Results 91 to 93 of 93
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2014-07-09, 06:43 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2012
Re: Book Club in the Playground: Shades of Milk and Honey
I found myself knowing what was going to happen well in advanced which lead me to doing a lot of skimming through, but it was a fairly breezy and amusing read. The whole thing felt like a first stab at a novel, very safe and simple. While that's to its benefit as it's a functional story which generally kept me interested in reading it - the pacing was nice and themes made explicit and explored to some degree - it also largely keeps it from greatness of any kind. I would be interested in reading more of Kowal to see her develop as a writer and try something more ambitious as she goes from there
I was hoping for a more... clever ending, I guess. The duel was suitably dramatic and her use of glamour was something of an evolution of the concept which had been developing throughout the novel, but it felt kind of lame. The makes-it-easy confession was too much of a narrative convenience for me as well, although I can see why he'd want to accuse Livingston knowing full well he's the only one there that would have shot him with his motivation and character. I actually thought, or was kind of expecting, that the conclusion would be more of a masquerade drama. With Jane using her glamour to disguise herself as her sister and Miss. Dunkirk to expose Livingston's deception, and in a rage he'd try to kill Jane where we'd get a whole tense sequence ending with either the girls or Mr Vincent saving her or some such.
Honestly, the fey-like glamour never really found a particularly interesting use in the narrative, and that I found pretty disappointing. I thought there might be more playing with the concept of perceptions and deceit, where anyone and anything we think we've seen is thrown into doubt. Jane, who represents truth and is innately talented in recognizing deception, would shine a light upon the shadow puppetry and expose all. That'd be melodramatic and interesting thematically.
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2014-07-20, 02:15 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2007
- Location
- Lost in the Town
- Gender
Re: Book Club in the Playground: Shades of Milk and Honey
So it seems we've run out of things to talk about with our last book. What do we want to do next? Should we just pick the next most popular book or run another poll?
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Avatar by HappyTurtle.
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2014-08-04, 12:08 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2007
- Location
- avatar by Ashen Lilies
- Gender
Re: Book Club in the Playground: Shades of Milk and Honey
Art has helpfully re-tallied the votes to find that our second place book was.... *drumroll*
Dune by Frank Herbert
This is a science fiction classic, and one that has spawned a bunch of sequels (though most readers say that going beyond book 3 is unwise) and quite a few prequels. It's also a book I am not particularly fond of, so that might make the discussion interesting as I argue with the author's choices.
The new thread is here!My avatar! Isn't it just utterly diabolical? Ashen Lilies made it!
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― Dorothy Parker
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