Holy cow, you guys. I have just spent several hours playing catchup here - not the whole thread, but maybe half of it. I have enjoyed discussions on the pros and cons of Romeo and Juliet, the merits of Big, Spankable Asses, plagiarism, kidlit, the hilarious awfulness of LK Hamilton's shagfests (and her penchant for sticking ankle-length french braids on her various studly supernatural strippers, and thus making them look just like guys with short hair, no really), gothic poetry, whether or not there is perhaps a touch too much emphasis upon how to cook whale meat in Moby Dick, the value of James Joyce's prose style, Kristin's curriculum, how much background prep might be required prior to commencing To Say Nothing Of The Dog (which makes me eye my own copy with no little trepidation) and heaven knows what else. I have witnessed the birth of Kerfuffle Bunny, and been whisked back to my early teens with reminiscens of Piers Anthony's books and Orson Scott Card's fuckedupness. (Apparently I never did quite manage to get rid of the memory of Hart's Hope, or my baffled reaction of "...so we're supposed to sympathise with the guy who's raping a little girl? And her attempts to deal with her public rape make her a villain? Because...because...because WHAT?" At the time I actually thought that it must be me, as a reader, that was at fault for failing to give a shit about the good guys from that point onwards. In retrospect, probably not so much. But I don't think I'm going to go back and reread. Mind you, I still enjoyed the hell out of at Ender's Game and enjoyed a lot of things about the sequels. The author-made fanfic of the Beancentric books, though - I read them more recently, and found them interesting, but ultimately disappointing. Andrew is belittled in order to make Bean seem more awesome, and Peter and Petra both have personality transplants, as do the Wiggin parents, and Achilles makes me roll my eyes forever. I stopped caring about Bean eventually, so I don't know how it all unfolded.)

Um. Sorry, wee tangent. Yes. Oh, while I remember - whilst working my way through several thousand posts I lost count of how many times I wanted to hand flowers or chocolate or a big bouquet of pencils to JZ. But it was lots. Love.

Anyway, belated agreement that Robin McKinley's Sunshine is worth checking out (although I had some reservations about the slowness of the pace, or maybe more the narrator's voice? Not sure. But I liked the plot and the characters a lot).

I think I'm going to have to go pick up Skullduggery Pleasant, asap. Looks cracking.

In the world of me, I've just read and adored Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. Then I read Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, which I didn't love. Then I read Scarlett Thomas's The End of Mr Y which was rather awesome, and then Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach, which annoyed the crap out of me. Also I'm loving Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books, although I'm a bit less certain about the Nursery Crimes stuff. Seems a bit like pretentious sub-Pratchett, but that might just be because I read the second in the series before the first.

Er...anyone happen to have read any of the above, by any chance?

Also, anyone read KJ Parker (...I think? Devices and Desires?) ? Would they recommend him/her?

Without going into the spoilers I've read about Breaking Dawn (I couldn't stomach any of the books after Twilight) I think what irks me the most from a writing standpoint is that Meyer not only self-admittedly and unabashedly stomped all over vampire mythos with no real knowledge of doing it, but then, then, in order to give the nice, tidy, happy ever after ending With No Consequences, breaks all the damned rules she'd established in the first place!

::is furious writer type::

(This is the same sort of thing that drove me insane with Time Traveler's Wife-- that and the horrible authorial intrusion.)

AND...

It has the worst final line of a book, EVAR.

Apparently, it's been getting returned to bookstores in record numbers.

I read the first of the Nursery Crimes series. I definitely got the similarities to Pratchet (I think I actually described it as "like the Watch, with fairy tails"), but I liked it (at least enough to read the next one when I max out on Discworld-books-in-a-row)

I found them to be Even.More.British than Discworld (like to the point that I wanted an annotation webpage to keep open while I read it)

Plei, I haven't read The Wave so I dunno. Host is definitely written for young adults, though, and by that I mean upper middle and lower high school ages. I enjoyed it, as slow as it is. Though it had a sort of Tunnels (for those of you who read junior fic and YA, I LOVED LOVED LOVED Tunnels as weird and fucked up as it was) feel to it.

That's an interesting take, Kat, since a very big deal was made of the fact that The Host was Meyer's first foray into adult fiction.

I was curious how she would handle the love story elements of it, since she's been so adamant about the chastity angle in the Twilight books, but I didn't know anyone who'd actually read it.

This is the same sort of thing that drove me insane with Time Traveler's Wife-- that and the horrible authorial intrusion.

Barb, can you explain this wrt Time Traveler's Wife ? I know you didn't like it the way I did, but I'm not sure what you mean here.

I still haven't even opened New Moon. It's hard to pick up a book when all you want is to find out how bad it is.

In the world of me, I've just read and adored Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell.

OOh! I just finished his Ghostwritten and, except for how it was confusing and didn't really hang together at the end, thought it was fantastic.

This is the same sort of thing that drove me insane with Time Traveler's Wife-- that and the horrible authorial intrusion.

I wanted to love the Time Traveler's Wife but couldn't because the main characters were so freakin' irritating!

Barb, can you explain this wrt Time Traveler's Wife ? I know you didn't like it the way I did, but I'm not sure what you mean here.

Amy is me!

I still haven't even opened New Moon. It's hard to pick up a book when all you want is to find out how bad it is.

Yep. Also me. I haven't been able to bring myself to buy any otherssince reading Twilight, although I do feel a sort of car crash curiosity. Much like with LK Hamilton, actually. Only I think I disapprove of Twilight considerably more than I disapprove of Anita Blake. I HATE that Bella Swan could be anything like a role model for young readers. Hate hate hate hate hate hate hate. Ack. Really, there is no lack of interesting, capable girl heroes out there in YA fantasyland. It just slays me that it's this insipid little cypher who's the new It Girl - little Miss 'Agency? I don't need no stinkin' agency! I've got sparkly vampires! Also, my sex drive is wicked and bad, and if I get raped it will all be my own fault for driving my lovely perfect sparkly boyfriend beyond the point of endurance by my wanton ways - if I WILL go kissing him back, then I've only myself to blame if he rips my throat out and drinks my blood'.

Seriously. She's like the antiBuffy. It sort of breaks my heart - I want to make all the Twilight fangirls go and read something by the Brontes for their brooding hero fix, and then have them mainline at least the first 3 sesasons of Buffy.

Skulduggery Pleasant, on the other hand, is delightful. I am loving 12-year-old Stephanie, with her guts and joie de vivre (...which I can't spell). And Skulduggery himself is cracking. So far Tanith has had only one chapter, but I was entirely enamoured of her. I do hope that she isn't evil/doesn't get killed off in an untimely fashion.

Oh, man. I have no intention of reading the sparkly sparkly thing, but Cleolinda is totally making my day.

So, we have a 14-year-old intern here who said she's into the Twilight thing. Of course I was like, "Isn't that about vampires? And they're sparkly or something?" She looked at me like I was not only ancient, but also on crack. Do the vampires not actual sparkle?