AAR

[Yulie]

[Tee]

[maggie b.]

[xina]

[xina]

."[/quote]

Add me to the list of Ivory detractors. I was deeply disturbed by the books of hers I've tried. The treatment of the mistress from "Black Silk" still has me reeling.

And there was an underlying creepiness in regards to the initial relationship of the heroine and her husband. I felt like the "love story" was one of the least healthy I had ever read.

maggie b.[/quote]





While I enjoy Ivory much more than Kinsale, I agree with about Black Silk. In my mind I put that book into the same category as Fast Women by Jennifer Cruise.....not romance but women's fiction or just general fiction. In themselves, pretty good books, but as a romance novel they don't work. I read them both (after reading countless reviews) with that in mind.

[dick]

to Schola: I guess I should have put "narrative" in front of the word "style" in the comment about Kinsale's. It's not the words, nor even the syntax that I object to. It's the denseness of the narrative parts of the story. She leaves nothing out; neither the smallest of actions nor the minutiae of emotions, things a half-way intelligent reader doesn't need to be told. I don't need to know that a character swallowed after sipping at his tea, for example--unless the swallowing tells me something I need to know. If, he perhaps were to spit the sip out or spit it at someone, I might be interested.

It always seems to me that Kinsale has her eye on everything and records it regardless. That's what I mean by disliking her style.

That being said, I nonetheless read Flowers from the Storm with enjoyment for its unusual story.

With Ivory's style, I was speaking of her words and syntax. Tee said it beautifully. It's overblown, fussy. I want to take a red pencil to it.

[Kass]

[xina]

Actually, I did enjoy For My Lady's Heart. I liked the Middle English language very much and thought Ruck (?) was a very good hero. So, there are 2 I have liked by Kinsale. I attempted Shadowheart, but it just didn't grab me.

[Allyson]

Meh, I don't think saying Kinsale and Ivory suck is controversial at all. I've seen them both raked over the coals here many times with a lot less backlash than other author-insulting will get. Calling them pretentious and so on is pretty par for the course.

I see that sort of thing all over the internet, though. Once something becomes popular, people pop up to talk about how they don't like it, and it's usually prefaced with *ducks thrown objects* or *smallvoice* or generally other statements making it seem like they think other readers are going to flame them out. Even when it's long past the point where saying such a thing is really new and controversial.

(Personally, I like some Ivory and some Kinsale, not a fan of all their stuff though.)

[xina]

[quote="Allyson"]Meh, I don't think saying Kinsale and Ivory suck is controversial at all. I've seen them both raked over the coals here many times with a lot less backlash than other author-insulting will get. Calling them pretentious and so on is pretty par for the course.

quote]


I wouldn't call Kinsale's writing pretentious...not at all. To be called pretentious is something else entirely. Pretentious, to me, is Dunnett's first book in the Lymond series...Game Of Kings, but not Kinsale's books. (ducking and running a 2nd time for the Dunnett remark) xina

[Yulie]

[xina]

[
No need to duck and run from me - I couldn't follow that book at all. And I'd like to think I'm a fairly intelligent person .[/quote]




Whew! So, I"m not the only one Yulie? I always thought if I could wend my way through Atlas Shrugged (and enjoy it), I could take on just about anything! Really, I thought Queen's Play (#2 in the Lymond Chronicles) was very enjoyable and almost like another author wrote it. I have great respect for Dunnett's work, just not that first book.

[Gail K.]

Re: ATLAS SHRUGGED. I enjoyed the story of this too, much to my own surprise, xina, when I read it one summer during high school when bored and deciding to tackle a 1000-page book

[Linda in sw va]

[Yulie]