charlottesometimes's reviews
3235 reviews

slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

Possibly even more boring than McKinley’s first go at the Beauty and the Beast story, Beauty, which was a dull enough read. There was far too much housekeeping, and gardening for my tastes.

I can’t understand the impetus to return to the same fairy story for a second time, but still hew so close to both the tradition version and your own first version. It can’t help but feel redundant. I had assumed this was going to take something different from the original inspiration, but I was disappointed. We can’t all be Angela Carter, but a little more interrogation of the previous texts would have been nice.

I also don’t really see the need to set a fairytale in a fantasy landscape where magic is mundane, merely in order to explain its existence. It’s not really true to fairy stories, and I feel like it reduces the impact of the appearance of an enchanted beast in the story if the characters already live a life where ‘greenwitches’ are everywhere and it’s quite normal to have a dragon as a pet.

Also, the phrase ‘greenwitch’ replaces the name ‘Ger’ from the previous book in being the word used 3 or 4 times a page. Not only is this gratuitous, but every time it appeared I briefly read it as Greenwich. Which was a bit annoying.

Flush by Virginia Woolf

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emotional funny lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Beauty by Robin McKinley

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

Dull

I wish I could get paid to lazily re-write a fairytale, making almost no changes. Having said that, Disney probably owes her a few quid for the ideas she did have.

I would personally not have called one of the characters ‘Ger’, and had his name repeated 30 times per chapter despite the fact that it is infuriating both to read and to imagine pronounced. I don’t know whether it’s ‘Grr’ or ‘Jer’, but both are just noises and not a good choice of name for a cod-historical fairytale character. Or any character, for that matter

After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell

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slow-paced