Yesterday I was telling Nairely about the book I was reading. You know, the British navy one. So I pull it out of my bag to show her, she takes one look at the cover and says, with a completely straight face, "They're gay, aren't they?" I said yes. She said, "I knew it." I love my friends, because they know me and love me anyway.
It was shortly after that when I realized, being that the main characters were, in fact, in the British navy, they were, naturally, British. And spoke with the corresponding accent. This was my second time reading this book, and it took me that long to realize? Wow. Anyway, I immediately began reading their dialogue in a British accent in my head. NEVER BEEN MORE AMUSED IN MY LIFE.
On the note of my lovely m/m books, I finished the last one today. And, being confident that Sarah is no longer reading this, I can give my full report.
Frost Fair: Short and sweet. Gideon and Joshua reminded me hauntingly of my own Ha'ri and Ciro, which I have to say was...interesting and enlightening. Simple, straightforward plot. Made perfect sense. Great setting. Not much smut, but enough.
False Colors: Of the four I read, definitely my favorite. Hurrah for sailing ships and martial court! Fighting, pirates, torture, denial and ultimately love...all on a boat! What more could one want in a novel? Believable and genuine characters. Relatively simple plot, the only weirdness being the occasionally disorienting time skips between chapters. Again, not much sex, but that was because it was only used to further the plot. LIKE IT SHOULD BE. Read it twice. Would gladly read it again. And the author used amazing language. Ephemeral, she used ephemeral! That's my favorite word. -tears up- Alex Beecroft, you have been exalted to the level of literary hero.
Swordspoint: My second favorite. Oh my god was the writing AMAZING. Even (and especially) the sex was amazing. The plot was complex and full of intrigue, which I have to admit left me guessing at times. I think it's one of those books you need to read more than once to pick out all the little details. The characters, though...wow. As a writer as well as a reader, I can say how hard it is to create (much less deal with) a character that is truly unpredictable. Hello Alec, you're perfect. Welcome to the hall of Spices' favorite literary characters ever. Some weirdness, but that's because the plot is centered around the machinations of aristocrats. Weirdness is bound to happen. Very little sex, but god was it beautiful. Now, to get my hands on the sequel...
The Prince's Angel: W. T. F. While the others were mostly plot with little sex, this was mostly sex with little plot. Okay, so I don't do it justice. There was plot. Plenty of it. It just made no sense whatsoever. So many things were unexplained (WHY did Rachel do what she did? Wtf is up with this ghoul thing? Why can't Cornelius and Brandon sleep together? What the hell is Cian doing on earth anyway? And does Lee even HAVE a purpose in life?), and so many things resolved so...anticlimactically (Wow Cian, just go kill all those bad guys with your snazzy blue fire, quick as you please. Don't leave any room for a fight scene or anything, and god forbid you actually let any of them live to cause trouble. Oh, and while you're at it, just off the major villain with a maaaaaaagic sword, why don't you?). Parts of it positively oozed with deus ex machina. The characters, though, were damn sexy. Which, I suppose, is all that really counts in a smutty romance novel. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I didn't like it. I did, very much so. It was just very...well, romance novel-y. The main characters are in love the instant they meet, and sleep together, oh...the third or so time they see each other? In which an unfortunate accident causes them to be bound together forever? Hello there cliche, please go step in front of a bus. Anyway, it was the perfect novel to read in a bubble bath. Even if the quality of writing wasn't stellar, the book was pretty hot. And like I said: characters = sexy. I've always held a fondness for blonde curls...
And that concludes Spices' book review for the day. In other news, yesterday EB, Sarah and I made gingerbread cookies. We have this tradition that for Christmas, we make gingerbread men of literary characters. And give them to our teachers. So, for our AP Language teacher Mrs. Bermudez there was Hester Prynne, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth from The Scarlet Letter. Oh, and the river monster from Boy's Life, Old Moses. And the dog he bit in half. For our favorite teacher, Mrs. Drisgill, our english teacher from last year, there was Caesar, complete with red icing stab wounds, and Golum. You see, Mrs. Drisgill has never watched Lord of the Rings because she's terrified of Golum. Sooo, we made her a Golum cookie so she could eat it and conquer her fears. For our APUSH teacher Mr. Lange we made Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, shooting each other, of course. They all agreed we were nerds. After they stopped laughing, that is. Mrs. Drisgill said her and Mrs. Bermudez would stop teaching the NHS club and make a new one: The Literary Cookie Club. Ah, I adore her. Last year we made her cookies of the characters in Antigone, all dead. She laughed so hard I think she almost cried. Favorite. Teacher. EVER.
So now we will be the students our teachers tell stories about. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
No comments:
Post a Comment