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Jan. 23rd, 2009 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI've read a couple of Isabel Allende's books, and for the most part I have liked them! She's got some flaws, but she is awesome at creating a variety of strong and cool middle-aged and elderly female characters.
. . . this was not necessarily going to be a prominent feature in a YA fantasy novel, but I was still curious enough to read her City of the Beasts. And the book does indeed start out promisingly, with a cool elderly female character! I love the protagonist's badass safari-reporter grandmother Kate, who drags him off on safari with her to toughen him up while his mother is in the hospital after a.) throwing him in the pool as a child to teach him how to swim, b.) sending him booby-trapped chocolates, and c.) making him make his own way from the airport to her apartment in the BIG SCARY CITY of New York.
Unfortunately, after Kate and her grandson head off into the wilderness, the book rapidly descends into several levels of unfortunate and condescending cliche, as the white middle-class American kid discovers his DESTINY to save the poor lost native tribe and help them to preserve their Pure Mystical Simple In Tune With The Land way of life.
With the help of his inner jaguar spirit.
Also, his equally super-special predestined preteen soulmate, who is also Purer, More Mystical, and More In Tune With The Land than most people (she can understand the language of people's hearts, guys! And so can he, if he just tries!). And her inner eagle spirit.
Oh Isabel Allende. NO.
. . . this was not necessarily going to be a prominent feature in a YA fantasy novel, but I was still curious enough to read her City of the Beasts. And the book does indeed start out promisingly, with a cool elderly female character! I love the protagonist's badass safari-reporter grandmother Kate, who drags him off on safari with her to toughen him up while his mother is in the hospital after a.) throwing him in the pool as a child to teach him how to swim, b.) sending him booby-trapped chocolates, and c.) making him make his own way from the airport to her apartment in the BIG SCARY CITY of New York.
Unfortunately, after Kate and her grandson head off into the wilderness, the book rapidly descends into several levels of unfortunate and condescending cliche, as the white middle-class American kid discovers his DESTINY to save the poor lost native tribe and help them to preserve their Pure Mystical Simple In Tune With The Land way of life.
With the help of his inner jaguar spirit.
Also, his equally super-special predestined preteen soulmate, who is also Purer, More Mystical, and More In Tune With The Land than most people (she can understand the language of people's hearts, guys! And so can he, if he just tries!). And her inner eagle spirit.
Oh Isabel Allende. NO.
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Date: 2009-01-23 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-23 08:17 pm (UTC)*saves link for not-at-workness*
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Date: 2009-01-23 11:29 pm (UTC)You know. After we've watched all 50 billion other things on the to-watch-together list. BUT STILL.
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Date: 2009-01-24 05:15 am (UTC)*you know, the hypothetical one, but still*
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Date: 2009-01-23 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-24 05:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-24 06:52 pm (UTC)Some parts of it were okay, but mostly I was wondering why the hell everyone makes so much of a fuss about Allende.
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Date: 2009-01-24 06:58 pm (UTC)Oh, dude, other Allendes are infinitely better. This is absolutely the worst of hers I've read; Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia I really liked! I think maybe she is one of those people that thinks writing YA = writing infinitely dumbed down.
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Date: 2009-01-24 07:00 pm (UTC)I mean, I have reached the stage where I am so desperate for books I will read almost anything, but I found an international bookstore (SEVEN STOREYS. THANK YOU GREECE.) and bought My Name is Red the other day, and hopefully that will last me at least through Rome.
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Date: 2009-01-24 07:03 pm (UTC)- that sounds really really cool, actually. (And also conveniently complex enough to make it last a long time.) You should let me know how it is when you're done, because now I'm intrigued!
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Date: 2009-01-24 07:07 pm (UTC)So far I am enjoying it immensely.