• JaymesRS@piefed.worldEnglish
    5·
    24 days ago

    Been traveling with kids the last week and through the end of this one so it’s been tough to read. Trying to get through the entire rest of the Ransom Riggs Peculiar Children series so I can start Red Rising.

    • Cursed_Fig@lemmy.world
      4·
      24 days ago

      I only managed to do the first chapter. I keep hearing about how great it is, but the writing itself is ass. But hey, art is subjective.

      • JaymesRS@piefed.worldEnglish
        2·
        23 days ago

        Thankfully, I have a pretty high tolerance for sub-par writing if the story is good.

        Whereas, I have DNFed a few books where the prose is florid and beautiful, but the story is banal or underdeveloped.

    • hereiamagain@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      23 days ago

      I’m still working my way through Red Rising. I’m in book 5, Dark Age. Then I’ll still have the 6th book, and a 7th should be it this year or so I hear.

      The first book is amazing, the next two are still really good.

      The fourth I really didn’t like at first, since the whole style of writing changes to the viewpoint of multiple characters. But by the time I was halfway through it I was starting to appreciate it a lot more. Now that I’m 2/3 through the fifth book, I’m looking forward to hearing the different perspectives.

      Still, there are times when it’s a slog. But I just put it down for a few days and then I’m roped back in.

      Also the audio book version keeps changing voice actors between books, and they aren’t ok following the same pronunciation of some names, and even some words are just straight up mispronounced. Which is annoying.

      Worse yet, two of the actors really struggle with proper sense stress and inflection. It’s sometimes confusing whether a character is speaking or thinking/narrating, or even whether an ACTION is being described. It’s hard to explain, but occasionally jarring. They’re getting better as the books go on though. I think they might be cold reading it 🤷‍♂️