Maybe it didn’t meet your expectations. Maybe you loved part but not all of it. Tell us why
One author that I have had mixed success with is N.K. Jemisin. I know, right?? Everyone loves her. She’s dominating the Hugos. How can I not love her?
Let me say that I absolutely adore her short story collection!
I’m not generally a huge short story fan but I recommend this collection to everyone. The stories in here are amazing. They are so varied too that if you don’t love one of them you’ll probably like the next one. Seriously, if you haven’t read this, drop what you are doing and get it. I’ll wait.
But I haven’t had as much love for her novels. You know The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms? Nominated for all the awards, etc. I read it recently. I wasn’t crazy about it but I finished it. I went to Goodreads to record it when I finally finished it. Turns out that I had read it before. I had absolutely ZERO recollection of this. Not a word of that book was familiar to me. I wanted to argue with Goodreads about this because I couldn’t believe it but it Goodreads was also sitting there showing me the REVIEW I WROTE of the book. In that review I called it “ultimately forgettable” which turned out to the truest words I’ve ever written.
You know what else I ended up having mixed feelings about? The Tamora Pierce books.
I had never heard of these until a few years ago. I started with the Beka Cooper series and loved them.
Those are the most recent so I went back and started at the beginning. I was doing ok through the Alanna books although I didn’t like them as much as Beka Cooper. But then I got to Daine. She’s fine. She likes animals. I like that in a person.
What totally creeped me out though was when she got into a relationship with Numair. He is a much older man who starts out like a teacher/mentor. That’s fine but then it moves into a romantic relationship. As it started hinting at that I was like, “She surely isn’t going here.” The ick factor was huge for me. It seemed so inappropriate. I stopped reading the series when it was established that they were a couple. This was accepted as a good thing and then I was out. I couldn’t read that in any way other than a powerful man preying on a young girl. I know I’m older than the target audience so I was seeing the messed up power dynamic and not the “romance” of it so other readers obviously feel differently.
I’m working my way through the Tamora Pierce at the minute – Numair and Daine was a bit uncomfortable, but I read the Kel books first so I knew it was coming, I just try not to think about the age gap… I’m looking forward to the Beka books, but Kel is her best series for me so far. Would be a shame to miss out on those!