#607

As far as I recall when growing up, there was basically nothing in the YA market at all, so a moderately decent series would have stood out by a country mile at the time.

2 Likes
#608

Anyone like Scarlett Thomasā€™ worldquake series?

I like some of her adult novels so read the first of these. Pretty good, might fill the Wizardy void

#609

She got boggarts wrong, thatā€™s one of her worst crimes.

#610

I think itā€™s spelt ā€œHogwartsā€

1 Like
#611

China Mievilleā€™s grindylow were considerably more arresting.

#612

My recollection too but I think itā€™s more that YA is now celebrated in a way it wasnā€™t.

Thereā€™s a lot of stuff here I recall:

and it dates back much further.

Maybe part is that it now represents a lot more money than in our day, possibly because physical books are a big thing for under 15s. After that theyā€™re likely pirating books or maybe have kindles/iPads and get stuff that way. So if you can make a hit in YA you are going to be selling a lot of books.

#613

See, this is a type of writing I donā€™t care for at all. It feels like someone who is very self conscious of trying to be a good writer. It doesnā€™t feel natural at all - a bit forced tbh.

(Iā€™m not a big reader at all - hadnā€™t read fiction in 5 1/2 years until last month - and I find the actual process of reading to be painful. Scars from an English degree, trudging my way through books I didnā€™t care for and constantly calculating percentages of pages read to force myself through them, and being surrounded by people who thought ā€˜readingā€™ was this hyper arcane hobby that made them quirky and special. But still. I find it much easier to read simply written novels that focus on plot than writers with lofty ambitions and not much plot.)

1 Like
#614

Just watched the Half-blood Prince film. Maybe the best after Azkaban but itā€™s a shame they muted the finalĆ© so much. The battle in the book would have been a good moment on screen.

#615

Lindsay Ellis weighs in on Rowling

2 Likes
#616

good video and added bonus of finding out Ellis has a book coming out

#617

Reading the second worldquake book by Scarlett Thomas, is this a dig at Harry Potter do you reckon. Iā€™m not familiar enough to be sure

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6 Likes
#618

TBF that could probably account for a bunch of half-hearted magic-based kidsā€™ literature. It feels just as Enid Blyton as JKR.

#619

We finished book 7 finally at the weekend. Loads of it I couldnā€™t remember but mostly it was good. Her plotting is so ludicrously over the top of course - so much carefully balanced on other stuff. The only bit that really stands out is the killing of Snape where it makes zero sense to use your snake to kill him when the whole point is that you kill him to win the wand or whatever.

My daughter didnā€™t really care about the death of characters mind.

Watched Part 1 film and itā€™s nice to see how much more they could do with twice the screen time.

#620

Have watched (most) of the movies for the first time. Iā€™ve enjoyed them way more than I wanted to, though at points it is clear the world is underutilised. As Theo said above, the last two are good because of the extended run time.

The fifth movie was shit though. Fuck that

1 Like
#621

We started listening to the first one on audiobook today. It was very enjoyable

3 Likes
#622

The last two movies are quite tedious, just chasing after objects that were conveniently never mentioned until verrry verrry recently

#623

yeah, she really fucked the ā€œentire story arc has been mapped out since day 1ā€ thing there

#624

I donā€™t understand why Dumbeldore wasnā€™t horcrux hunting before the 6th movie, it seems to imply that he knew Harry was one all along. Why not get it out of the way 18 years earlier?

Quite a missed opportunity, honestly if the wizarding world was this close to facism the whole time JK Rowling should have explored that a bit tbh

#625

yeah, the entire 6th and 7th book were WTF? after WTF?

horcruxes: WTF?
wizarding world happily going full fash in the space of a year: WTF?
wand memory: WTF?
the deluminator: WTF?
unspeakable curses (or whatever the fuck she called them): WTF?

etc etc

2 Likes
#626

The fact that canonically Voldemort had a child with Bellatrix is actually really funny while watching this movie