GR Cleanup Read in 2011

I listened to Motor City Fae as an unabridged audiobook. It is a light and frothy, fun filled read but it goes crazy overboard on the sex scenes. Normally I wouldn’t say such things because a well written and creative sex scene can enliven even the blah-est of stories, even if only for a few minutes, but this time I felt as if I were reading the same scene over and over and it got a bit stale and same-old. Yeah, I know the heroine has soggy panty syndrome and the hero has a huge one that hardens when the wind blows (so embarrassing, really, considering the poor sucker wears tights quite often) but do those issues need to continually be shoved in my face? Even I can only take so much before my ears begin to bleed.

And speaking of bleeding ears I will head straight to the narration. Simply put it ruins the story. The narrator’s deadpan and slow as hell reading of the text saps the life out of the book and the characters. There is no emotion put into the reading and seeing as most of the book takes place in “the motor city”, this narrator with her Irish or British accent (sorry I couldn’t pinpoint it), really threw me off and out of the story. Her faux American accent, mainly the portrayal of the heroine, was terribly grating. Choosing this woman as the narrator was a weird choice, she’d be much better suited to a darker edged Maeve Binchy novel than this piece of sexy fae fluff. That’s all I’m saying.

Other than that, I very much enjoyed this story. It was an infectious read, that doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously and gleefully borrows its world building and descriptions from everywhere. I’m good with that because the characters have spark, chemistry and charm and honestly I just have a thing for long haired elves with pointy ears and big eyes.

You won’t find anything new in this plot. A handsome fae bard named Ric (Alaric), is sent on a mission to locate the long missing princess/missing heir in order to retain her place of power. There’s a vote or something that is going to happen and the Queen needs the heir in order to tip the scales in her favor. She sends Ric because he’s her favorite plaything and she knows he’ll charm the gal into doing exactly what she orders.

Meagan is one of those free-spirited, go with the flow artsy type heroines that have been around since the dawn of romance. She is immediately smitten with Ric, even before she sees his true elf form, and pretty much swallows whatever he offers up (read into that whatever you wish) but she’s not stupid and so airy-fairy that she can’t think things through and fend for herself when necessary. But don’t worry there’s nothing heavy here. There’s minor danger but no real sense of doom and gloom and any deep potentially fiery obstacles were brushed away with pleasantries and everything was A-ok again. It’s just a fun fantasy with a lot of sex. Decent but probably not memorable. I’ll read the next though, just not in audio format.

DNF because I found myself disliking the story (boring), the narration (stiff), the characters (boring and stiff) and the fact that the discs had no end or beginning indicator; no music, no intro, no nothing. I was halfway through disc three for the second time before I realized it! That just proved to me that I had not only dozed through the entire disc once but nearly did it twice. It was then that I called it quits and dropped it off at the library. Also, for a book with such a lovely steampunk cover, what I read didn't feel very steampunk to me.

Everything about it was just "meh" for me. The setup features a young teen orphan (no parents, again? le sigh) who gets off a ship expecting to meet her older brother who is her only living relative in the whole wide world. Instead two older ladies who call themselves "The Dark Sisters" are there to pick her up. Hello, if that ain't a clue, I don't know what is. So she naively believes every lying word they utter and heads off with them where she is kept captive and given lessons in how to shapeshift. Once that's accomplished, quite easily I might add (just a wee bit of puking), she learns the Dark Sisters have promised her hand in marriage to "The Magister" or "The Magistrate" (sorry, I can't remember now) who she assumes is a nasty old geezer. She finally attempts to escape, fails and tries again. Lucky for her a handsome young fella just so happens to be poking his nose into the business of "The Dark Sisters" on her next attempt and is snooping around inside the house. He oh-so-conveniently rescues her just in the nick of time and brings her to safety so more tiresome stuff can happen for hundreds of pages.

At one point Will (he of the gallant rescue) says:

"You do believe everything I say, don't you? Do I seem unusually trustworthy to you or are you just the naive sort?"

Haha, I guess I did like Will a little bit. He had her number from the get-go.

I’m not really a huge fan of YA but my daughter keeps pushing John Green on me so I figured I better start reading his work or she’s going to stop speaking to me. I did (mostly)  enjoy The Fault in Our Stars last month so decided to grab Paper Towns when I found it unabridged at my library. This book is not a retread of that grueling material (thankfully) but more of a follow the really vague clues type of mystery. I’ll state up front that I’m not good at clues or puzzles so I had trouble figuring out how they got from point A to point B. I know, that’s completely my issue.

Quentin and Margo have lived across from each other since they were little kids. They grew up as friends and drifted apart somewhere in middle school as kids do. Now they’re high school seniors. Margo is beautiful, adventurous and hangs with the popular crowd. Quentin is just an average boy. He has friends and is liked well enough but he’s not exactly Margo material. So when she comes knocking on his bedroom window late one night dressed up like a ninja and basically demanding that he drive her around to exact some revenge on her current group of friends, well, how can he possibly resist? Margo needs him and he secretly lusts/loves/longs for her though he’ll never admit it out loud. After this night is over, he hopes she’ll acknowledge his existence in school and his senior year will be unforgettable. They have an action packed night, she wreaks her vengeance and Quentin finds himself going along with all of her crazy ideas because his heart hasn’t pumped like this in probably forever.

I adored the opening series of events that starts this book. Quentin and Margo have a good dynamic going and their thoughts and dialogue came across as real (which is the only problem I had with Green’s beloved “The Fault In Our Stars”) and it was relatively and refreshingly pretty much angst free.

After their adventure filled night Quentin looks forward to a closer friendship with Margo but soon realizes it is not going to happen. Margo is long gone and has left behind a few very vague clues for Quentin to piece together which is how he spends most of the rest of the book. Looking for Margo, thinking about Margo and enlisting a few of his friends (one who I found super annoying) in the search for Margo. Le sigh. Most of the magic was gone then, along with Margo and it was here that the book lost most of my interest too.

Still I soldiered on and I finished. Oh the things I do for my kid.

I’m giving this one a 3 and ½ mostly for its fantastic start and some fun dialogue. Though the ending felt real and I can appreciate that, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that it left me a bit unsatisfied after all of the pages leading up to it . . . and that’s all I’m saying about that.

Narration Notes:  Dan John Miller does very well with Quentin’s dialogue as well as Margo’s. But why, oh god why, does he have to scream out every line Q’s best friend utters with super over done enthusiasm? Why, why, why? I swear “honey bunnies” the next town over could probably hear his voice leaking out of my headphones. I cringed whenever that too excitable kid popped up on the scene because I knew my ears were about to hate me. He does however have one of my favorite lines from the book:

“Dude, I don’t want to talk about Lacey’s prom shoes. And I’ll tell you why: I have this thing that makes me really uninterested in prom shoes. It’s called a penis.”