Dancing

[lliira]

It's worse than we predicted. I did a really loose sporking of it here while reading it, as that was the only way I could get through it. It is deadly dull.

There are many pages of suburban children learning ballet steps. There is no crimesolving, no action, and no sex, though there are many pages about Nathaniel being a stripper and some Unfortunate Implications regarding the kid Matthew. All the characters but Anita, Micah, and Nathaniel are human, and they could be replaced with full humans with no effect on the plot, such as it isn't. I do not know who LKH wrote this book for. Perhaps she is trying to alienate the last of her fans.

(I hope it's okay to post this here.)

Comments

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

The genre's probably big enough by now that we, as a community, could literally make a list of (nasty) urban fantasy tropes at this point. You know, to mock and avoid.

OMG CAN WE DO THAT PLEASE? Of course, it'll probably cause a lot of disagreement about what does and doesn't belong on there, but I kind of want to see that too since one of the most helpful things for me in that regard is watching people debate about the series in question (like when the folks at a-sporking-rat discussed The Dresden Files and Mercy Thompson series and the virtues/flaws thereof) Helpful both as in "do I want to read this" and for my own writing references

[ravens-shadow.livejournal.com]

I would love a chart/checklist that breaks down the different UF flaws found in ABVH, and a list of the most popular or as many other series as we can think of and mark which flaws they also contain. (The obsessive analytical side of me would also like in-text examples, at least one, so people can't say something was checked off on a whim.)

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I could contribute, but I definitely vote for DOING one. Can we include the following?

* Alphas whose sole qualification is "because Alpha, SHUT UP"
** Claiming that therian group structure stems entirely from 100% kosher True Animal Behavior
* Soulmates
** Soulmates with handwaved noncon "because soulmates, SHUT UP"
*All therian women/submissives/etc. suck EXCEPT for the protagonist "because protagonist, SHUT UP"
* Worldbuilding invented just so the protagonist can stomp all over it later.
* Our protagonist's "flaws" consist of all these ~charming~ prejudices... that the author very obviously shares.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

Agreed on all these!