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Feb. 9th, 2013 11:20 amI have a weird compulsion to finish books I start, regardless of whether or not I'm actually enjoying them. Like, if I don't finish it, it's like the book has BEATEN me and I DON'T LIKE TO BE BEATEN.
(This is related to my compulsion to read every book I get out of the library before I have to give it back, otherwise THE LIBRARY WINS.)
. . . the reason this is relevant is because Henry VIII: Wolfman came as close as anything has come in the past five or six years to beating me. It didn't, in the end, the compulsion won out, but I wish it hadn't, because seriously, self, LIFE'S TOO SHORT.
You may well ask: "WHY were you reading Henry VIII: Wolfman to begin with?" The answer to this question is threefold:
1. Fatal curiosity
2. In the first place I saw it on sale, they had typoed the title as Henry VII: Wolfman, and THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN AMAZING. NOBODY writes Henry VII pastiche! So anyone who would think to write Henry VII werewolf fanfic is someone I feel happy about supporting
3. My roommate literally gave me a dollar to do it
I should have known when I read the first chapter, in which Henry VIII eats his queen. ~but which queen!~ is the mystery you have to read the rest of the book to find the answer to. I should have just stopped there.
Don't worry about spoilers, because YOU SHOULDN'T CARE. YOU SHOULD NOT READ THIS BOOK. But for the equally fatally curious, ( here are some exciting points of counterfactual werewolf history, warning for torture and rape )
AND NOW YOU KNOW EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THE BOOK, minus several hundred pages of Comedy Torture and extremely graphic depictions of werewolves tearing off people's faces and eating people's guts.
The thing is it's not even that this is the most poorly-written book I've read in five years or anything? I have read many bad books in my life and somewhere deep in my heart I have to one extent or another enjoyed reading most of them, because even terrible things are often entertainingly terrible. But between the constant gross-outs and the expectation that I was supposed to find it all funny, I got pretty much zero pleasure from this book.
So, well done, Henry VIII: Wolfman! YOU ALMOST DEFEATED ME. But you were saved by the fact that I was reading you on Kindle, and therefore I was not able to throw you violently across the room.
(This is related to my compulsion to read every book I get out of the library before I have to give it back, otherwise THE LIBRARY WINS.)
. . . the reason this is relevant is because Henry VIII: Wolfman came as close as anything has come in the past five or six years to beating me. It didn't, in the end, the compulsion won out, but I wish it hadn't, because seriously, self, LIFE'S TOO SHORT.
You may well ask: "WHY were you reading Henry VIII: Wolfman to begin with?" The answer to this question is threefold:
1. Fatal curiosity
2. In the first place I saw it on sale, they had typoed the title as Henry VII: Wolfman, and THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN AMAZING. NOBODY writes Henry VII pastiche! So anyone who would think to write Henry VII werewolf fanfic is someone I feel happy about supporting
3. My roommate literally gave me a dollar to do it
I should have known when I read the first chapter, in which Henry VIII eats his queen. ~but which queen!~ is the mystery you have to read the rest of the book to find the answer to. I should have just stopped there.
Don't worry about spoilers, because YOU SHOULDN'T CARE. YOU SHOULD NOT READ THIS BOOK. But for the equally fatally curious, ( here are some exciting points of counterfactual werewolf history, warning for torture and rape )
AND NOW YOU KNOW EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THE BOOK, minus several hundred pages of Comedy Torture and extremely graphic depictions of werewolves tearing off people's faces and eating people's guts.
The thing is it's not even that this is the most poorly-written book I've read in five years or anything? I have read many bad books in my life and somewhere deep in my heart I have to one extent or another enjoyed reading most of them, because even terrible things are often entertainingly terrible. But between the constant gross-outs and the expectation that I was supposed to find it all funny, I got pretty much zero pleasure from this book.
So, well done, Henry VIII: Wolfman! YOU ALMOST DEFEATED ME. But you were saved by the fact that I was reading you on Kindle, and therefore I was not able to throw you violently across the room.
