One imperfect letter, one missing page

141. Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce
Young Adult, Fantasy, 409 pages

142. *Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link
Adult, Fantasy, Short Stories, 389 pages

There is some wonderful imagery and ideas in these stories, but Link has a problem with endings. The stories either sort of fade away or just stop with no resolution. And the final story, the titular story, was a great idea with a twist that surprised me and I really wanted to liked, but it was ruined at the end by an annoying patronizing moralistic bit directed at the reader, who the author clearly thinks must be too stupid to realize the clever thing she just did there.

Overall, like I said before, I wanted to like these stories, but there were only one or two that I cared for and I don't plan to read any more of her work.

143. Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey (176)
144. Dragonsinger (240)
145. Dragondrums (193)
Young Adult, Fantasy

Remember what I said about being patronizing and thinking readers are stupid? I've always thought McCaffrey had that problem, too. This trilogy are the only Pern books that I like, and them just barely, since even they have the same issues. The same things are explained over and over again, or in ways that really seem to be talking down to the reader. I like the story and some of the characters, but I often consider ways that I would rewrite sentences or whole paragraphs to make them sound better.

I'd still like a fire lizard, though.

145 / 150 books. 97% done!

74 / 75 *new books. 99% done!

5 / 10 ^non-fiction. 50% done!

41655 / 45000 pages. 93% done!