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I finished “The Mists of Avalon” this morning and tbh I am surprised how much I liked it. Started out with big expectations, was a bit disappointed at the beginning but towards the middle the story really got hold of me.
What did I expect? Well, I hoped for a book which would re-kindle my love for fantasy and optional historical (medival-ish) storys. I hoped to find kind of an epos in this book, with a rich backstory shining through and complex social relationships and encounters.
:::Spoiler incomming:::
What disappointed me? The sheer number of romantic scenes, and “romantic” is already an euphemism here, baffled me. Sometimes I felt like reading a YA Novel. Romantic involvement is also really a key point in a lot of decisions characters make and generally a main topic. Also a big no no for me was the reveal at the end, that Gwenhwyfars infertility was always a plot of Morgause. It just came so sudden, almost if someone starts a sentence with :“By the way…”.
What kept me reading? Several things really made the book an overall nice experience for me. On the one hand, I really enjoyed the oftentimes mystical scenery and topic of the old, nature bound religion. On the other hand the readers point of view changes inbetween a few characters. This really paints the depicted world in a lot more colours for me. Also, what was lacking in backstory at the beginning, at least in my eyes, was basically written by the author herself and in the middle of the book I found myself knee deep in more complex entaglements, which I really enjoyed.
I recently finished Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, and while I can see why other people enjoyed it, it was not for me.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow spoilers
I’ve heard that the people who love this book tend to not play many video games, and those who dislike it do, and that holds true for me. While the characters are interesting at times and their development was done pretty well, I just could not get over how the video game design itself was described. Like, take Ichigo for example. It was the first game they developed together and described in the most detail. They talk about the art design, and the story, and the gender of the protagonist, but never once do they say what genre it is. Is it a platformer? Action? RPG? The genre of a game is the most important aspect of it, because all gameplay and mechanics play off of it in order to tell the story.
Not to mention the fact that some of the games did things that are really just not possible in gaming storylines, like that Pioneers chapter towards the end of the book. You can do that sort of thing in a text-based roleplay forum, but not in an MMORPG as described in the book.
Also, while I was very young when some of these games were developed and wasn’t in tune with technology then, some of the descriptions of it struck me as odd. Several times there were references to “burning out” several graphics cards and processors in a short amount of time trying to create certain visual effects in a game engine, for an indie PC game designed in 1997. Maybe computer components were just more delicate back then but… that just feels weird.
Finally, Sadie’s vendetta against Sam really bothered me. Not that she found some things that Sam did a betrayal or wrong - I might as well if it were me! What bugged me the most was that she forgave Dov, her abusive ex, much more readily than Sam, her well-intentioned (if misguided at times) friend. And what she was initially upset about was Sam wanting her to speak to Dov! I just don’t understand that, and it wasn’t well justified to me at all.
Also, the shooting was unnecessary and only served as “haha gamers are violent” to me.
Your comment about who typically likes and doesn’t like this book is really interesting because I loved the book AND love playing games. I hadn’t heard this criticism of the book before.
I think reading your comment in hindsight, yes that DOES strike me as off looking back on it now but I don’t think it stuck out while reading to me outside of one Metal Gear Solid reference that made me quirk an eyebrow and knew it wasn’t right.
Yeah of course the comment on who likes/dislikes it isn’t universal, it’s just something I heard mentioned at some point.
I’m someone who can struggle with minutae like what I mentioned in the spoiler section, so that’s probably a big part of why I disliked it. Like I said, I do understand why so many people like it - Gabrielle Zevin has great prose and the overall character development is interesting and compelling. I just struggled with some parts.
I’m glad you liked it!
I really enjoyed the first third of that book. the last third was OK. the middle third was so dreadful that I almost stopped reading. it just abruptly shifted to sitcom style/ depth plot and character development, it was bizarre.
