PRO reviews?

[easol.livejournal.com]

You know, I'm a bit curious -- what kind of professional reviews does LKH get? As in, from newspapers, genre mags, zines?

I know amazon (which often doesn't mirror the pro tastes) is basically filled with A) snarkers, B) troos, and C) people who consider this literary baloney on white bread, and read it because they aren't too demanding.

So has anyone seen professional reviews for LKH's books, and do they tend to be positive, "hateful" or sort of middle-of-the-road? (Particularly in St. Louis?)

(PS, on a slightly OT note, the ghastly "Talia Gryphon" is coming out with a sequel to that ghastly book)

Comments

[freyalorelei.livejournal.com]

See, the fact that the lines between what should be two specific genres--urban fantasy and paranormal romance--have all begun to bleed together, no pun intended, is indicative of what LKH hath wrot. (Wroth? Wreaked? Bah.) She started out as one and gradually shifted into the other, and now the two have become inseparably muddled.

It's like the difference between Janet Evanovich and Jim Butcher. I don't read her, but my mother is DEEPLY into the Plum books, and from what I've gathered they're rather fluffy chick lit. Not that there's anything WRONG with fluffy chick lit, but when it's lumped in with darker, more violent books, then it becomes frustrating to weed through the masses to find what you're looking for. They're like romantic comedies, light and chatty, with an endearingly quirky female lead. Some of them are more in-depth, but some of them, like LKH, are basically Harlequin novels with superpowers.

Honestly, I've tried flipping through the nine zillion parurban romantasy clones, and I can't get more than five pages into them because they all seem alike. I know there are a lot of devoted readers of the genre, but I can't keep the books straight; they all kinda blur together. I think I finished a couple Rachel Caine books (she friended me, and that makes her Awesome), but that's about it.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Wrought?

[freyalorelei.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU. Gah, my English major cred, it hath failed me.

[easol.livejournal.com]

"Wrotted" or "wrotten" sounds more appropriate.

[dominanefret.livejournal.com]

If you haven't read Janet Evanovich's books, you really have no place to speak on them. Comparing them in any way to LKH is absolutely completely and utterly insulting.

The Stephanie Plum books may be "fluffy chick lit" but they are witty, hysterical, very well written, captivating, action packed, with very well formed and well thought out plots. All of her characters have so much personality and are so well developed that when you read about them you can actually see them like they are real people, which is something very very few authors can do.

And while her heroin has a thread of complicated relationships weaving throughout her books, she absolutely never lets that overwhelm the greater plot. None of the Stephanie Plum books are anything like harlequin novels. They are mysteries, pure and simple. They may be funny mysteries, but they are still mysteries - where the conflict is the most central aspect of the plot. And some of the mysteries are VERY intense, even while having some of the humor present.

Janet Evanovich does have some Harlequinesque books out, which are actually re-releases of romance novels she wrote almost twenty years ago, but they are completely separate from her main series.

Please don't review or pass judgment on books you haven't read. You can end up misleading people, and you can also end up missing out on some really good reads based on pre-conceived notions.

Sorry for the long rant, and I hope I didn't come off as mean or like I was jumping all over you.

[freyalorelei.livejournal.com]

I should have clarified: When I compared some of them to "Harlequin novels with superpowers," I was NOT specifically referring to Evanovich's books; I mean the urbanormal romantasy genre as a whole. It was originally a separate paragraph. (I know that Plum herself does not, in fact, have superpowers and is pretty much a normal human being with an...unusual job. And a hamster. I've been tempted to read the books for the hamster alone. Because...dude! HAMSTAH!)

I do know that Evanovich a) can actually write (her books aren't my thing, but the style is more disciplined than LKH) and b) isn't nearly as heavy on the romance as LKH. Mom keeps tittering over how "dirty" they are (Mom's a lightweight :D), but even from a light perusal I can see that they're nowhere near Harlequin level.

My point being that they're lumped in together with the darker, grittier stuff; although technically speaking they're shelved in the mystery section, they're often recommended for fans of LKH and the rest, when the two are actually quite dissimilar, and it all boils down to bad marketing. In fact, it's gotten to the point where the mystery, romance, and sci-fi/fantasy sections are all overlapping.* This new genre encompasses all three, with varying emphasis on each one, and it's grown so large I half-expect it to have its own section in bookstores in the future, because at this point it's just confusing for readers.



*LKH used to occasionally be classified as horror, too, but I think we all know those days have come and gone.

[summersdream.livejournal.com]

"Yes I meant for Stephanie to come off as dumb as a box of rocks
Is that what JE meant to do? Because it is what she's doing right now, at least when I read them.

From what I remember from the website and fan forums, JE isn't comfortable with upping the violence and all that or making Plum darker, but she totally did that, just that she writes around it constantly. Is this a problem of series writers? Do they inevitably end up taking a series some direction that they aren't comfortable with writing and forcing it all over the place to get around this? (*points at LKH and the fear of ghey/ the introduction of the Worst Plot Device Ever aka Ardeur*)

In short if the author didn't want to keep writing both those characters would be dead from stupidity.
Sad, but true.

[summersdream.livejournal.com]

... Actually, there are some good comparisons- Joe's scar switches sides of his face constantly, Stephanie's mother's name changed in between books at least once, Ranger grew like 6inches mid-series...

Granted, none of those are quite as severe as having your main love interest forget how old he is (JC) or someone's skin color changing from purple to brown, but JE does have some consistency problems just like LKH.

And those intense mysteries often get sacrificed for the humor just as much as LKH's mysteries get sacrificed for sex. It's really frustrating to read the Plum books and see Stephanie get into some dark, horrendous situation and be saved... by slapstick. And then the next book, after her umpteenth near-death-experience or kidnapping, she STILL won't learn how to use a gun or get serious defense training or remember her mace or... yeah. How many books in is it now?

It's a little like Anita constanly deciding she will learn to control the ardeur but never actually learning to control the ardeur.

All that aside, I do love the Plum books. They are fluff and fun and all that, but sometimes their lack of follow-through really does remind me an awful lot of LKH.

[frabjously.livejournal.com]

And those intense mysteries often get sacrificed for the humor just as much as LKH's mysteries get sacrificed for sex.

I read SP more for humour than the mystery (if I wanted hardcore mysteries I'd read Agatha Christie or something) so I don't see how that's a problem. Unlike LKH's sex, the comedy is actually done well (although LKH's sex is quite comedic). The book is marketed as a crime/comedy and I think it contains enough of both to merit the genre labels. LKH on the other hand...