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bloodyrosemccoyThe Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme by Elizabeth Haydon
I’ve never read anything else by Elizabeth Haydon, but I like these YA books. They’re well-written, fun, and imaginative, and they put enough twists on familiar character-types to make me actually like them, especially Ven. I also thought the narrative style was nicely integrated—it alternates between bits from Ven’s journals and standard third-person past tense. I’d expected it to be clumsy, but Haydon manages to use it to her advantage.
The only thing I could do without is the patronizing appendices full of discussion questions and “research activities.” Fuck you, this is a book, not a god damn homework assignment. Start asking me to list examples of how Saeli’s affinity for plants can help her or how they can make her vulnerable, or telling me to look up myths on the internet, and I feel like you’re just trying to trick me into a Valuable Reading Experience. This shit was condescending in third grade. Don’t expect me to appreciate it now.
I’ve never read anything else by Elizabeth Haydon, but I like these YA books. They’re well-written, fun, and imaginative, and they put enough twists on familiar character-types to make me actually like them, especially Ven. I also thought the narrative style was nicely integrated—it alternates between bits from Ven’s journals and standard third-person past tense. I’d expected it to be clumsy, but Haydon manages to use it to her advantage.
The only thing I could do without is the patronizing appendices full of discussion questions and “research activities.” Fuck you, this is a book, not a god damn homework assignment. Start asking me to list examples of how Saeli’s affinity for plants can help her or how they can make her vulnerable, or telling me to look up myths on the internet, and I feel like you’re just trying to trick me into a Valuable Reading Experience. This shit was condescending in third grade. Don’t expect me to appreciate it now.
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Date: 2011-02-26 08:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-27 06:06 am (UTC)I always hated questions like those, too--they seemed so leading, like you could never possibly make such connections on your own. I suppose kids have to learn how to think critically and my impatience, like a lot of my academic impatience, is unwarranted, but putting Discussion Questions right into the end of the novel makes it seem like the novel was written with this teaching in mind, and that makes you feel like you're not enjoying it, you're being taught.