Enmity

This week's Booking Through Thursday is:

Any books or authors you hate? Why? Is it the writing? The stories? The author’s personality? And—would you read their work anyway?

There are a few, I have to admit. The first and most obvious would have to be Stephenie Meyer, and the total vapidity and vanity of her heroines and her frustrating lack of any respect for her readers' common sense (or hopes for healthy, non-abusive relationships) annoys me very much. However, I read the entire Twilight series because it was so bad it was funny at times, and I read The Host because it actually sounded like an interesting concept. It did turn out to be an interesting concept, but so mangled into an abusive teen romance that it frustrated me more than Twilight had.

Another pet hate of mine is D H Lawrence. I've read a few of his, most notably Lady Chatterley's Lover, as well as Women in Love and Sons and Lovers. Quite apart from his habit of putting the word 'love' into almost every title, I found his view of women insulting and irritating. This is made worse by the fact that he was praised highly by many after his death for his portrayal of 'strong, independent and complex' women - I found his women indecisive, sentimental and in need of a man to fulfill them, which for me is the very opposite of the above description.

I had to read a lot of Virginia Woolf during my undergraduate degree, and I hated every one of her novels. I understand that she was the forerunner of the modernist movement, cutting edge techniques, etc etc, and that's great. However, my idea of a good story definitely does not consist of following a middle-aged housewife around for a day, or observing a family repeatedly failing to row out to a lighthouse near their holiday home. I appreciate that the techniques she used were groundbreaking, innovative, and so on, but her style really isn't my thing.

Phew. I'm actually a little bit angry now. Are there any authors that you can't stand? Leave a comment and tell me why!

Graceling - Kristin Cashore

Graceling came with the rather dubious recommendation, “[This] exquisitely drawn romance … will slake the thirst of Twilight fans”, on the front cover. However, I really enjoyed Fire, so I went ahead and read it anyway.

While it doesn’t quite have the accomplished sense of depth of Fire, this is Cashore’s debut novel, and as such that’s simply a sign that her novels have developed since the beginning. She does a good job of introducing us to the fantasy world the story takes place in, without being artificially explanatory or giving us too many made-up terms to try and remember.

The heroine, Katsa, is a graceling, marked out by her mismatched eyes and an uncanny natural ability – in her case, the ability to inflict violence. Ever since her gift was discovered, her uncle the King has been using her as a tool of intimidation against those who displeased him. A chance to investigate the mysterious kidnapping of a neighbouring King's father offers her an opportunity to escape and to prove to herself and others that she’s more than just a mindless thug.

One of the things that really stood out about this novel was the unusual angles we see events from. Katsa is an unconventional young woman, but this is only to be expected as the heroine of a young adult fantasy novel. However, the feel of the narrative is also different – while the novel appears to be of the standard ‘vanquish the villain’ type, you get the feeling that defeating the bad guy wasn’t really what it was all about.

The Twilight-style epic romance promised on the cover was, thankfully, more human and believable than that, albeit made more complex by the respective graceling abilities of the pair involved. This novel is populated by strong characters throughout, and we also meet Princess Bitterblue, the protagonist of the third and final novel in the trilogy. Despite being a child, she's forthright and intriguing, and I’m really looking forward to reading more about her.

Next up: The Unquiet Bones by Mel Starr

The Host - Stephenie Meyer

I don’t normally like to post mean reviews, but at this point I think Stephenie Meyer is rather too rich to

care, and is probably quite used to receiving hate mail as well as the locks of hair and used underpants belonging to overexcited and slightly confused young women who think she keeps Edward Cullen somewhere on her person.

Admittedly, The Host is better than Twilight. Significantly better, in fact. The plot actually sounds promising: an alien invasion by parasitic creatures that attach to the spines of their hosts and continue to live their lives as normal until virtually the whole planet is taken over, leaving only tiny pockets of still-human resistance. The narrative is told by one of the alien consciousnesses themselves, which is also an interesting concept.

However, it’s at this point that promising sci-fi originality goes out of the window and Meyer’s compulsion to turn everything into a vapid teen romance steps in. Instead of choosing one of the many interesting potential avenues, Meyer focuses on our alien protagonist Wanda and her human host Mel’s inner girlish arguments, and on the fact that Wanda appears to have inherited Mel’s love interest in her boyfriend Jared.

Wanda decides to search for Jared and her brother Jamie, who are sheltering in a cave in the desert. She’s taken prisoner by the community Jared and Jamie have joined, and, now that Mel’s been taken over by the enemy, Jared is full of hatred for her and immediately proclaims that she should be killed. Although Wanda and Mel manage to gradually win over the trust of most of the community, Jared is staunch in his opinion, and even hits her several times, giving her noticeable injuries and facial scarring. She continues to try and gain his trust by putting herself last in everything and generally acting like a doormat, refusing to stand up for herself even to save her own life. Just as women should do in the face of domestic violence, apparently. Thanks for that, Meyer.

Despite the advances of attractive nice guy Ian, who has come to like Wanda for who she is now rather than Mel as she was previously and acts as protector and comforter to her, both Wanda and Mel cling to their desperate love for the man who quite literally wants to murder them for the majority of the novel. I was worried, given the fact that virtually the same situation happens in Twilight (ie. Edward literally wanting to kill Bella most of the time, and I’m-your-totally-platonic-friend Jacob doing everything for her and being off-handedly rejected for not being her true love), that the Wanda-Mel composite would end up somehow living happily ever after with the violent unpleasant Jared.

However, after telling her that, “You are the noblest, purest creature I've ever met. The universe will be a darker place without you,” (a compliment she was clearly fishing for from the very beginning of the novel), her friends collude to transplant her consciousness into a vacant body (another young, attractive female, obviously), conveniently saving her the trouble of going through with her difficult decision to leave Mel her own body back at Wanda’s expense. Wanda and Ian can live happily ever after, and Mel is lucky enough to have her boyfriend back – the one who weeks ago beat her repeatedly and wanted to kill her. Lucky, lucky Mel. But apparently he’s hot, so that’s what matters.

So, um, yes. Always submit meekly to your one true love, even if he beats you and threatens to kill you, and everything will be ok, until you… get transplanted into someone else and can have the nice guy? I’m still quite confused about the message I’m getting from this one.

Next up: Heartstone, by C J Sansom