Cait’s review of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1) > Likes and Comments

solidarity on not liking Chambers' work when everyone around you exclaims at how wonderful it is! i didn't read this one - I picked up another one of hers first whose title i am now forgetting, and will never pick up another, because it was basically one long plotless sermon at about a 4th-grade comprehension level on ecology, and it did it in a way that really courts indigenous erasure. like, sure, her writing is highly readable on a sentence & page level, but the substance is both incredibly thin and didactic. and juvenile in a condescending "talking down" way rather than in a "strong YA fiction" way.

sidenote: i think cozy means minimal conflict? but Mary Stewart's books get categorized as cozy mysteries and they are very strong on plot and they include plenty of high-stakes conflict, it just all gets tidily and harmoniously wrapped up at the end with, in most cases, nobody getting dead, and in many cases, the villian isn't really evil so much as misunderstood in some way. so i'm really not sure.

Kat wrote: "solidarity on not liking Chambers' work when everyone around you exclaims at how wonderful it is! i didn't read this one - I picked up another one of hers first whose title i am now forgetting, and..."
Condescending is exactly the word- the author doesn't trust us enough to empathize with the characters, so we need to be beat over the head with how the characters are empathizing with each other.
The way you've described Mary Stewart is exactly up my alley- I love the IDEA of mystery novels, because I like solving puzzles! but I don't like police procedurals, or gore, or psychological thrills, so I often find modern mysteries are too much. I'll add her to my TBR list! Do you have a recommendation on where to start?