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worthless libraries
I read the first book of the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare: City of Bones. And like ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jennekohan said, it was pretty entertaining. It was an easy read and Clare developed some interesting characters and did a decent job of world-building. But, it's a YA novel she it really wasn't that challenging. I actually got a little distracted by the callouts to anime, manga, and the general goth-aesthetic which I don't find attractive at all. OK, everyone wears black, I get it.
But the one thing that really stuck in my craw was the way the supposed 16-17 year old characters would talk. Especially Clary and Jace who possessed vocabularies of much older individuals. I never knew a 16 year old that used the word 'exsanguinated' even when talking about vampires. Did they ever even say that on Buffy.
If it's one thing that drives me crazy it's when characters are given far more maturity than is merited given their age. One of the things I loved about The Dark Materials trilogy (before it went to hell in a handbasket in the last book) was that Lyra IS 12. Sure, she's a quick little thing, but she isn't fully matured. It's obvious she is still very much a child in her thinking and the way she sees the world. Same with the Harry Potter series.
Clary and Jace are as worldly as someone three times their age and I just couldn't buy it. I can see how the age group it is aimed at would like it. Kind of like how Nickelodeon and Disney shows always have moronic parents. At a certain age it just starts to grate on you.
Still, I inhaled the book and it whetted my appetite for some paranormal romance. I'm not above reading some trash, but it's always nice if there is an engaging plot (like Jean Auel's Earth's Children series... once you get beyond her need to describe everything and repeat over and over how amazing Ayla is). ANYWAY, it's almost summer so it's okay if I just do some beach-type reading. Right? Don't look at me like that...
SO, I headed out to the library since I finally got a card a couple weeks ago. Can I just say how disappointing my library situation is? In my home town (pop: approx 67,000) we had one library, but it was a decent size and, you know, HAD BOOKS IN IT.
Now I live in a city of nearly 800,000 and there are a bunch of libraries scattered around town. At first I thought this was awesome. There are two libraries VERY close to my house so I figured I would never have to go to the central library location downtown (major pain in my ass). The problem? There aren't any FREAKING BOOKS in the libraries.
When I first walked in I couldn't find the fiction section. I am not joking here. I saw the checkout stations, computers, patron holds, dvds and that was it. Finally I spotted about 10 sparsely filled book cases over on the side of the 'library'. It was so sad.
I picked up Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon because I heard good things about her and it was the ONLY book by her on the shelf. It's pretty interesting so far (though at 700 pages is a lot longer than it should be) but not anything great. Supposedly her other books are funnier, which I would hope so, because this one is kind of tragic. It also doesn't help that I shipped the hero with his mortal 'sister' (he was a child of two gods who was put into a human woman's womb) who met a tragic end. At some point he'll meet his real OTP and I don't know if I'm going to be able to get on board that train.
Maybe I'll check out more after I'm done here. Though, I'll need to request them from other branches, because, as I mentioned before, they don't actually keep books in libraries anymore.
jennekohan said, it was pretty entertaining. It was an easy read and Clare developed some interesting characters and did a decent job of world-building. But, it's a YA novel she it really wasn't that challenging. I actually got a little distracted by the callouts to anime, manga, and the general goth-aesthetic which I don't find attractive at all. OK, everyone wears black, I get it. But the one thing that really stuck in my craw was the way the supposed 16-17 year old characters would talk. Especially Clary and Jace who possessed vocabularies of much older individuals. I never knew a 16 year old that used the word 'exsanguinated' even when talking about vampires. Did they ever even say that on Buffy.
If it's one thing that drives me crazy it's when characters are given far more maturity than is merited given their age. One of the things I loved about The Dark Materials trilogy (before it went to hell in a handbasket in the last book) was that Lyra IS 12. Sure, she's a quick little thing, but she isn't fully matured. It's obvious she is still very much a child in her thinking and the way she sees the world. Same with the Harry Potter series.
Clary and Jace are as worldly as someone three times their age and I just couldn't buy it. I can see how the age group it is aimed at would like it. Kind of like how Nickelodeon and Disney shows always have moronic parents. At a certain age it just starts to grate on you.
Still, I inhaled the book and it whetted my appetite for some paranormal romance. I'm not above reading some trash, but it's always nice if there is an engaging plot (like Jean Auel's Earth's Children series... once you get beyond her need to describe everything and repeat over and over how amazing Ayla is). ANYWAY, it's almost summer so it's okay if I just do some beach-type reading. Right? Don't look at me like that...
SO, I headed out to the library since I finally got a card a couple weeks ago. Can I just say how disappointing my library situation is? In my home town (pop: approx 67,000) we had one library, but it was a decent size and, you know, HAD BOOKS IN IT.
Now I live in a city of nearly 800,000 and there are a bunch of libraries scattered around town. At first I thought this was awesome. There are two libraries VERY close to my house so I figured I would never have to go to the central library location downtown (major pain in my ass). The problem? There aren't any FREAKING BOOKS in the libraries.
When I first walked in I couldn't find the fiction section. I am not joking here. I saw the checkout stations, computers, patron holds, dvds and that was it. Finally I spotted about 10 sparsely filled book cases over on the side of the 'library'. It was so sad.
I picked up Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon because I heard good things about her and it was the ONLY book by her on the shelf. It's pretty interesting so far (though at 700 pages is a lot longer than it should be) but not anything great. Supposedly her other books are funnier, which I would hope so, because this one is kind of tragic. It also doesn't help that I shipped the hero with his mortal 'sister' (he was a child of two gods who was put into a human woman's womb) who met a tragic end. At some point he'll meet his real OTP and I don't know if I'm going to be able to get on board that train.
Maybe I'll check out more after I'm done here. Though, I'll need to request them from other branches, because, as I mentioned before, they don't actually keep books in libraries anymore.