Working my way through my kindle backlog
Apr. 19th, 2019 01:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyI finally got through the two published Kiranmala books.
These are solid middle grade fantasy - good mix of jokes, though-provoking-ness, adventure, and feelings. Plus some weird worldbuilding (in the best way) and social consciousness.
Two things, though. No, three things.
First, our protagonist is amazingly clueless, especially when it comes to her crush, in particular, and his feelings about her. She's clueless in other ways, too - at several points people explicitly tell her things, but she completely ignores them and then has to come across her epiphany the hard way. Only once does she realize she's done this. It's good for the reader to be a little ahead of the protagonist, but nobody wants to be this far ahead. Even when you account for the age of the target audience, this girl needs to smarten up.
Secondly, the author has clearly read The Hunger Games. Well, everybody's read The Hunger Games*, but I mean to say that the second book has a very Hunger Games vibe that was a wee bit disorienting.
Third, the refugee crisis is very topical. I think, however, that having your obvious metaphor conveyed with actual monsters that eat humans is, perhaps, in bad taste. Yes, we all get the moral that you shouldn't judge entire groups of people on hearsay and vicious rumors... but that moral is rather muddied when our main character, aside from making friends in That Persecuted Group and then having a cluebat generously applied, has also encountered several members of that same group who have hunted her and threatened to eat her. Indeed, one of her friends threatened to eat her at one point.
* For a given value of "everybody", of course.
These are solid middle grade fantasy - good mix of jokes, though-provoking-ness, adventure, and feelings. Plus some weird worldbuilding (in the best way) and social consciousness.
Two things, though. No, three things.
First, our protagonist is amazingly clueless, especially when it comes to her crush, in particular, and his feelings about her. She's clueless in other ways, too - at several points people explicitly tell her things, but she completely ignores them and then has to come across her epiphany the hard way. Only once does she realize she's done this. It's good for the reader to be a little ahead of the protagonist, but nobody wants to be this far ahead. Even when you account for the age of the target audience, this girl needs to smarten up.
Secondly, the author has clearly read The Hunger Games. Well, everybody's read The Hunger Games*, but I mean to say that the second book has a very Hunger Games vibe that was a wee bit disorienting.
Third, the refugee crisis is very topical. I think, however, that having your obvious metaphor conveyed with actual monsters that eat humans is, perhaps, in bad taste. Yes, we all get the moral that you shouldn't judge entire groups of people on hearsay and vicious rumors... but that moral is rather muddied when our main character, aside from making friends in That Persecuted Group and then having a cluebat generously applied, has also encountered several members of that same group who have hunted her and threatened to eat her. Indeed, one of her friends threatened to eat her at one point.
* For a given value of "everybody", of course.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-19 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-19 08:49 pm (UTC)Regardless, my point wasn't really about which commenters have or haven't read that series but about the fact that the second book of this series really has a lot of superficial elements that scream "the author is a fan".
no subject
Date: 2019-04-19 08:53 pm (UTC)