Joanne Renaud > Recent Status Updates

Oh my gawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwd. What even is this book? It's a mishmash of LEGEND, WILLOW and the old YA series SECRET OF THE UNICORN QUEEN, but with really, really purple prose. And the most tedious bickering couple you can imagine. But I'm determined to finish this book so I can review it, damn it!

Oh my gawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwd. What even is this book? It's a mishmash of LEGEND, WILLOW and the old YA series SECRET OF THE UNICORN QUEEN, but really, really purple prose. And the most tedious bickering couple you can imagine. But I'm determined to finish this book so I can review it, damn it!

OK. So finally... FINALLY things are getting interesting. But it took 219 pages of the previous book and 218 pages of this book to get here. Meaning I had to read 400+ pages to get to a place where I at last felt some interest in finding out what happened next! There is a SERIOUS problem with pacing here.

Unlike the more juvenile tone of its predecessor, so far this is reading like Guy Gavriel Kay or Clash of Kings era George RR Martin, but with flatter, less interesting prose. I'm having a hard time caring or connecting with any of the characters. Hopefully this will pick up at some point...

So far this is fine... not great, not terrible. But it's plausibly interesting enough that I don't see any problems finishing it, and then hopefully on to the (so I'm told) more interesting sequels!

Engrossing, magnificent and pretty even handed too! And very, very, VERY long. I'm in this one for the long haul, guys.

I like the fact that this is written by folks who know and love the genre, and there's a huge range of incidents and romantic interests to choose from, including an F/F pairing and some POC love interests in the Egyptian storyline. But I really, really, really wish it wasn't quite so aggressively jokey.

Words. So many words. So many wooooooords! You like descriptions? Here's a two page description of an office! You like folklore? Here's a ten page fairy tale story-within-a-story. It's.... a lot.

This was... good for 1995? I liked bits and pieces. The heroine is great. The hero is... ah... well, he's definitely a character. But all in all this was a frustrating reading experience. And one that's definitely past its sell-by date.

I need to think about this.

The blend of 1920s flapper culture, Mexican history, and Mayan mythology is a heady one, and I LOVE IT. I have a new favorite author to obsess over.

Thomas Costain is alwaysreadable, and his insight into Napoleon's character is first-rate. I love all the conversations Bonaparte has with Betsy. It's delightful. What's not delightful is that the slave characters are there for comic relief. Why are all the slaves who have come directly from various unspecified regions in Africa speaking in badly rendered AAVE out of Uncle Tom's Cabin? Why are they afraid of ghosts?

This book is AMAZING. The blend of 1920s flapper culture, Mexican history, and Mayan mythology is a heady one, and I LOVE IT. I have a new favorite author to obsess over.

This book. Was. Not. Good. It was racist, orientalist, othering and there was an actual evangelical theme of proving that the Bible was Real that felt both heavy-handed and othering.

Review to come soon on Dear Author. I will post a link when it's up.

So, I got a dead tree copy at the library, so I felt like I could probably evaluate this book.

To be fair, the opening chapter is banger. Written in the first person, it's fast-paced and engaging. I enjoyed it a lot.

But then, Chloe traveled back in time, and the POV shifted to third person omniscient. Plus, there's SOOOO many problems with brownface and racism in this book... I honestly don't know where to begin.

Oh my god, this book is such a trash fire so far. So much rampant passive voice, and so much head-hopping. And REALLY questionable racial issues. And now we have fucking MOSES showing up!? I really don't know why so many people recommended this to be back in the day, but I guess the '90s were really a different time.

Let's see how far I can get in this thing...

Well, this book has NOT aged well. This is sexist AF. Evil queen Achren used to be all the High Queen of all of Prydain, but for some reason she gave all her power to Arawn, aka Evil Overlord #517, and now she's looking for a new guy to give her power to! Here's a suggestion, Achren: how about you rule yourself, like you used to? And why aren't people making more of an issue about Eilonwy being the rightful heir?

I haven't read THE BOOK OF THREE since I was... 12 or so? So not in 30 years or so (not to date myself or anything). For some reason I haven't felt the urge to revisit it like a bunch of other Alexander books... Anyway, so far it's not bad. So much of it feels like The Lord of the Rings (there's even Ringwraiths, and an Aragorn character with the serial numbers filed off)... but with zombies! Okay.

I'm determined to finish this. Now that the obnoxious Joffrey has been arrested, and Angelique is trying to get him out of the Bastille, navigating the 17th century court system, things have become more interesting. I do like the descriptions of Paris. Angelique is an insufferable narcissist, though, who has forgotten the fact that maybe the Archbishop of Toulouse doesn't like Joff because he MURDERED HIS NEPHEW.

It's not badly written for an older novel, but it's incredibly dated. It's written in this oddly distant way, it's filled with casual sadism and brutality (including the way rape is handled) and the characters are all really flat and unlikeable, with no internal life. Also highly dubious of this book's historicity (heroine has never heard of stays before she was 15). Sure. Let's see if I can finish this thing.

Racist and twee-- no thanks. DNF

No thanks. Racist and twee. DNF.

Well, this is, uh, interesting. It's always interesting reading a supposed "classic." Angelique is well written & lively, with lots of interesting details, but with its creepily dead-eyed, voyeuristic depiction of trauma and sexual violence, so far I CANNOT recommend it to anyone. It’s triggering AF. Also, I doubt anyone under the age of 50 would have any interest in reading it. It’s not aged well.

While compelling at first, it's taken a U-Turn into homophobia and stupidity. I'm going to take a break, since there is WAY too much of that IRL.

While compelling at first, it's taken a U-Turn into homophobia and stupidity. I'm going to take a break, since there is WAY too much of that IRL.

Deeply weird, very dark, with magnificent prose. I'm hooked.

I just started reading Seize the Fire after a tentative recommendation from a friend. It’s very well written, BUT but I could do w/o the racist caricature of the (white) hero's Middle Eastern Muslim servant, Mustafa. He's introduced as high-larious comic relief, and moreover, is described sliding up and down banisters "like a monkey up a palm tree." JESUS. It's straight out of a 1930s movie.

So far I'm enjoying this book enormously, which is saying a lot as I'm something of a closet Neronian. So far, it's a deep, rich, heartfelt book, and I'll be sorry to put it down.

So far this is long, plodding, badly paced and with cartoonish characters who spout clunky dialogue, and some risible, poorly thought-out world-building (A PURRING? Also, sentient robots are called 'Stupefactions.' Good to know.) It doesn't help the heroine Eliste is relentlessly unappealing, and so self-absorbed she verges on clinical narcissism. I hope this gets better, or this will be A SLOW TRAIN RIDE INTO HELL.