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conulyI would not have wasted my time.
Not that there aren't interesting things you can do with that setting, but in this case the author clearly just set her book there to be more interesting and here's the thing: you can't fix writing problems by changing the setting.
And there were a LOT of writing problems. The nicest thing I can say about this book is just that it was boring, but it was also muddled. I feel sufficiently scathing about it that I actually feel bad, because the writing wasn't so offensive as to merit that level of flaming, it was just ordinary bad, so I won't name names, but instead turn back to this advice - you can't fix major structural issues in your writing just by moving the action somewhere else, and you can't make a boring story less boring that way either.
Not that there aren't interesting things you can do with that setting, but in this case the author clearly just set her book there to be more interesting and here's the thing: you can't fix writing problems by changing the setting.
And there were a LOT of writing problems. The nicest thing I can say about this book is just that it was boring, but it was also muddled. I feel sufficiently scathing about it that I actually feel bad, because the writing wasn't so offensive as to merit that level of flaming, it was just ordinary bad, so I won't name names, but instead turn back to this advice - you can't fix major structural issues in your writing just by moving the action somewhere else, and you can't make a boring story less boring that way either.
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Date: 2022-10-15 05:44 am (UTC):D
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Date: 2022-10-15 06:42 am (UTC)I mean, all my criticisms are valid - and there's more I haven't even said! - but if it wasn't for the outre setting I would just roll my eyes and forget about it. But that setting! It's so obviously wallpaper over subpar writing that should never have been published, and then she doesn't even do anything with it! Like, nothing interesting accrues from either the move to Hong Kong or the fact that the protagonist has gone from being ordinary well-off (or at least upper middle class, although she probably thinks of her family income and wealth as average) to "ensconced in the lifestyles of the rich and famous". Nothing, so what the hell is the point?