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nwhiker_Under the Pendulum Sun_ by Jeanette Ng.
I gave this one -generously- two stars on goodreads and I hate giving very low ratings without some explanation of why.
Sometimes it's dreadful writing: this was not that, the writing was the only thing that kept me reading. The mood was well set by the language. I would have liked things to be clearer at times, but that was in part because I was having a hard time getting to the book enough to really pay attention.
Sometimes it's the story: this was not that, the story in itself wasn't awful, in fact, it could have been good.
Sometimes it's the pacing: this was... oh hail yet, this was that. OMG. This book reminds me of Cat Valente's Comfort Me With Apples: not great, beautifully written, but Comfort Me was blissfully short: I was able to finish it before I got fed up with it. This... was not that. It was overly long, could have been cut by almost half and nothing would have been lost. Stretching out too little material for 400 pages was a mistake. A shorter book might have been better.
Sometimes it's elements in the story and... yeah, this was that as well. Spoiler tag alert.
The whole incest thing was... just flat out gross, sorry. The sop thrown in in the middle to make it better was so transparent as to make me think "do you think I'm an idiot?". If you are going to do incest, just freaking own in. It'll turn away people who don't deal with it, and the people who continue reading will at least feel like they are being treated like adult readers able to make a decision. I'm not into incest, but trying to elide its reality in this book made the whole thing rather extra icky. Just own it as part of the story.
I somehow read The Science of the Pendulum Sun before I read the book, and it was that little essay that prompted me to put the book on my to-read list. The essay is worth reading, but, imo, skip the book. I'm sorry about that, I really wanted to love it.
I gave this one -generously- two stars on goodreads and I hate giving very low ratings without some explanation of why.
Sometimes it's dreadful writing: this was not that, the writing was the only thing that kept me reading. The mood was well set by the language. I would have liked things to be clearer at times, but that was in part because I was having a hard time getting to the book enough to really pay attention.
Sometimes it's the story: this was not that, the story in itself wasn't awful, in fact, it could have been good.
Sometimes it's the pacing: this was... oh hail yet, this was that. OMG. This book reminds me of Cat Valente's Comfort Me With Apples: not great, beautifully written, but Comfort Me was blissfully short: I was able to finish it before I got fed up with it. This... was not that. It was overly long, could have been cut by almost half and nothing would have been lost. Stretching out too little material for 400 pages was a mistake. A shorter book might have been better.
Sometimes it's elements in the story and... yeah, this was that as well. Spoiler tag alert.
The whole incest thing was... just flat out gross, sorry. The sop thrown in in the middle to make it better was so transparent as to make me think "do you think I'm an idiot?". If you are going to do incest, just freaking own in. It'll turn away people who don't deal with it, and the people who continue reading will at least feel like they are being treated like adult readers able to make a decision. I'm not into incest, but trying to elide its reality in this book made the whole thing rather extra icky. Just own it as part of the story.
I somehow read The Science of the Pendulum Sun before I read the book, and it was that little essay that prompted me to put the book on my to-read list. The essay is worth reading, but, imo, skip the book. I'm sorry about that, I really wanted to love it.
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