A note to anybody who wants to read this: I get the impression that we're supposed to think that the "original" book was written with prose so purple it might as well have been in grape-scented marker. The effect can be a little much, but hey, at least nobody gazes outward with a glint in their silvery orbs, limpid, lambent, or otherwise! But yeah, if you aren't able to get into it within a chapter or two, that's not going to improve itself.

I liked it, but to be fair, I like most things I read.

Oh, one more warning - somebody at Goodreads was going on about the fact that the author either misunderstood or willfully misused the term "Ladies in Waiting" for this book. I don't quite agree that it's something to get so annoyed about, but we've all got our thing. I don't like books which have potatoes in pre-Columbian Europe (or not!Europe). You'll all be pleased to note that I observed no potatoes in this book.

( Spoilers )

But time moves on. What, exactly, do you call "realistic contemporary fiction" once it's no longer contemporary? It's not exactly historical fiction either, since writers of historical fiction generally make specific choices in bringing the past to life, ideally with few or no whoppers of mistakes.

I sometimes say "then-contemporary", but... well, it sounds a bit silly, doesn't it?

(On a related note, it looks like now people are less likely to say "issues book" and more likely to say "social issues book", is that accurate? I'm not loving a change that involves using more words to get to the same meaning, but okay.)

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( Read more... )

So no vet trip, I guess!