Y’know when you read the author’s introduction to a book and all you can think is “wow this guy comes off as an egomaniacal prick / stop trying to sell me on this story before I’ve even started reading it my / desire to do so is actually dwindling as we speak”?  And then you finally finish the book and dislike it a lot.  Yup.  Ender’s Game.  Not into it.  Too much endless meaningless play by play from the battle room.  Too much showing/too little telling in the Peter and Valentine subplot.  I’ve just started reading criticism of the novel on moral grounds which opens up a whole additional fun series of issues to gripe about - but even taking this story on its own terms, all I have is a big fat MEH.  Additional reading on Creating the Innocent Killer here, though!

I started out not particularly liking The Hunger Games trilogy - the first book struck me as a watered-down imitation of Battle Royale, and I was in no particular hurry to finish the series.  However, I’m happy I did, as the change in tone from the first to the second and third is rather startling.  Spoilers about all three books behind the link…

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I didn’t intend to spend the whole day today sitting around in my pajamas and reading, but that’s what happened. After finishing You Deserve Nothing I started and finished Never Let Me Go, which was quite excellent. I don’t want to divulge too much about the plot because this is definitely one of those cases where going in blind is best, but I will say that this really satisfied my love of dystopias and boarding school stories. Also, the pacing was so, so perfect. Slow and backpedaling and meandering at times, but all with the point of not having one big reveal, of leaking out the truth of these characters’ lives bit by bit.

So I maybe should’ve made it my new year’s resolution to stop reading books that I know there’s a good chance will make me angry. Take You Deserve Nothing, for instance; I was intrigued by the cover and description when I saw it in Barnes & Noble, then read the Amazon reviews and got familiar with the surrounding controversy. After the long slog through 1Q84 with only the most minimal emotional payoff I was like fuck this I need to read something next that will get to me immediately, which this did, although not necessarily in a good way. Dear Alexander Maksik, you can beg me via text to feel as sorry for you as you want, you can portray yourself as so despondent, so downtrodden, so full of excuses but I still think you’re pathetic. And the fact that you’re trying to pass off this (by all accounts mostly true) tale as fiction, like you want everyone to say oh you did nothing wrong, but don’t have the guts to own up to it… so much cringing! Halfway through reading this it started to make the news that a teacher had a two year affair with a student in the highschool of my hometown; hearing the backlash against the girl, the support for the teacher, has been incredibly frustrating. I’m tired of hearing excuses for teachers who make shitty life decisions. Also, I need to read something less emotionally loaded next.