It's not me, book, it's you.
Jun. 17th, 2011 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbeeDear The Rosie Black Chronicles: Genesis by Lara Morgan,
First, I want to say I'm sorry. I've been keen to read you ever since I spotted you at Worldcon last year. You're an Australian dystopic sci-fi YA novel set in Perth! That in itself is fantastic! There should be more books like you around. But it took me almost a year to actually buy you, and once I did, you had to wait again for me to get around to actually reading you.
I'm also sorry that, now that I am reading you, I'm not enjoying you very much.
I really did try, The Rosie Black Chronicles: Genesis by Lara Morgan. Sometimes I worry that maybe I'm too harsh on local books, subjecting you to a sort of pop fiction tall poppy syndrome. So I repressed my irritation at the initial exposition, and I kept trying to tell myself that your main character can't actually be duller than a dry cracker, and that your love interest isn't actually in desperate need of a punch in the face.
I don't hate everything. Please don't think that, The Rosie Black Chronicles: Genesis by Lara Morgan. Your urban settings were vivid and realistic, with neat little details like the disposable UV filters that only the upper middle classes can afford. The bit about Australia (or at least Western Australia) being controlled by a totalitarian Senate was pretty cool. There was a real raw quality to the descriptions of the lower class slums, even though I inclined to side-eye the attention given to "exotic" details like the presence of South East Asian hawker food and women wearing headscarves. (I know you tried to say that was because of the UV radiation, The Rosie Black Chronicles: Genesis by Lara Morgan, but you only ever mentioned women.)
I could even, I suppose, have overlooked the bit where all the characters of colour were either the bad guys, or dead. Maybe. I mean, come on, though, the descriptions of the villain's "caramel coloured skin" were a bit much. And the repeated references to white teeth in tanned faces -- I mean, I admire dentistry, I guess, but it was beginning to skeeve me out. I did try to convince myself that the heroine and the love interest were not white (and the obsessive descriptions of Pip's dreadlocks helped there -- thanks, I guess), but then we got the heroic white middle-class guy defending the world against the evil corporation whose primary representative is unambiguously Asian. And it's not just me!
I probably would have finished you anyway, if only to find a non-evil character of colour who lived for more than two chapters, but you're also desperately boring. I mean, seriously, your most interesting section was a description of Newperth's public transport system. And I'm not even being sarcastic! I enjoyed that bit! But later, when I was reading the description of people hiding from an evil and powerful corporation and the government, maybe I shouldn't have been thinking, "Gee, this is nice and all, but let's go back to that bit with the buses!"
Also, The Rosie Black Chronicles: Genesis by Lara Morgan, your heroine, the eponymous Rosie Black, she's a bit ... wet. You'd think a sixteen year old from the slums, whose mother is dead, whose father is grieving, who finds and sells vintage tech to pay for vegetables, who idolises her space-travelling aunt, would be at least a bit interesting. But she was totally reactive, given to really tedious bouts of self-pity, and she seemed to have no sense of humour at all. I mean, next to, say, Bella Swann, Rosie is practically a superheroine, but that's setting the bar pretty low.
Then there's your love interest, Pip. I think maybe he was meant to be a lovable and charming rogue? I mostly found him a bit creepy, with the constant invasions of Rosie's personal space, his hissy fits whenever she failed to appreciate him, and also he did keep kidnapping her. And not in a fun way. And by "fun" I mean "remotely entertaining". And the way he kept sitting or leaning in such a way as to show off his tanned, lean belly. Eugh. Put it away, Pip. It's bad enough putting up with the descriptions of your dreadlocks and blue eyes and white teeth in your tanned face.
In conclusion, I guess what I want to say is that it's not me, it's you. You're not the worst book I've tried to read this year, but being better than Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon is like being a better female character than Bella Swann. Most of your sentences made sense, and most of your words were correctly spelt (although I noticed an "of" that should have been an "off" there), but you're just not very good. And I don't see why I should waste my time trying to read you, whenyiduiqie has just loaned me some more Australian speculative fiction. Including, I note, another Perth-based dystopia! I do hope this one has some interesting details about the future Perth's public transport system!
Yours,
Liz
First, I want to say I'm sorry. I've been keen to read you ever since I spotted you at Worldcon last year. You're an Australian dystopic sci-fi YA novel set in Perth! That in itself is fantastic! There should be more books like you around. But it took me almost a year to actually buy you, and once I did, you had to wait again for me to get around to actually reading you.
I'm also sorry that, now that I am reading you, I'm not enjoying you very much.
I really did try, The Rosie Black Chronicles: Genesis by Lara Morgan. Sometimes I worry that maybe I'm too harsh on local books, subjecting you to a sort of pop fiction tall poppy syndrome. So I repressed my irritation at the initial exposition, and I kept trying to tell myself that your main character can't actually be duller than a dry cracker, and that your love interest isn't actually in desperate need of a punch in the face.
I don't hate everything. Please don't think that, The Rosie Black Chronicles: Genesis by Lara Morgan. Your urban settings were vivid and realistic, with neat little details like the disposable UV filters that only the upper middle classes can afford. The bit about Australia (or at least Western Australia) being controlled by a totalitarian Senate was pretty cool. There was a real raw quality to the descriptions of the lower class slums, even though I inclined to side-eye the attention given to "exotic" details like the presence of South East Asian hawker food and women wearing headscarves. (I know you tried to say that was because of the UV radiation, The Rosie Black Chronicles: Genesis by Lara Morgan, but you only ever mentioned women.)
I could even, I suppose, have overlooked the bit where all the characters of colour were either the bad guys, or dead. Maybe. I mean, come on, though, the descriptions of the villain's "caramel coloured skin" were a bit much. And the repeated references to white teeth in tanned faces -- I mean, I admire dentistry, I guess, but it was beginning to skeeve me out. I did try to convince myself that the heroine and the love interest were not white (and the obsessive descriptions of Pip's dreadlocks helped there -- thanks, I guess), but then we got the heroic white middle-class guy defending the world against the evil corporation whose primary representative is unambiguously Asian. And it's not just me!
I probably would have finished you anyway, if only to find a non-evil character of colour who lived for more than two chapters, but you're also desperately boring. I mean, seriously, your most interesting section was a description of Newperth's public transport system. And I'm not even being sarcastic! I enjoyed that bit! But later, when I was reading the description of people hiding from an evil and powerful corporation and the government, maybe I shouldn't have been thinking, "Gee, this is nice and all, but let's go back to that bit with the buses!"
Also, The Rosie Black Chronicles: Genesis by Lara Morgan, your heroine, the eponymous Rosie Black, she's a bit ... wet. You'd think a sixteen year old from the slums, whose mother is dead, whose father is grieving, who finds and sells vintage tech to pay for vegetables, who idolises her space-travelling aunt, would be at least a bit interesting. But she was totally reactive, given to really tedious bouts of self-pity, and she seemed to have no sense of humour at all. I mean, next to, say, Bella Swann, Rosie is practically a superheroine, but that's setting the bar pretty low.
Then there's your love interest, Pip. I think maybe he was meant to be a lovable and charming rogue? I mostly found him a bit creepy, with the constant invasions of Rosie's personal space, his hissy fits whenever she failed to appreciate him, and also he did keep kidnapping her. And not in a fun way. And by "fun" I mean "remotely entertaining". And the way he kept sitting or leaning in such a way as to show off his tanned, lean belly. Eugh. Put it away, Pip. It's bad enough putting up with the descriptions of your dreadlocks and blue eyes and white teeth in your tanned face.
In conclusion, I guess what I want to say is that it's not me, it's you. You're not the worst book I've tried to read this year, but being better than Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon is like being a better female character than Bella Swann. Most of your sentences made sense, and most of your words were correctly spelt (although I noticed an "of" that should have been an "off" there), but you're just not very good. And I don't see why I should waste my time trying to read you, when
yiduiqie has just loaned me some more Australian speculative fiction. Including, I note, another Perth-based dystopia! I do hope this one has some interesting details about the future Perth's public transport system!Yours,
Liz
no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 01:39 pm (UTC)well, actually, since you mention it...
no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 11:33 pm (UTC)I've been wondering what a dystopic version of Melbourne's PT system would look like. [Obvious Metro joke goes here.]
no subject
Date: 2011-06-18 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 10:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 11:32 pm (UTC)