OOP: Give OoP a chance! (was: I Didn't Care For OoP )

[- Joy -]

No: HPFGUIDX 66994


Marianne wrote:
<<I think Cindy raises some interesting issues.  While I haven't seen any
overtly hostile reactions to people writing less-than-stellar reviews on OoP
here or elsewhere, I also admit I haven't read every single post. >>

kiricat wrote:
<< I think the other part of this is that we've waited SO DAMN LONG for the
book that we were close to expecting OoP to be The Greatest Book Ever
Written.>>


I didn't expect anything. I wasn't eager to read the book until the last
week before June 21st. I was very influenced by the list. Hey, on the 21st I
was truly happy for all of you, even though I couldn't buy the book yet.  I
hadn't even put in the effort to find out if it was going to be imported.

It has parts I like and parts I don't. I'm on pg 450 UK ed so I don't know
if I'll like the ending, but IMO this book lacks the fluent, easy reading
quality that the others have, and I'm not saying the others were perfect. So
far, from time to time I get the same "why is she jumping to another point?"
sensation that I got during the Quidditch World Cup final.

Other parts are great, I love them, and I know I'll re-read them.

Don't tell me I'm spoiled, because all of the books have been spoiled for
me. I saw the first film, then read the first book, then decided that
HPverse would be quite interesting to role play, so I went to the Lexicon
and read up on it.  I refused to read PoA until half a year ago, because I
had read GoF before and I hated Sirius (don't kill me) but in the end I
liked the novel, so spoilers are irrelevant in my case.

Jo surprised me in the other books. I used to read a chapter at a time
examining narrative structure, and she gave me the impression of having a
wonderful sense for pacing the reading, joining one scene with other in a
way that you almost didn't notice the change.

Overall, I wanted sharper dialogue, but that's me, and some lines are great.

The theme, dark, does not necessitate a specific style. Some books from
Ursula Le Guin are easy reading but quite moving or dark. See Four Ways to
Forgiveness, for example. Or Tehanu (the fourth in the Earthsea series),
which made me cry during one of the love scenes. Now don't respond with the
easy "you just want Jo to write like ULG". Well, no. I like different
styles. I'd be bored to death if I could read only one author. But I tend to
critique all of them.

Critiques (when reasoned, based on something) are a good thing. People are
not god-like and if I were Jo, I would be glad to hear criticism. They can
be good  points of view. At least when the rate is Raves 90%, Criticism 10%

silmariel
hoping not to be flamed