Not really my cup of tea
Mar. 4th, 2019 07:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12Thirty Day Book Meme: Day 4. Least favorite book by favorite author
I don't think I really have a single favourite author (if we're going by a metric of 'like every single one of their books' it would have to be Sophia McDougall, if it's 'books by them have made me feel the most intensely, for the longest period of time' it would have to be Catherine Jinks), but let's go with Philip Pullman here.
I've read pretty much every book of his (apart from his first two novels for adults, which are out of print and by all accounts pretty dreadful), and although I like them all and generally think they're at worst competently written and achieve what they've set out to do, his contemporary YA fiction is really not to my taste. I'm thinking, for example, of The White Mercedes — a tragic, somewhat melodramatic exploration of class and privilege, set against the backdrop of a teenage boy's coming-of-age story in Oxford. (Interestingly, I first read this story as a teenager in Australia, and missed a lot of the nuances until I'd moved to Cambridge and suddenly a lot of the British, and specifically Oxbridge stuff in the book became clear to me.) As I say, it's competently written enough, and it has the typical Pullman tugging on the heartstrings emotional manipulation (I mean this as a compliment, but seriously, if you read the final chapters of The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass, or The Shadow in the North, you'll know what I mean by 'emotional manipulation'), but I really feel his strong point is fantasy, fairytales, and historical fiction, and The White Mercedes and his other YA contemporaries are his weakest work.
5. Doesn't belong to me.
6. The one I always give as a gift.
7. Forgot I owned it.
8. Have more than one copy.
9. Film or TV tie-in.
10. Reminds me of someone I love.
11. Secondhand bookshop gem.
12. I pretend to have read it.
13. Makes me laugh.
14. An old favorite.
15. Favorite fictional father.
16. Can't believe more people haven't read.
17. Future classic.
18. Bought on a recommendation.
19. Still can't stop talking about it.
20. Favorite cover.
21. Summer read.
22. Out of print.
23. Made to read at school.
24. Hooked me into reading.
25. Never finished it.
26. Should have sold more copies.
27. Want to be one of the characters.
28. Bought at my fave independent bookshop.
29. The one I have reread most often.
30. Would save if my house burned down.
I don't think I really have a single favourite author (if we're going by a metric of 'like every single one of their books' it would have to be Sophia McDougall, if it's 'books by them have made me feel the most intensely, for the longest period of time' it would have to be Catherine Jinks), but let's go with Philip Pullman here.
I've read pretty much every book of his (apart from his first two novels for adults, which are out of print and by all accounts pretty dreadful), and although I like them all and generally think they're at worst competently written and achieve what they've set out to do, his contemporary YA fiction is really not to my taste. I'm thinking, for example, of The White Mercedes — a tragic, somewhat melodramatic exploration of class and privilege, set against the backdrop of a teenage boy's coming-of-age story in Oxford. (Interestingly, I first read this story as a teenager in Australia, and missed a lot of the nuances until I'd moved to Cambridge and suddenly a lot of the British, and specifically Oxbridge stuff in the book became clear to me.) As I say, it's competently written enough, and it has the typical Pullman tugging on the heartstrings emotional manipulation (I mean this as a compliment, but seriously, if you read the final chapters of The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass, or The Shadow in the North, you'll know what I mean by 'emotional manipulation'), but I really feel his strong point is fantasy, fairytales, and historical fiction, and The White Mercedes and his other YA contemporaries are his weakest work.
5. Doesn't belong to me.
6. The one I always give as a gift.
7. Forgot I owned it.
8. Have more than one copy.
9. Film or TV tie-in.
10. Reminds me of someone I love.
11. Secondhand bookshop gem.
12. I pretend to have read it.
13. Makes me laugh.
14. An old favorite.
15. Favorite fictional father.
16. Can't believe more people haven't read.
17. Future classic.
18. Bought on a recommendation.
19. Still can't stop talking about it.
20. Favorite cover.
21. Summer read.
22. Out of print.
23. Made to read at school.
24. Hooked me into reading.
25. Never finished it.
26. Should have sold more copies.
27. Want to be one of the characters.
28. Bought at my fave independent bookshop.
29. The one I have reread most often.
30. Would save if my house burned down.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-04 09:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-04 01:15 pm (UTC)