I read bad novels so you don't have to (unless you want to)

[lizbee]

Best thing about working in a bookstore: publishers supply reading copies of some novels.  Which is to say, happiness is not having to pay to read the new Kerry Greenwood novel.

Oh yes.  She has a new one out.  Her first new release of 2007, actually, and since she normally churns out two a year, I did wonder if this might not be a cut above the rest.  But no, she never changes, not even to improve.  Either that, or my immunity has been weakened by lack of exposure to her idiosyncratic prose.

Trick or Treat is one of the Corinna Chapman series, the adventures of a crime-solving baker and her posse of cutesy middle-class bleeding-heart-liberal busy-bodies.  Fans of the series will be pleased to know that nothing has changed -- the skinny girls are still interchangable, the Classical scholars are still kindly and eccentric, the dominatrixes are still, um, dominant, the gay couples are creepily co-dependent and the pagans still don't use contractions.  Nothing changes in Greenwood's Melbourne.

I'm only up to page fifty yet, though, and you can be sure that I'll keep the internet apprised of any significant developments and sniggerworthy prose.  Oh Kerry, how I've missed you.

Comments

[lizziesilver.livejournal.com]

Hey, some of our scholars are kindly and eccentric.

Dominatrixes are a particularly Melbournian thing? Boy, am I out of the loop.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Yes, but how many Classicists named Dionysius have you met? *flails*

(If I were inclined to take Greenwood seriously enough to apply actual critical thinking to this series, I'd be wondering whether or not she wants it to be a cosy mystery series -- cutesy names and professions, strong sense of community, lots of cats -- or something more urban and gritty, which is the impression one could get from the number of drug addicts littering every chapter.)

[lizziesilver.livejournal.com]

None, but I bet they secretly wish they were called Dionysius.

Greenwood should totally include drug addicted cats. TRANSCEND THE SUBGENRE!

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Trick or Treat is one of the Corinna Chapman series

What WHAT WHAT?

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Er, yes?

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

I am staggered into wordlessness.

(Context: You do recall what fa11ing_away's name is, right?)

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

OH RIGHT.

I hadn't actually made the connection!

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

I sort of want to read those books now, just so I can spend the entire time laughing my arse off at the mental images.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

It's like ... imagine a series of crime novels written by a nice, not too bright LJ user who thinks she's smarter and more rebellious-against-society than she is. But you keep her on your flist because she posts great recipes, even though she was really annoying during Strikethroughgate and thinks she's avant garde because she says the Malfoys are just misunderstood.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

That sounds like what Mina de Malfois would have been like pre-BNFdom.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

*stare*

Actually, it's uncanny. I mean ... wow.

Gosh.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Y'know... that's not a bad description of her prose style. She's not as edgy as she likes to think she is, she's got no grasp of balancing narrative tone, and the Phryne Fisher stuff is classic, classic marysue all the way.

[fa11ing-away.livejournal.com]

I object!

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

We need to go to a bookstore together, and start reading bits to one another.

[fa11ing-away.livejournal.com]

But what if I'm scared of what the books may say about my secret double life? *wibbles*

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

I have finally worked out that for years I've been mixing up Kerry Greenwood and Kerryn Goldsworthy. I'm so ashamed...

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. How embarrassing!

[piecesofalice.livejournal.com]

Woman, are you home tonight?

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

I'm home right now!

[sister-ananke.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've got such a thing for that series. It's rather embarrassing.

Don't forget the "I'm a huge mountain of woman" - who happens to be half a foot taller than me and a massive two kilos heavier...so less mountain, more molehill. Rather like the series.

[lydaclunas.livejournal.com]

Your descriptions of Kerry Greenwood's novels really make me want to read them all. The horror of Death Before Wicket should have deterred me, but no.

Why oh why do I like hilariously bad novels? Or movies for that matter.

[plum177.livejournal.com]

Before this moment I have never heard of Kerry Greenwood or Corinna Chapman. I now feel like I need to read these books for the bad literature - the skinny girls are still interchangable, the Classical scholars are still kindly and eccentric, the dominatrixes are still, um, dominant, the gay couples are creepily co-dependent and the pagans still don't use contractions - this description alone makes me want to read, but this - It's like ... imagine a series of crime novels written by a nice, not too bright LJ user who thinks she's smarter and more rebellious-against-society than she is. But you keep her on your flist because she posts great recipes, even though she was really annoying during Strikethroughgate and thinks she's avant garde because she says the Malfoys are just misunderstood. - made me giggle, so I'm off to the bookshop tomorrow to see if I can find any...