Brian Jacques and (Waits for the attack) J. K. Rowling. I just found the first boring and it really really bugged me that there were rats driving in a wagon pulled by
horses because the scale thing was all off. Someone pointed out that they were rat sized rats in a wagon sized wagon and they had stolen it from someone but then, are there humans around? And if so don't they notice these highly advanced rodents scurrying about wearing clothes, building castles, and sailing
ships? Plus I just couldn't get into the description of how
the beautiful female mouse was so beautiful and all that. . .
I mean, I don't mind talking
animals if they behave as animals somewhat. I read Watership Down and Narnia, but I just didn't like Redwall.
Anyway, J. K. Rowling I resisted for a long time because the plot just sounded so typical. I started reading, and yeah, the plot was typical but I could see the draw to twelve-year-olds. The humor was fun and the action was fast . . .but the writing wasn't really that good and I didn't like a single character. I'm very character driven in my reading, and I can look past a lot of plot gaps and slow spots if I love the character . .. probably why my second favorite author is Dosteovsky and my sixth is Alexander McCall Smith. There is a lot of talking in Dosteovsky's works that can get a bit long, but I adore his characters. Not a ton happens in Smith's works and for mysteries they are very low suspense, but I love his characters (and sense of humor . . .).
This doesn't really count as a recommendation, but I think it illustrates why some people will really love and some will really hate the same
books.
I maintain a large sprawling Amazon.com wishlist which I used to aid my family (because I'm living out of state now) and my husband (because he is often gift buying challenged) with birthdays and such. Anyway, for my birthday, Matt and my grandparents picked out the Bartimaus (probably misspellling that) trillogy by Jonathan Stroud. Matt got me one and two (plus Gail Carson Levine's "Fairest" . . . oh, I adored that book.) and my grandparents got me three plus a few other things. I had put them on there because the story and plot looked interesting and I wanted to try them out. I had no idea how I would like them.
Because I started "Fairest" first, Matt took the opportunity to pick up book one and it drove me crazy because every five minutes he would burst out laughing . .. and Matt is not usually a laugh out loud kind of guy. Very low key in his expressions. I would say, "What?" and he would say, "You will have to read it. I won't make sense."
Anyway, he had that book done by one am that morning when I tapped him on the shoulder to tell him I was going to bed and he said, 'Just one more chapter . . ." even though he had to get up at six am. So I wasn't surprised when the next day I came home from work to find him half way through the second which he also finished that night and then last night he rounded off the third, still laughing at intervals. So I thought, "Ah, these books must be hilarious. . ."
Not terribly.
I just started the second last night. They are a bit dark for me and (again) I don't really like any of the characters, so it is slower going for me than it was (obviously) for Matt. He asked me how I liked them when I finished the first and I said they were good but I didn't think they were that funny for all the guffawing he had been doing. He said, "But they are so sarcastic . . ."
Ah . . .
My sort of funny is also hard for him to comprehend. I read "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" the other day and started cracking up over the 'accident with the time machine and the contraceptive' joke and the marine biologist and pyshcologist who had to be summoned to convince the rock star that he wasn't a fish . . . I read both these sections to Matt and got a polite, 'Huh-ha."
People are very different
creatures.
