[ SECRET POST #3073 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3073 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


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02.


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03.
[Master Chef]


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04.
[The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater]


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05.
[Harry Potter]


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06.


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07.
[Star Wars]


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08.
[Frank]


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09.
[Discworld]


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10.
[Baccano!]


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11.
[Cher Lloyd/Kingsman: The Secret Service]


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12.
[Eurovision]


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13.
[Hannah Rutherford (Yogscast)]










Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 032 secrets from Secret Submission Post #439.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I thought the tumblr fandom for this series was a decent size?

I dunno. I liked the premise at the start, but the more I read of Maggie Stiefvater, the more it seems like she recycles her character types over and over. Plucky Girl! Brooding Boy! Quirky friend! Parents who are conveniently absent until it's handy for them to be around!

[(Anonymous)]

I will say that I found the female protagonist of Scorpio Races to be very similar to the one in TRC, but the male one seemed different enough. It didn't bug me in the way that Sarah Dessen's books started to, although who knows if that would continue to be the case if I read more of Stiefvater's work.

[iceyred]

Her earlier stuff, maybe. The Wolves of Mercy Falls followed those tropes to a t. I thought her characters in the Scorpio Races and the Raven Cycle were pretty fleshed out though.

The fandom is there, but there's been drama and I think that drove people away.

[(Anonymous)]

Quick question, because you seem to know the author's books pretty well? I don't want to be a bother, but I'm wondering whether I should read the raven books, and if you've got the time I'd appreciate your opinion. I've read Scorpio Races but wasn't too wowed by it and I almost never read YA because the plots and characters don't tend to connect with me, but I'm interested in books playing with mythology and such.

This is what attracted me to Scorpio Races, but I simply couldn't get invested in the characters. I thought some of the secondary characters (like the quriky sisters) were a lot more alive than the broody mains. Is that a thing in the Raven books? I'm also not that much into romance, especially if I'm not invested in the characters. How much of the novels is taken up by romance vs. investigating the mythology/just plotty things in the Raven Cycle you'd say?

Apart from these issues I really enjoyed the prose in Scorpio Races which you descriped beautifully above, but I also thought it was a bit depressing, because this moody atmosphere, while beautifully captured by the prose never lit up? Like a bit like watching a movie with a gorgeous, melancholy score, but there's never any scenes in which the movie stops if that analogy makes sense to you. The tone fit the story, but after a couple hundred pages it became monotone.

It also didn't help that I thought the narrative voices of the POV characters felt too same-y. Like, I could possibly start reading a chapter think and think it's Puck narrating until I'd notice it was the wrong plotline and that it was actually the guy's POV. (But then I guess this ties into my finding the characters a bit monotone?)

[iceyred]

Based on what you've told me, don't read it. Don't get me wrong, I think they're good books (except the third. Fuck you for the third book, Steifvater), but some of the voices are very similar, and huuuuuuuuuge portions of the book are dedicated to character development and romance.

The prose is still gorgeous. I love her prose. Her prose makes me sob into my tea cup and scare my cat. And I happen to think TRC characters are some of her best, so there is that.

There are some moments where her take on the token poor kid, the non-existent minorities, the one mentally disabled person, the fetishization of Irish culture, and the part where rural Virginians are either sittin' on their porches lending each other shugah, or flying the Confederate flag, that just make me side-eye her.

[(Anonymous)]

Why do you hate the third book so much, if I may ask? Huge fan of the whole series over here, but I'm always interested to hear other takes and criticisms, and I don't think I've heard much negativity towards BLLB in particular.

[(Anonymous)]

Alright, thank you very much! :)