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psocopteraThere's a glowing recommendation. These books weren't actually that bad, they just didn't click with me.
I had heard good things about Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta, and I thought the premise was really strong (ten years ago, Bad Stuff went down in a fantasy kingdom, ending with it getting sealed off from the rest of the world with half the people outside it in exile; now some young folk think they might be able to get back in), but something about the voice and writing style and rhythm of the action just didn't work for me. I mean, they weren't wrong in any way I could point to, and I imagine it might work really well for some readers, just, not the ones who happen to be me.
Crap Kingdom by DC Pierson is from a YA subgenre of great interest to me (subversion of Chosen One tropes) and had some vivid world-building in spots, but it thought it was funnier than it was to me, and I found the main character more unsympathetic/unlikeable than I think I was supposed to, in a "too realistic to be interesting" sort of way. (Also, I suspect I may be more sympathetic to fifteen-year-old girl characters than fifteen-year-old boys?)
I had heard good things about Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta, and I thought the premise was really strong (ten years ago, Bad Stuff went down in a fantasy kingdom, ending with it getting sealed off from the rest of the world with half the people outside it in exile; now some young folk think they might be able to get back in), but something about the voice and writing style and rhythm of the action just didn't work for me. I mean, they weren't wrong in any way I could point to, and I imagine it might work really well for some readers, just, not the ones who happen to be me.
Crap Kingdom by DC Pierson is from a YA subgenre of great interest to me (subversion of Chosen One tropes) and had some vivid world-building in spots, but it thought it was funnier than it was to me, and I found the main character more unsympathetic/unlikeable than I think I was supposed to, in a "too realistic to be interesting" sort of way. (Also, I suspect I may be more sympathetic to fifteen-year-old girl characters than fifteen-year-old boys?)
