good way, and what could be very hackneyed worldbuilding and political intrigue is actually really, really fascinating given Cashore's light touch with magic and the incredibly troubling but incredibly well-rendered legacy of torture, trauma, and abuse left by Leck. It's been 328957023985 years since I read Graceling, so I can't actually tell you if I felt whether that horror was adequately portrayed, but you feel the shit out of it in this book, and I honestly don't feel that I need to have read/remembered book 1 (though having read Fire is, I think, essential in a way you don't fully appreciate until the last forty or so pages of the book) to have gotten a really incredible reading experience in this one. The reason it's hard to give a shit about a lot of characters in a lot of high fantasy is because who cares about rich people and their problems? But Bitterblue here is a character who actually has the presence of mind to be questioning monarchy and taking on a lot more responsibility than anyone her age should have to in processing her own trauma and that of all of her people (in the immediate sense and in the sense of her population), plus trying to enact and instate new programs and systems that will in some way rectify the damages done by her father. At times I still got a little bored or lost with all the mazes and huge cast of characters and more tedious and generic fantasy plot elements like arranged marriages and overcomplicated Council arrangements, but all in all this was a very impressive story. I really fucking hate sequels and series, so I love that this is truly a standalone that fits within the universe, not Book 3 in the usual sense. I wish I could give you the reason I picked it up, but I can't, but I am really, really glad I did because I never would have left to my own devices. This is really affecting and hits me in all the right places as a reader, as a scholar, and as a writer. Impressive af; read it whatever your reading tastes are....more
Even if I hadn't had to pick this up for a panel I was going to moderate, I would have picked it up because LES MIS. And I kept reading it because as Even if I hadn't had to pick this up for a panel I was going to moderate, I would have picked it up because LES MIS. And I kept reading it because as it turns out, I don't hate high fantasy as a rule, I hate high fantasy because I hate it when things take place in weird, European-inspired, sort-of-medieval-sort-of-Renaissance worlds that are tired af. This is fantastic and I want everyone to read it, kthx....more
How in the world did this make it through the editorial process in not one, but two countries? This book is a disaster; it reads like the first draft How in the world did this make it through the editorial process in not one, but two countries? This book is a disaster; it reads like the first draft of something I would have written when I was 11. I was a damn good writer at 11, mind you, but I was still 11--so it's not like I was good at following through on a plot line, managing my worldbuilding, or editing myself. The text of this book is so tedious and repetitive: Metaphor. Simile restating the metaphor. Simple sentence explaining the metaphor and simile. Repeat. You can't say it's for effect when it's all. the damn. time. And the metaphors and similes were sooooooo bad. And then what followed them wasn't just an explanation of what was understandable even under the terrible metaphor or simile, but it was a master class in tell, don't show.
I had whiplash reading this, because the pacing AND the timing were off (things happened yesterday but all of a sudden actually, it had been weeks, but then it was still just yesterday that this thing happened, but actually no, it was months ago). The setting was like a damn Clue board, complete with secret passages that take you instantly from one corner to the opposite one; nothing was a consistent distance or route, so nothing was believable or comprehensible. The political element was interesting if a little heavyhanded, and that's the only thing that gets me onboard with high fantasy, but it was hard to care when the characters were also giving me whiplash: hating each other to loving each other to being best friends to being enemies to being angry to being happy to being scared to being brave all in the space of like three pages. Every three pages. For an entire book.
And then let's talk about how much of a grasp the author has on commas and colons: zero. Zero grasp. That's how much. Painful.
How in the world did so many people read this and think it was printable?...more
this is so fucking weird and that makes it absolutely delightful. it is exactly the kind of random story a second grader would come up with at recewtf
this is so fucking weird and that makes it absolutely delightful. it is exactly the kind of random story a second grader would come up with at recess, and it's diverse in so many ways and I love it....more
This was hella not good in the way that the actual Princeless books are, and that's very sad.This was hella not good in the way that the actual Princeless books are, and that's very sad....more
I just can't I love these comics so much and I so wish the writers had a better grasp of grammar and I want more but also learn your subject and objecI just can't I love these comics so much and I so wish the writers had a better grasp of grammar and I want more but also learn your subject and object pronouns please I love Adrienne the end....more
This is pretty fantastic. It's just what every little brown girl deserves: a totally usual fairy tale setting, just with a brown girl instead of a whiThis is pretty fantastic. It's just what every little brown girl deserves: a totally usual fairy tale setting, just with a brown girl instead of a white girl. Clearly it's inspired by the Paper Bag Princess and similar heroines, and it also reminded me a lot of the absurdity of Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Every single cliche and trope is here--on purpose. It's totally sillypants and very obvious with its pointed critique of traditional hero/heroine tales and fairy tales, but it's done in the way that's SO OBVIOUS and yet not annoying, really. I don't know how exactly that was managed, but it was. Pointing out how women action heroines in comics wear ridiculous clothes? Check. Misogynist king? Check. Lazy father who gets all the credit for doing stuff when it's actually his child doing the work and him at the pub all day? Check. Goofy dragon? Also check. All kinds of stuff went on, and yet it was really fun. Also, points for it being a brown girl who just exists and is brown, because it's fantasyland - there was no sassy black girl (she was sassy, but it was very Princess Elizabeth), no big butt, no AAVE...just kicking ass.
To be fair, some criticisms: it was clearly put together in about five minutes; there were all kinds of misspelled words and missing punctuation marks. And the beginning little frame device is rather heavy handed. And I wish she hadn't had to get rid of the curls as she aged, because that makes her look more civilized and mature or something - stop hating on the natural hair, everyone! But all in all, I liked. Totally fun. Would love to read more....more
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