The premise is interesting, and the first story was weird and propulsive enough to hold my attention. But the second one had me cringing and rolling mThe premise is interesting, and the first story was weird and propulsive enough to hold my attention. But the second one had me cringing and rolling my eyes, and I haven't been able to rouse my interest to get back into it....more
I made it about 20 pages and won't be able to finish. Bowdler is a good writer and her thesis is disturbing and powerful, but it's just too much for mI made it about 20 pages and won't be able to finish. Bowdler is a good writer and her thesis is disturbing and powerful, but it's just too much for me....more
I gave this book 100 pages, my standard “old college try,” and have decided to ditch it—initially I was planning on reading it for my Global Lit ChallI gave this book 100 pages, my standard “old college try,” and have decided to ditch it—initially I was planning on reading it for my Global Lit Challenge (Mexico) but I’ll have to find another book instead, because there’s no way I’m making it through Lost Children Archive.
My main problem: this book talks and talks and talks and says very little. (So to speak.) It’s remarkable how much of it is just hot air, or descriptions of people reading books, or all these flowery philosophical flourishes on top of the most barebones framework of a story—almost as though all the curlicues are there to distract you from the fact that, at its core, this book is unimaginative, sophomoric, and boring.
I just feel as though Luiselli is out of her depth and is desperately trying to convince the reader that all of this comes to her naturally, that these overwrought metaphors and scores of eye-rolling references are results of her innate talent and intelligence instead of her absurd level of effort and pretension.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she isn’t trying very hard at all. But I don’t know how else to explain sentences like these:
“Conversations, in a family, become linguistic archaeology. They build the world we share, layer it in a palimpsest, give meaning to our present and future.”
“I tell him—trying to translate between a language I know well and a language I know little about—that he just needs to think of photographing as if he were recording the sound of an echo.”
“Gradually, watching this video recording of the ballet and its reenactment of a ritual, I being [sic] to understand one of the deeper layers of the story Copland tells in the piece—about how the failure of most marriages can be explained as a change from a regular transitive verb (to fuck the other person) to a phrasal transitive verb (to fuck the other person up).”
They’re... spoken-wordy. Self-satisfied. Obnoxious. Overwritten. Poetic in the worst and dumbest sense of the word. And the image of Luiselli as an insecure writer trying to prove herself is, to me, more generous than just accepting that this is the way she writes naturally. I don’t mean to cast aspersions, this is just a hypothesis I’ve cooked up that helps to explain why I found this book so subtly and uniquely unbearable. Ultimately, it’s the exact sort of book one imagines being nominated for dozens of awards but that you secretly hope doesn’t win any of them, and that they instead go to a book that is, you know, actually well-crafted and enjoyable to read.
I hate to write this review because I admire the ambition at the heart of Lost Children Archive; it is by no means an empty, soulless endeavour. But it falls far short of greatness, which makes one cringe all the more when one can feel it constantly grasping, grasping, grasping for it....more
I'm being a lot less strict about my ABORT MISSION shelf this year than I have been I the past- and that's just what I calFirst ABORT MISSION of 2016.
I'm being a lot less strict about my ABORT MISSION shelf this year than I have been I the past- and that's just what I call my DNF shelf, by the by. I'm just starting to realise how many wonderful books there are out there, and how enormous my TBR is, and all of that just makes me feel better about ditching books that I know are just going to get 2 stars from me if I finish them.
However, I still force myself to get to at least page 100, and to stick it out and give the book a chance to get good.
So, bear all this is mind when I say that Jurassic Park isn't a bad book- really, it's not. It's just not my kind of book. The beginning sucked major ass, it was nothing but "[insert name], a [scientist/researcher/doctor] looked out their window. They were in [insert location] because of [insert sciencey sounding science programme/project]." Followed by a massive info-dump.
But even when we finally got to the eponymous park, I wasn't excited. None of the characters fascinated me, and even when people started getting killed off by dinosaurs, the plot wasn't engaging. The way Crichton writes also felt very amateurish.
I've never seen the movie version of this, but I have heard the main theme song and it is GORGEOUS....more
This book is like when a loved one lays dying in a hospital bed, sickly, washed-out, and hooked up to all sorts oI cannot do this. I will not do this.
This book is like when a loved one lays dying in a hospital bed, sickly, washed-out, and hooked up to all sorts of machines. More specifically, this book is like when that loved one asks you not to remember them that way, but rather as the way they were when they lived.
The Monstrumologist series has been such an incredible ride, full of growth and beauty and pain and horror. I want to remember it as being as fantastic as I know it is, not the way The Final Descent is shaping up to make it. It takes two of the most complex, interesting characters I've ever had the pleasure to read of and shoots them into a very bleak future- it seems that none of their qualities that I've come to know and love have survived. Will Henry is a brutish, melodramatic teen; Warthrop is bitter and on the brink of death. (view spoiler)[Kearns' death by Will's hand is treated almost cavalierly. (hide spoiler)] I DNF'd at page 55.
I realise Yancey's intent here. This series was never supposed to end happily. It is about monsters, maybe even narrated by one, and it showcases the worst of humankind. However, I can't take this perversion of the characters I've grown to root for. I've come a long way with Will and Warthrop, and I can't help but feel like this abrupt, 180 degree change in their personalities, ideologies, as values throws away the hundreds of pages of subtle, moving growth I've enjoyed so much in the previous three books.
Not to mention the writing: in the introduction, Yancey's talks about how "incoherent" the "original folios" were, and how he felt betrayed by the ending. I would argue that they still are quite incoherent. Obviously, this is intentional (Will wrote them towards the end of his life, when it seems he went insane- or more insane than he already was). Still, it's pretty infuriating. Scattered, and not in a good way; rife with confusing sentences and broken paragraphs and tense switches. The lush, gorgeous prose from The Monstrumologist, The Curse of the Wendigo, and The Isle of Blood is gone as if it never was; so too is Will Henry's distinct voice, wondrous and worried and tinged with the nostalgia and regret of old age. He seems crazed here, and ragingly bipolar. In many ways, this feels like a totally different book than its companions in the series.
I assume that Will Henry's true identity (and perhaps Warthrop's as well) is revealed here, and so is how he found himself dead in a ditch, as is whatever grand monster Warthrop's been keeping in the Monstrumarium, but I don't care enough to let those things sully the pure glory that was The Isle of Blood. Honestly, I prefer the mystery to whatever truth might be unveiled- whether Will Henry was who he claimed to be, or just a particularly imaginative lunatic, it does not matter. Perhaps he was a bit of both, like the Wendigo, like Kearns. The mystery does not bother me in the slightest.
If The Isle of Blood wasn't as perfect as it was, I would probably continue with The Final Descent. But it was perfect- perfectly written, perfectly told. I feel like both Will and Warthrop's characters completed a very meaningful, very touching arc in that story, and it may well may be the best novel I've ever read. And it's not that I can't handle sad endings; it's just that that book felt so complete. Nothing more needs to be added- it's like creating a sequel to a movie that maybe didn't tie up every loose end, but was enjoyable and didn't need to be continued.
Will Henry says early on- it may be the first book, or possibly the second- that it is the reader's blessing that they are able to turn away, because he could not. So I am choosing to do so. Call it cowardice, but I call it doing a service to a loved one. I choose not to remember them as a sickly shell of what they once were, but as the vibrant soul they always will be.
Wow, this was surprisingly bad. The movie was pretty terrible, so I assumed that the short story had to at least be somewhat better... I was horribly Wow, this was surprisingly bad. The movie was pretty terrible, so I assumed that the short story had to at least be somewhat better... I was horribly wrong.
First of all, this was so fucking boring that I stopped reading TWO PAGES FROM THE END. It was so terribly dull that by the time I got to page 18, the number of fucks I gave had actually dipped into the negative range and I just could not continue.
I'd like to keep this short, so I'll list the things that sucked about this story:
- 20 pages seems simultaneously too long and too short. Too short because there's no time for anything but plot. No characterisation or actual writing style to be seen. Too long because it was soul-numbingly, dreadfully boring.
- All of the characters were basically the same person. Witwer, Anderton, Lisa, even Page and Kaplan are all just Gary Stus and Mary Sues. They're so homogenised, in fact, that when two characters talk to each other, it reads like somebody talking to their clone.
- The concept of the minority report. Anderton brings up being the Police Commissioner for thirty-something years at every turn, but how in hell is it possible that he doesn't know what a minority report is?!
- For some reason, every time Anderton's wife, Lisa, shows up, her slimness always has to be brought up. It was weird and annoying.
To be honest, three words saved this story from getting a solitary star. Because in The Minority Report was the single greatest phrase for "made a mistake" that I've ever read: "pulled a flub." That one had me laughing for at least five minutes.
So it's possible that the ending of this story is totally mind-blowing and fantastic, but even if that was the case it couldn't excuse the shitty buildup to it. Avoid this one....more
People have flipping out over this book for months. I've never been one to let hype get to me (I'm that girl who watcBiggest letdown in recent memory.
People have flipping out over this book for months. I've never been one to let hype get to me (I'm that girl who watches/reads things way after everyone else, and when I want to discuss them everybody else has already moved on- a reverse hipster, basically) but when I saw this in the "New Arrivals" section at my library, I picked it up because it is a damn fine lookin' tome.
Seriously, this book is gorgeous. The pages are black, the cover is great, the maps are cool, the inner cover lining is blood red. Pretty rad.
Plus, none of my friends have rated this book below 3 stars. So, when I opened this pretty badass-looking book, I expected a badass story to match.
Nope. Let me make it clear that I didn't make it past page 40, so my opinion has the weight equivalent to one strand of the downiest feather on the planet, but I didn't like it. The setting, from what I could tell, was pretty cool, but what made me put it down was the dialogue. It was painfully, cringe-inducingly strained, just the worst kind of utterly forced non-witty repartee. Truly painful.
Also, the characters. I know, I know, I have to warm up to them- but the four of them that I met seemed like cardboard cut-out clichés. Jesper, the witty sharpshooter. Inej, the super silent and stealthy spy person. And then there was Kaz Brenner, a self-proclaimed "monster" and leader of the Dregs.
Now, when you promise me a monster...
I expect a monster.
Kaz? He's no monster. I wouldn't even call him amoral. And some reviewers even called him outright evil. The best comparison I can make between what I expected (and what Bardugo was leading me to believe) and what Kaz actually was is a lot like being promised a juicy orange but getting a fruit snack. He's just a cocky, OH SO HANDSOME suave criminal. As if I haven't seen that trope before. And he had the worst dialogue of the bunch.
I understand the popularity of Six of Crows, but I just didn't think the book had any heart. It felt like Bardugo was just going through the motions, writing the stuff she had to- witty dialogue, sexy/edgy/criminal characters, exotic spelling/dialect- but I never felt any emotions, or any connection to the story whatsoever.
Basically, it comes down to the fact that everything in Six of Crows is done much better elsewhere. Do you like thieves in a shifty, exotic fictional city? Try The Lies of Locke Lamora and fall for the Gentlemen Bastards, get lost in the winding, steamy streets of Camorr. Are you a sucker for heists? Ocean's Eleven, if you haven't seen it already, will put a smile on your face, with all the trappings of a quality, guilty-pleasure grand theft movie. Were you drawn to the promise of a remorseless, amoral protagonist who will step on anyone to get ahead? You'll love Victor Vale from Vicious, or if you prefer your MC's with a bucketful of homicidal tendencies rather than a dash, you might like to venture into the dark abyss that is Prince Jorg's mind in Prince of Thorns.
So why would I settle for Six of Crows when there are so many better takes on the same things out there, and which have been out there for a while? The same reason I wouldn't settle for a measly artificial fruit snack if I was expecting a ripe orange.
Well, damn it. I wrote a whole articulate review for this review but Goodreads spazzed at the last second and DELETED THE WHOLE THING before I could sWell, damn it. I wrote a whole articulate review for this review but Goodreads spazzed at the last second and DELETED THE WHOLE THING before I could save it. I'm not too torn up about it, though- this book was trashy, boring, unbelievably poorly-written, and relied on cheap vulgarity and explicit scenes with drugs, sex, and gore to keep readers from falling asleep. I was only able to make it through two chapters and I highly doubt that the rest of the book could've gotten any better with such a poor quality of writing, such unlikable and unrelatable characters, and such a stale, boring plot/mystery. Really awful.
I received an ARC of this books from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. God, I wish I'd never requested it in the first place. I have to remember not to be sucked in by alluring covers....more
Alright, I am hereby aborting my mission to finish this series. Here is my reasoning:
1. Every book has the same exact formulaic plot.
2. Every book hasAlright, I am hereby aborting my mission to finish this series. Here is my reasoning:
1. Every book has the same exact formulaic plot.
2. Every book has versions of same exact characters doing the same exact things.
3. The person who recommended I read these is no longer in my life*.
4. After reading 7.5 out of 13 books, I still know next to nothing about the overarching mystery.
5. Too much teasing. Snicket has to realise that if you keep dangling the answer in front of the reader's face and snatching it away about twenty seven thousand times, it stops being witty or suspenseful and just gets irritating.
6. I already feel like I've wasted enough time on this series, and with a TBR pile (both physical and online) that is growing at an exponential rate, I'd rather focus what precious little reading time I have on books I'm actually interested in.
*This makes it sound like the person died or something- rest assured, they are still very much alive, they just became a raging asshole. Oh, well....more
Yep, I had to abort my Wells mission. I only wound up reading three of the stories in this collection, and got halfway through The War of the Worlds bYep, I had to abort my Wells mission. I only wound up reading three of the stories in this collection, and got halfway through The War of the Worlds before ditching it out of boredom and disappointment. Seriously, I wanted more Martians and less, "The field was dark. The sky was clear. Soldiers were milling about. I could see my house. I was suddenly very angry. Then my anger passed, and I became elated. That, too, passed, and I returned to staring at my house. Oh, by the way, Martians invaded Britain. I looked out the window in my study..." Not an exact quote, obviously, but suffice it to say that the bland domestic description to alien action ratio was WAY off.
I'm going to include links to the three stories I did read in this collection, once I get done with reviewing them. A bit of background on this edition will also be coming up soon....more
"I don't know how much longer I will live. I know that I am dying. But this is not new knowledge, and it is not ALS. It has always been so. Disease on"I don't know how much longer I will live. I know that I am dying. But this is not new knowledge, and it is not ALS. It has always been so. Disease only changes the circumstance and the speed, but the knowledge remains as it was."
Well.
I keep running into books that I dislike but that make me feel like a shitty, heartless person for disliking them. Like this one.
I thought that this would be an insightful memoir into how an incurable disease and the knowledge of impending death affects one man's life. And, in some parts, it is:
"All of us need to find the holy balance between the fixable and the inevitable."
"The ALS person I have become is so easy to disrupt, so easy to push off balance, so easy to move into painful and difficult spaces, that I hardly recognize him. Yet I know it is me."
But the rest of the time, it's filled with sappy, confusing, overwrought sentences like these:
"But for me, the demarcation between old normal and new normal is so complete and specific, so compelling, that I realized that to try to bring the old religious symbols of fixing with me into this new, ALS-defined space would only exacerbate the demise of the person I knew that I had to become."
"The damnedest things things suddenly become very clear- past pain, human frailty, regrets, joys, and visions, such visions of color and sound and wholeness beyond physical limitation."
And there are much more of the latter type of sentences than the former, I'm afraid.
Once I got more than a third of the way through and the book continued to be painful to read, I realised that I just couldn't make myself do it any longer, no matter how much I wanted to like this book. Once Bruce started talking about disease versus dis ease (which I'm still very confused about) I had already mentally checked out.
And yet...
I still feel like a terrible person. Because of course I empathise with Bruce- he's been through circumstances so compromising, so tough, so painful, so unfair- and he's reacted admirably. He seems like a down-to-earth, genuine guy who's doing the very best with what he's got and trying to learn everything he can from his disease and diagnosis. And I think that this memoir could have been really good- it was just not written well at all.
I had this same problem with Night. I didn't like it, and it was a memoir written by someone who had experienced terrible tragedy. How could I criticise a book written by a Holocaust survivor? But I did. Because in both that case and the case with Living While Dying, it isn't the story or the author that I dislike: it's the writing.
So, I don't know. Maybe other people will read this and love it. I found it agonising. Maybe I have a shrivelled, blackened heart. Maybe I am a cold, soulless, she-demon who has set out to terrorise memoir authors. All I'm saying is this: it's wonderful to try to get your story out there, especially when it's powerful and should be told, like one about disability or genocide or death or persecution. But you have to acknowledge that memoirs are still books, and no matter how admirable the story, poor writing can't be swept under the rug.
P.S. I forgot to mention that I was given an ARC of this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Rest assured, I will never let this sway any of my opinions. You can't buy my approval with a free galley- you need chocolate for that. Chocolate and money.
P.P.S. I feel like I should include some links regarding this subject matter, because even if I didn't like the book, I agree with the message. Here is a link to the blog that Bruce has kept since his diagnosis, upon which this book is based. And here is a link to a fact page about ALS, and I highly encourage you to visit alsa.org is you want to know more about the disease or get involved with their organisation....more
I mean, it sounded great! Set in 1918 against a backdrop of the Great War, an influenza epidemic, and the genI really, really wanted to like this one.
I mean, it sounded great! Set in 1918 against a backdrop of the Great War, an influenza epidemic, and the general feeling from the American public that life couldn't get any worse. Haunting atmospheres are my jam.
I think why I didn't like this (and why I wound up not finishing it) is because I didn't care enough about anything that was going on. The plot was slow, which was fine, but it also raised far more questions than it seemed to be able to answer. Look, I know I didn't get to the conclusion, so maybe it all wrapped up really nicely, but is the ending actually worth the long and painful trek to get there?
Beware, my friends- here be spoilers. I'm about to drop some pretty heavy plot points which would spoil the book for those of you who haven't read it and intend to. You've been warned.
And then everything got really weird. Mary Shelley, the protagonist, is suddenly able to taste people's feelings. Strange, but I can buy that- maybe some sort of synesthesia. What I could not buy, however, was that before her taste-thing happened, she went outside in order to get struck by lightning and die, and she does! She gets struck by lightning and dies- how unlikely is that? I'll tell you how unlikely: there's a 1 in 3,000 chance of getting struck by lightning in your entire lifetime. Add that statistic to the fact that Mary Shelley gets struck by lightning on the same day she really, really wants to be. Fucking unrealistic.
But what's even more unrealistic is the fact that she had absolutely no injuries, except for a slightly burned hand. WHAT?!? Getting struck by lightning all but guarantees that you'll at least have SOME injury: deep entry and exit wounds, clothing catching on fire or being shredded, cardiac arrest, blood vessels being superheated and exploding, brain damage, paralysis from nerve damage, ruptured ear drums, and, of course death, are all common. And what happened when our protagonist was struck by a bolt of electricity about 18,000 degrees F (hotter than the surface of the sun!), you ask? NOT A DAMN THING. Besides an out-of-body experience and a slightly burnt hand.
Not to mention all of the paranormal weirdness happening constantly- séances, ghost sex (though it was kind of dry humping, but the description was weird and it was hard to be sure), being tortured by blackbirds with hands. So strange, and none of it was done convincingly or even in an interesting manner. Let's face it- you've got to be a pretty boring writer if you can make a scene featuring a séance and a ghost incredibly dull.
But what really made me stop reading were the characters. Mary Shelley, according to every character who meets her, is supposed to be brilliant and witty and bold, but in the book she is exactly none of these things. She's naïve, dull, tedious, and hanging around inside her head for the 312 pages of this book I managed to get through was remarkably boring. Her Aunt Eva is a shrill, vain harpy of a woman. Stephen seemed okay from the three lines of dialogue we hear from him in the beginning, but for the rest of the book he's a crazed ghost. His brother, Julius- a violent opium addict- was the only character who interested me a little, but most of the times we meet him he's distraught or high or incoherent.
Also, can we talk about how shitty the dialogue was in this book? "'I feel so ugly these days with my short hair and my red, calloused hands.' 'You're not ugly. Your hair is modern and chic, and your job in the shipyard is admirable, both for the country and the women's movement.'" People don't speak like this, even in the 1910s. Every word out of everyone's mouth sounded robotic. Not to mention the author seemed to have a strange habit of describing characters' hair in terms of food. Here are two examples I can readily find: "'My wife has allergies!' said the woman's companion, a man with thick, mashed-potato swirls of white hair." (p. 6) and "...Mrs. Embers- a robust woman with ink-black hair rolled into two sausages at the nape of her neck- served my aunt and me tea in a dining room awash with spring sunlight." (p. 33) I know I'm in the minority in this, but the writing here wasn't anything fantastic, even for a YA novel. But maybe I've just been spoiled by Patrick Ness.
In the end, I applaud Ms. Winters for trying to merge YA historical fiction and paranormal, with a splash of romance. But even a splash of romance in a book that doesn't really need it is too much for me- I like paranormal romance very, very, very rarely. Props to Winters for accurately describing the dismal atmosphere of wartime and the flu, though: "I think between the war and the flu, no one's going to escape getting haunted. We live in a world so horrifying, it frightens even the dead."
I read this to try something new, and I was disappointed. Paranormal doesn't seem to be my cup of tea, but this is one of only a few I've read, so maybe there's better stuff involving sprits and séances out there. Romance doesn't usually work for me, either, and the romance here was cheesy beyond words. I would find an example but I'm feeling really apathetic towards this book. So if you really like paranormal romance and YA historical fiction and don't mind a slow plot and vapid dialogue, you may very well find that In the Shadow of Blackbirds is the perfect book for you....more
I was looking forward to meeting some armoured bears, but within the first 111 pages all I got were an incoherent setting, an obnoxiously whiny protagI was looking forward to meeting some armoured bears, but within the first 111 pages all I got were an incoherent setting, an obnoxiously whiny protagonist, and a floundering plot that managed to make child abduction a bore. Needless to say, I don't understand at all why it's hailed as such an accomplishment in fantasy- but maybe it gets exceedingly better in the next 200 pages? I'll never know.
Also- there is no golden compass! There's an alethiometer- whatever the fuck that is- but there's not even a golden compass. I feel cheated.
EDIT 1/6/16: Somebody recently asked me if I read this book, and I said that I got halfway through and told them how I felt about it. They were floored, and said, "But that's such a Mia book!" I still feel the same way about The Golden Compass and have absolutely no desire to try it again, but that remark got me wondering, and it led to a question that I'll ask you guys.
If you had to give somebody a book that tells them the most about you as a person- the book that is most essentially you, what book would you give them and why? Comment below, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this....more
I am so very sorry, but it's just not working. I thought we were made for each other- smugglers, a creaky old stained-glass inn,Dear Greenglass House,
I am so very sorry, but it's just not working. I thought we were made for each other- smugglers, a creaky old stained-glass inn, winter vacation, mysterious thefts- it looked like everything I could want in a cozy little book. But as I read more and more, I just couldn't get into you. It seemed to be just kids dressing up and spying on guests, and while that's all well and good, I was looking for a more... mature relationship. I wanted a plot twist, or a hidden truth finally uncovered, something to move the story along from the wandering, meandering, overly leisurely pace it was taking. And I hate to say this, but- I just didn't care. Maybe it was the humid summer air, or the other books sending me seductive, beckoning glances from my to-read shelf, but by the hundredth page, I knew it was too late for us, Greenglass House.
I hope that someday I'll be able to try again. But for right now, I think we're better off apart. Another time, another place, another lifetime- maybe we'll be together then.
I jumped ship about 80 pages in. Quite frankly, it just wasn't funny at all, and without the humour it just becomes a bizarre half-baked story about aI jumped ship about 80 pages in. Quite frankly, it just wasn't funny at all, and without the humour it just becomes a bizarre half-baked story about a protagonist I don't give two f*cks about. I know if I kept going I would stew until I abdolutely hated it (assuming it didn't get any better, of course, which it might have). So, quit while you're ahead, right?...more
I tried to like it, but it was just trying too hard to be funny and clever and meaningful and amidst all of that, plus the purposefully stiltedness ofI tried to like it, but it was just trying too hard to be funny and clever and meaningful and amidst all of that, plus the purposefully stiltedness of the writing, it just fell flat.
To be fair, I didn't finish it. I'll read good books, pretty good books, okay books, horrible books, WTF books- but one thing I despise are eh books. Like 2-star rated books. I mean, what's the point? Why waste time reading forgettable, disposable, gimmicky stories like this one when you could be reading something hilarious or moving or life-changing?
I guess what it really came down to was the fact that I just couldn't bring myself to care about any of the things presented here. It was laid out too heavy-handedly and too pretentiously, and that sh*t don't fly....more
Alright, well, I gave it the ole college try, 100 pages, and I’m forced to conclude that this is just a textbook case of Very Much Not My Cup of Tea. Alright, well, I gave it the ole college try, 100 pages, and I’m forced to conclude that this is just a textbook case of Very Much Not My Cup of Tea. I hate paranormal/supernatural romance because it tends to combine a litany of tropes I despise: possessiveness, specialness (“you’re not like the other humans”), fish out of water, Love Conquers All, and just general romance with all the boring pining and blushing and goopy feelings involved with that.
Not to mention the writing is more than a little amateurish in places: “Most people don’t realize that being hunted is just one step away from being haunted.” Ugh. Bet Klune felt real smart when he penned that winner of a sentence, huh?