Rebecca Barry từ Ghergheasa , Romania

_ekki_arry

12/22/2024

Dữ liệu người dùng, đánh giá và đề xuất cho sách

Rebecca Barry Sách lại (10)

2018-03-29 01:30

Thư Gửi Con Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn

Sách được viết bởi Bởi: Thái Kim Lan

My gosh, if someone told me last year that there would be a paranormal romance that would be even more loathsome than Twilight, I would have laughed in her face and told her I'd eat my favorite shirt if I were ever to find such a book. Well, I'm about to add a whole lot more fiber to my diet, because Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver is such a book. I often pick up books because of their cover art. It seems like doing this in the YA section is the easiest way of getting a book I hate, because I fell into that trap with Twilight and have repeated it with Shiver. Another reviewer said the best thing about the book was the cover art and how the blue-gray serif font (I want to know what that font is--I love it!) in the book matches the font style and blue-gray art of the cover. The reviewer is totally right on. Despite the author's claims that she wrote the first draft before the first Twilight book came out, there are too many similarities to be coincidental. I'll list a few examples in this review, but a full account is provided in the following document that I created for a friend after raging about the book: http://www.mediafire.com/?udywhtkjc5220s9 The "plot" is as follows: Grace Brisbane was bitten by wolves at the age of 12, and right after that, is almost cooked to death when she has a fever, falls asleep in the car and is too weak to open a window to cool herself down. Right there is the first plothole (the story is like Swiss cheese it has so many holes)--a 12 year old is not a helpless baby. There is no way she couldn't think of turning the lock and opening the door for some air. Also, why didn't her dad go to jail for that much negligence? Anyway, from then on, Grace becomes obsessed with wolves and spends all her spare time watching them, especially for the yellow-eyed one that saved her (almost all wolves have yellow eyes, Ms. Steifvater), and the only person who kind of gets her fascination is one of her two friends, Olivia, who enjoys taking their pictures. It turns out that this wolf, a boy named Sam Roth, saved her because he fell in love with her at first sight. And like the vegetarian vamps of the Twilight world, he hates being a supernatural creature and tries fighting his fate. Stiefvater's werewolves change due to cold weather. While an interesting concept, Stiefvater clearly did not take time to logically think about things associated with her explanation as to why the weather affects them and why Grace didn't change (this is explained in part in my comparison chart, but if you suffer through the book yourself, you'll see tons of holes). Anyway, one of Grace's classmates supposedly dies from a wolf attack, but it turns out that he was just bitten and is a new, unstable wolf. Jack's sister Isabelle, like everyone else in the town, knows Grace was attacked once and is now obsessed with the wolves. Isabelle is honestly the only 3D character. She's the only one with enough sense and courage to ask Grace about the wolves. Grace on the other hand, behaves extraordinarily selfishly as she wants to keep the werewolves a secret. And (view spoiler) She's the only one with enough brains to try to find a cure. Grace Brisbane is the tissue-paper version of Bella Swan. By that I mean Bella superficially has some interests, at least at the beginning, but Grace does not. She spends so much time looking at the wolves that it almost sounds like she's in love (in the icky sense) with the wolves from the start. Grace's parents are literally criminally negligible, but there is very little consideration given to Grace's emotional needs vis-a-vis her parents except for a small tiff Grace and Sam have over whether having sex was a way for her to try to get her parents' attention. I think another reviewer said that Stiefvater had no need to make Grace a high schooler except to gain a YA audience; making Grace a college student or over 18 would eliminate this irritating plothole and would prevent an overdone parental fight over dating a supernatural creature. Sam, likewise, is equally boring. Stiefvater titles each chapter as coming from either Sam or Grace's viewpoints. However, the heading is the only indication of what you're reading, because Sam sounds like a twenty to thirtysomething female writer, just like Grace, and ~coincidentally~ like the author herself. I had to flip back to the beginning of every chapter to figure out who was talking, unless there were hideously corny lyrics about love or loss, in which case I know Sam was talking. I kept waiting for the sexual tension; I was sure paranormal romances had to have at least some. I'm not one of those people with strict gender lines, but in order to write a realistic male character, you have to acknowledge that gendered thinking does occur in society and that characters will, by default, reflect that. Teenage guys think about sex (even gay ones). They think about sex a lot. Sam didn't even mention it, so that, plus the cheesy love lyrics and fondness for German poetry made me think of a girl's fantasy of nonthreatening male versions of themselves. Plus there was this gem of a line, which many reviewers mention, that made me think of Sam as a young woman: I was a leaking womb bulging with the promise of conscious thoughts. What. Few guys would ever think of describing themselves while transforming as womens' reproductive organs (nor would most women, come to think of it). And those few that would describe themselves that way would not use the word leaking in conjunction with that. Aside from that horrifying word choice, Stiefvater has a somewhat nice, poetic style if you are into purple prose. But after the first two chapters, her style becomes grating. After the first three chapters I was literally counting the number of pages until I was finished. Those that were with me that weekend know that I valiantly struggled though the book. I can usually finish a YA novel in two days. Shiver took me six days to finish, it was so bad. Unfortunately I also got the sequels, so this will be an exercise in tolerance more than anything else.

Người đọc Rebecca Barry từ Ghergheasa , Romania

Người dùng coi những cuốn sách này là thú vị nhất trong năm 2017-2018, ban biên tập của cổng thông tin "Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn" khuyến cáo rằng tất cả các độc giả sẽ làm quen với văn học này.