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.

Emlah, yes! It makes no sense, especially thinking back to the first book and all the rules that were set up there. It seems like the BookWorld is totally unstable--like the ProCath movement attacking the house in Wuthering Heights, and then being eaten by Big Martin... WTF? And the townspeople in the Enid Blyton book being emotion junkies made no sense either. It all falls apart if you try to think about it logically.

Edit: Megan, I'll be interested to see what you think of it. I find myself wanting to figure out the rules of the book and being thwarted again and again.

I was having those sorts of problems with the second book. I needed the book world to be much more stable than it was, otherwise it made no sense at all with the way the first book was set up.

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

(laughs out loud and scares cube-mate) Thanks to all for articulating my feelings about OotP.

I find the Snicket books meh. I read two or three of them just to see what was going on, but haven't bothered about the rest of the series. I did buy volumes 5 - 13 of the Snicket books at Dark Carnival, the coolest independent fantasy bookstore. It was Christmas and the nephew is all excited over them, so the family Book Fairy provided.

On a Lucius Malfoy note, the actor who played him did a fine turn as Captain Hook in the latest Peter Pan movie. He serves up some tasty manly onscreen evil. Yum.

Hey, thanks Betsy et al! I got Nerd In Shining Armor from the library today, am about halfway through, and it's SO CUTE. Loving it.

In less-good news, I just read this book Outburst by R. D. Zimmerman, and it was just not very good. It's part of a series, apparently, about this gay reporter in Minneapolis. The book was just kind of lame, and there were the kind of editing things that drive me bugfuck, but I was most bothered by this Tragic Tranny character...who had been castrated in a freak accident. Dude.

Hey, thanks Betsy et al! I got Nerd In Shining Armor from the library today, am about halfway through, and it's SO CUTE. Loving it.

Oh, good, I'm glad to see it mentioned. I've been debating about picking it up but it seemed like it could be good or really awful. Will add it to the list.

Jesse, I have that other book, too, but I think I dropped it about twenty pages in. Definitely won't pick it back up again now.

My sister recced NiSA, and while we are usually pretty simpatico on our reading picks, I was dubious. Guess I'll give it a whirl.