Sunday, September 26, 2010

Funny Saves the Day

Continuing with authors you will find familiar (yes, I'm assuming an intimate acquaintance with posts on this blog :)), next on the list of yom tov reading was Gail Carriger's Changeless, sequel to Soulless (see here).  If you recall (and I know you do :)), I read Soulless mainly (solely) for the romance.  So that romance was satisfactory enough, but since the book ended in marriage, I wasn't actually expecting much of a romance for the sequel.  So why would I bother reading it? Well the simplest answer is that when I like a book, I don't want to leave the characters.  If more's going to happen, why wouldn't I want to know it? And even though the vampire/werewolf menage holds little interest to me, I'm a sucker for Victorian England and the nobility thereof :)  The last book was light and funny, I enjoyed it despite all the supernatural stuff, so I expected to get through this one easily as well.

And I'd say my expectations were more than met.  As expected, very little romance, though it was fun enough to see the happy couple alternately sparring and swooning (not really swooning :)) But the main attraction of the book proved to be humor.  The book was written in the same facetious way the first one was, but I think she kind of hit her stride with this one.  Either that or I am starting to understand the writing better.  In any case, I was able to appreciate the complete zaniness of most of the characters in the book and sympathize with Alexia's rather unorthodox approach to society.  And Alexia has really come in to her own as a force to be reckoned with, I think.  I never felt like she was unduly threatened, she basically stayed in command of every situation.  That's not to say she was like Scarlet Pimpernel cool or anything.  It was more like the tension/danger was kept light in keeping with the humorous tone.  So we never feel too nervous that something cataclysmic is going to happen.  She's in control, we're in control, so why not enjoy it? Rather a quick and bouncy ride, if you know what I'm saying.

So I'd say I enjoyed it even more than I expected.  But that was because I wasn't expecting any romance in the first place.  And in the end, (not going to spoil here :)) there's a new development that brings up the possibility of some nice angst in Book III.  But don't get too excited... Book 3 (Blameless) has actually already come out and according to the review I read on Amazon... we may have wait till 4 before the series gets back in form.  Oh well, one good 'un will have to be enough to tide me over for now :)

Verdict: 3.5/5
Food: Unexpectedly delightful in a bit of different way... fresh teriyaki salmon - you never till you taste, but sometimes it's just really good... of course, it's still fish, not ice cream :)

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