Polgara explained my reaction to OotP much better than I would've. I made it through the first class with Umbridge and then started reading fanfic. Which is much more enjoyable, incidentally.

But WOLP takes place almost entirely within the BookWorld, and it seems like it's just one wacky idea after another without much attempt to put them together coherently .

Huh. That would have been my description of the first.

Betsy, it only gets worse. I liked the ideas well enough in the first one, but by the third one, it's just ridiculous. Plus I'm not all that impressed by Thursday Next as a character or as a detective. Meh. I'll stick this one out, I guess, but I doubt I'll be reading any more.

I made it through the first class with Umbridge and then started reading fanfic. Which is much more enjoyable, incidentally.

Yay HP fanfic! Everyone here has read Fay's excellent Invisible to See (Harry/Draco), right? My second favorite HP author is Helenish; I especially love her Harry/Ron story Close Enough. t /pimping

Oh, Harry got his groove on, somewhat, with Cho in OotP.

The word for "boring" in Romanian is "plicticitor" so I've modified the title to Order of the Plicticitoarele.

"Invisible to See" is probably the best HP I've read. I've fallen so in love with fic Draco, though, that I keep getting disappointed in book Draco. But, really, couldn't book Draco get a bit more depth to him?

Still, the actor who plays him is a junior hottie.

But, really, couldn't book Draco get a bit more depth to him?

Yeah, he needs some depth, stat. But then again, the character's name is fucking DRACO MALFOY. He is eeeeeevil, clearly.

He is eeeeeevil, clearly.

And his parents are Lucious, whoops, Lucius (honestly, I keep typoing that without intention) and Narcissa, so evil is inevitable. Still, he's gorgous and witty, I guess we shouldn't be greedy.

I have no idea why I don't like the Snicket books. They seem custom-designed for me, but I just can't read them. It's like trying to read the journal ramblings of a mental patient.

Raquel is me. Of course, they're part of a whole list of books that I'm supposed to love and don't because I somehow feel too distant from the characters, as if I'm watching them from afar rather than experiencing the story through their eyes. Which is a very hard thing to pin down and analyze, but EVERY time I don't like a book that generally fits in with what I read and comes highly recommended by people whose taste I trust, that's the problem.

I remember reading that Hambly book and getting to the end, going WTF? I think the sequel to that one did redeem it somewhat. It's not that I minded the darkness, but the desperate cliff-hanger ending and at the time not knowing if there would be a sequel was a shock to the system. I like a little resolution when I finish a book, what can I say? I really enjoyed her Free Man of Colour series.

Kate P., I'm about 60 pages from the end of The Well of Lost Plots and I completely agree with the points you made about the unravelling logic. Another thing that confuses me is the way the Jurisfiction people play with existing books. In the first book, everyone in the world noticed that Jane Eyre was missing. However, it is implied in this book that the Jurisfiction alter narratives on a fairly regular basis -- e.g. the Enid Blyton story that Thursday alters. Do the people in the 'real world' notice as they did with Jane Eyre or do they forget the alternate story ever existed?

I just started The Well of Lost Plots. Nothing is really bothering me yet, but I'm finding that I have to pay closer attention than I did for the first two.