This summer, when I read The Lunar Chronicles, I eventually fell head over heals with the complicated and fun sci fi fairytale world that Marissa Meyer created. (Also, when I learned she got her start with Sailor Moon fan fiction, a lot of her decisions suddenly made a lot more sense to me.) And, I give an immense amount of credit to both The Lunar Chronicles and The Dark Tower and their games of genre mashup, which helped give me the confidence to finally dive in and work past my fear of making The Marina Chronicle what I wanted it to be and to share it with people. (HEY! READ THE MARINA CHRONICLE! Also check out my facebook, where there is now an album of likenesses I created of many of the characters!) (The genres I’m mashing up are old school WB style teen dramas and epic fantasy.) (It’s easier than you’d think.) (If you live in my head.)
But, when I finished Cinder I thought, “I liked this, and I think the world is cool, but it took a while for me to get into it.”
And here’s the thing, the exact same thing happened while I was reading Renegades: Book 1, the first book in Meyer’s new series about super heroes and villains.
I love the conceit. A world where people with powers come to prominence, live for years in a world of villain sponsored chaos and then a group of super heroes defeat the villains and establish something akin to an autocratic rule. In the middle you’ve got a generation of teens who remember the terror of their childhood, but aren’t sure about the new system either.
At it’s center is Nova, a girl raised by supervillains, who infiltrates The Renegades, and find her loyalties torn when she falls in love with the son of two of the most influential Renegades.
This book has everything I love. Seriously, super heroes, girl lead, teens with powers, star crossed romance, murky motivation, philosophical discussions about the nature of human beings and societal constructs.
But it took me forever to get into it. Like, I would read a chapter, think, “huh,” put it down and then not pick it back up again for a week.
Finally, because I’m starting a new reading project for 2018 in January, I decided I was going to finish it last night.
And once I got to about the halfway point, I was hooked. I was invested in Nova and Adrian’s love story. I was invested in the murky decisions the Renegades were making. I was invested in the Anarchists (the villain gang that raised Nova) and their goals. I was invested in Nova and her torn loyalties.
But, here’s the thing, this story that has all these elements that I love should not take nearly one hundred pages to hook me, and as it’s now the second time this has happened with me and Meyer, I think it must be some disconnect between me and her way of kicking off stories.
But I like her stories, so I guess I’m going to keep reading. And in the end Renegades was very worth it.
Anyway, about that 2018 reading project? Like The Vonnegut project, (cut off early, and unfinished, because my depression was sort of kicking my ass, and I needed to lighten up my media intake for a bit) (this is also why I haven’t watched The Punisher yet and I’ve been rewatching Psych!) (Psych is awesome!) (And really good for depression watching.) (It’s so perky and life affirming!) it’s about making sure that I stretch my brain a little bit. I’m going to read an epic novel every months of 2018. I’m starting in January with War And Peace. (What, Natasha, Pierre And The Great Comet of 1812 has nothing to do with the decision…what a ridiculous thought.) I’ll also be tackling Dune, Middlemarch, David Copperfield, Infinite Jest & probably Ulysses.
That’ll push me up to June, and I’m sure others will come to me in that time, but I’m SUPER open to suggestions. I’m trying not to reread any epics I’ve already read. Though I’m overdue to try Les Mis again, and I’m curious what my new slightly woker self would think of Gone With The Wind and no visit to Middle Earth is wasted, it’s time to expand my view a little bit. ESPECIALLY looking for epic novels not written by white dudes. Or white people in general, as my those first six are REALLY white. (I’ve also already read The Color Purple.)
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