All tagged Jennifer E. Smith
Hi folks! I'm happy to share our summer recommended reads with you. It's funny, I keep saying that I haven't gotten super excited about many books this year, but here we have 20+ books that we feel good about recommending--I guess are some good ones out there after all!
Reading has been tough this summer--I took on some huge projects that have competing deadlines and that means my eyeballs aren't too happy with me by the end of the day, so I haven't been reading as much. Plus I've been (intentionally) checked out from a lot of the book chatter online, so I haven't been as on it with regard to what's new and buzzed. (Not necessarily a bad thing.)
Onward to the recommendations!
Editor’s Note: Today we’re introducing another one of our regular features, “List-o-Rama,” which is part opinion, part airing of grievances, part miscellany.
I really try to be an open-minded reader. I’ve tried loads of genres and authors I assumed I wouldn’t like and have found gems that really speak to me. With that said, I have a few absolute reading dealbreakers. You know, those things that just leave you saying, “No, no, no.”
Dealbreaker #1 Controlling, domineering Alpha-male, characters.
Now, you may be saying,
“But Sarah, you love Urban Fantasy, which is full of this character type.”
Which would be a true statement.
However, the UF that I love has actual consequences for this sort of behavior. For example, in Patricia Brigg’s marvelous Mercy Thompson series (Goodreads, Amazon), Adam has to learn to keep his domineering tendencies in check—it’s a key part of his character development. The same goes for Jeaniene Frost’s incredibly fun Night Huntress series (Goodreads, Amazon), in which Bones (that name still kills me after following this series through a slew of books) has to change his behavior because he can’t call all the shots anymore. So, really, I’m fairly forgiving as long as there are consequences and a change in the behavior for this character type.
Overhyped, Underwhelming.
SPoLaFS has some really great marketing—the cover, the plot summary, all of that. I was thinking this would be Before Sunrise in novel form, but on an airplane (if you’re looking for a Before Sunrise-type read, check out Graffiti Moon, which I highly recommend). Because, you know, Before Sunrise is amazing.
Unfortunately, fairly or unfairly, those expectations weren’t met for me. And, to frustrate me further, there is a very sizable storyline about Hadley, the main character, and her father (a straight up cheater, who ran off with a woman he met while serving as a visiting instructor in England) that did not sit well with me and was far too tidily wrapped up.
