Books I Loathed discussion

I hestitate to bring up The Scent of Shadows The First Sign of the Zodiac, but the second in the series ( The Taste of Night The Second Sign of the Zodiac) suggests there may be enough improvement coming to risk it.

I read an ARC of this and immediately sent all of my friends a warning email that I had taken the bullet and they should hide. It has a comic-book modern fantasy setting that would intrigue several of my friends into wasting their money.

I tried to post that review, but it's too long for Goodreads to accept.

It's in the "women protagonist modern fantasy series with a moderately dark world subgenre". Think Kim Harrison, Charlaine Harris, whassername with the vampire and fairy porn series, Rachen Caine, some Nora Roberts, etc.--think Jim Butcher focused on women heroes).

I love this subgenre, but this book has all the bad tropes badly done: she can only be a heroine because she was raped, she's devoted her life to revenge on the rapist, she gets involuntary all-body surgery to take the place of her dead Playboy Playmate sister, she has an enigmatic mentor with a dark past, she's attracted to the "bad boy" of her supernatural set, they start off fighting (literally) but come to respect each other (on the good side, their not-quite-on-again/off-again relationship is handled--if not written--well), etc. And my least-favorite trope: she's a spineless pushover at the start and does whatever the group of "heroes" tell her to do and shows zero initiative but whines about it all the time. These "heroes" behave reprehensibly to her--kidnapping, the aforementioned plastic surgery, unlawful restraint, lie to her about how her powers and her enemies work, and generally treat her like refuse--and she just takes it.

The second book shows some noticable improvement, though. She's still a doormat, but she's making some changes; her relationship with the bad boy gets some actual tension and character development (on both parts), much of the stupid-but-at-least-it's-cheesey "bits" are retconned away passably well, and the writing improved considerably. On the best side, she finally recognizes that the heroes are jerks who behave just like the villains but don't generally kill people.

I keep reminding myself: it took Pratchett at least 3 (and I'd say 5) books to write Discworld well. As he said, it took him at least 3 to learn that being funny wasn't enough, he also had to have a plot. Vicki Pettersson still has a book left to learn that throwing teenage fanboy elements into a blender doesn't excuse her from having characters we care about and some occasional character development.