(no subject)

[craftyhobbit]

March hasn't really been a good month for reading so far... I've read a couple of books that I've enjoyed, but one which I thought that I would like, I found a bit dull and gave up reading it. The book is Vet's in Love by Cathy Woodman. (Spoiler, the main character of the book isn't a Vet, she's the local GP, which makes it a strange title for the book to begin with.) The focus of the story wasn't to my liking, even though the setting was in a series that I've enjoyed before... I guess that there was too much romance, dull family focused stuff (not that the romance was that stella, anyway...) and not enough focus on the animals. One thing that I also find frustrating about more modern writing (books of the past 20 years or so) is that the lifestyle of the characters tend to be too perfect - their job is perfect, their home is perfect, their finances are perfect, their 'modern' approach to romance is 'perfect' (not really, because it's shallower than a toddler's paddling pool, but if it doesn't 'work out', it doesn't really affect them much emotionally and they are able to shrug it off like water off a duck's back.) and if there are challenges, it's always challenges for other people around them, not the main character or couple. The result? A lack luster meh story.

One of the other books that is unfinished is Buried Deep by Naomi Novik. It's a short story collection and I am only really interested in the two Temeraire verse stories, but I have figured out why I sometimes have a hard time getting through short story collections and the reason wasn't what I thought it was. I used to think that it was because I didn't like the writing of the author as I used to buy urban fantasy short story collections and found that I usually didn't like the stories that weren't written by authors I've not read before, (that is part of it, I'm sure), but what I also don't like is not really having enough information in the story about the world, the characters, etc, which can sometimes happen in short stories because of the limited word count. If I don't know the world, I can't get into the short story because it is lacking, or feels rushed when you read it. When I read the Mark Antony story, I wanted a series, or at least a trilogy following him and the establishment of the dragon military traditions, so the story ended too early. These books are ones that I've borrowed from the library so it doesn't bother me much that I've not finished reading them from a money perspective, as I've got quite a lot of my own books that I want to get thorugh and they've been waiting on my reading pile for too long. I want to get through the libary back log by the end of the month so I can start reading the books that I own.