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Sarah Mac's Reviews > Shanna
Shanna
by
by
Sarah Mac's review
bookshelves: zz-publisher-avon, zzz-2014, read-regifted, grammatical-yodeling, mary-sue-puke-bucket, sheep-tsunami, drank-the-haterade, dnf-abandoned-goodbye, reviewed, tedious-lint-picking, comatose-plotline, zzz-departed-vintage, cover-me-red, ambien-on-paper
Jun 20, 2012
bookshelves: zz-publisher-avon, zzz-2014, read-regifted, grammatical-yodeling, mary-sue-puke-bucket, sheep-tsunami, drank-the-haterade, dnf-abandoned-goodbye, reviewed, tedious-lint-picking, comatose-plotline, zzz-departed-vintage, cover-me-red, ambien-on-paper
DNF. While the idea behind Shanna & Ruark's saga is a good one, I can't drum up enough interest to make it through the next 400 pages. It's just plain slow. Really, really slow. Also really, really wordy. The plot was puttering along in the background -- and it should've been a plot I cared about, because the proper ingredients were there -- but my interest was obscured by the tedium of endless minutia. I don't need to hear how people step down from a carriage. Stare at each other. Walk to the inn. Open the door. Stare at each other. Close the door. Stare at each other. Meanwhile, the plot slowed to a crawl as block paragraphs were devoted to descriptions of gestures, expressions, fabrics, clothing, furniture, temperature, weather conditions...
Yup. Pretty much.
I thought I'd prepared myself for a sluggish read, but this went above & beyond expectations. Setting the stage & creating a vivid backdrop is great -- but too much detail drowns the story beneath an onslaught of typeface. It's called overwriting, & KEW's prose was a epic success in terms of padding a 350-400 page story into 650+ pages of Grand Dame romantic legend.
From pg 171:
His eyes aflame and lusting, Ruark lowered his weight upon her, parting her thighs, and pressed deep with[in] her. Shanna moved to welcome the hard thrust, her woman's body reacting instinctively to this new, indescribable, budding, splintering feeling that built with pulsing leaps and bounds deep within her. The pleasure mounted so intensely she wondered wildly if she could bear it.
It was magic, a stunning, beautiful, expanding bloom of ravaging rapture that made her arch against him with a fierce ardor matching his. The wild, soaring ecstasy burst upon them, fusing them together in the all-consuming caldron of pleasure.
I understand that romance needs to include feels, but c'mon. That blurb is out of control. There's a fine line between enjoyable purple prose & an orgy of extraneous modifiers. Why use 10 words when 80 will do?
Preach it, Shat.
Yup. Pretty much.
I thought I'd prepared myself for a sluggish read, but this went above & beyond expectations. Setting the stage & creating a vivid backdrop is great -- but too much detail drowns the story beneath an onslaught of typeface. It's called overwriting, & KEW's prose was a epic success in terms of padding a 350-400 page story into 650+ pages of Grand Dame romantic legend.
From pg 171:
His eyes aflame and lusting, Ruark lowered his weight upon her, parting her thighs, and pressed deep with[in] her. Shanna moved to welcome the hard thrust, her woman's body reacting instinctively to this new, indescribable, budding, splintering feeling that built with pulsing leaps and bounds deep within her. The pleasure mounted so intensely she wondered wildly if she could bear it.
It was magic, a stunning, beautiful, expanding bloom of ravaging rapture that made her arch against him with a fierce ardor matching his. The wild, soaring ecstasy burst upon them, fusing them together in the all-consuming caldron of pleasure.
I understand that romance needs to include feels, but c'mon. That blurb is out of control. There's a fine line between enjoyable purple prose & an orgy of extraneous modifiers. Why use 10 words when 80 will do?
Preach it, Shat.
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Reading Progress
June 20, 2012
– Shelved
January 17, 2014
– Shelved as:
unread
January 17, 2014
– Shelved as:
zz-publisher-avon
October 13, 2014
–
Started Reading
October 13, 2014
– Shelved as:
zzz-2014
October 13, 2014
–
0.15%
"Technically, I'm not starting this until the Angela Gray book is finished. Just getting my shelf in order. ;)"
page
1
October 15, 2014
–
1.05%
"I read exactly 7 pages before going to bed. But honestly, it wasn't the book's fault. I just didn't have enough caffeine last night. :P"
page
7
October 16, 2014
–
8.86%
"You know what would be great? If this book didn't describe unto minutia every single expression, gesture, & movement of the characters. EVERY SINGLE ONE. For god's sake, the plot is plotting & stuff is going on...but it's obscured beneath the glacial drudgery of slogging through this prose. Why use ten words when eighty will do? <--KEW's motto"
page
59
October 17, 2014
–
11.56%
"I have a feeling that the angst of these lovebirds is hinging on Shanna's impossible 'arms akimbo' feminista standards & Ruark's petulant 'i was cheated of sex' rage boner. Such a charming couple. >___<"
page
77
October 17, 2014
–
28.53%
"'Fayme tossed her head back with careless grace. "Ah, Shanna, we will talk of ze less fortunate. Ho-ho, but you are not one of zem. But seriousment, I was so sorry to hear of your misfortune." She sighed heavily. "Ah, so soon a widow! But come, let me present you to zese men. Zey do very eager to catch your eye."' ....Fayme is French. Ho-ho! But seriousment, I bet you could not know. Zat accent, so subtle, no?"
page
190
October 17, 2014
– Shelved as:
read-swap-box
October 17, 2014
– Shelved as:
grammatical-yodeling
October 17, 2014
– Shelved as:
mary-sue-puke-bucket
October 17, 2014
– Shelved as:
sheep-tsunami
October 17, 2014
–
Finished Reading
October 18, 2014
– Shelved as:
dnf-abandoned-goodbye
October 18, 2014
– Shelved as:
drank-the-haterade
October 18, 2014
– Shelved as:
reviewed
February 10, 2015
– Shelved as:
read-regifted-swapped-borrowed
February 11, 2015
– Shelved as:
read-regifted-or-borrowed
April 30, 2015
– Shelved as:
read-regifted
January 10, 2017
– Shelved as:
tedious-lint-picking
January 14, 2017
– Shelved as:
comatose-plotline
March 1, 2019
– Shelved as:
zzz-departed-vintage
March 4, 2019
– Shelved as:
cover-me-red
April 19, 2022
– Shelved as:
ambien-on-paper
Comments Showing 1-25 of 25 (25 new)
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message 1:
by
Tammy
(new)
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rated it 5 stars
Jun 20, 2012 08:47PM
Oh, you have such excellent taste. :D
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I've already got one other KEW, but I want to give her books a try...so it's legit to give myself a choice, right? :D
Of course! Which other one do you have?
Rose In Winter. I love that cover. :) Apparently it's got a Beauty & the Beast theme going, yes?
Yes, yes, yes. I have a big honking trade paperback
If you prefer Beauty and the Beast to spoiled rich b*tch I'd read ARiW first, lol.
I have that great honking trade pb too. :) I ordered it from PBS & thought I was getting the massmarket version. Imagine my surprise when the envelope arrived, heh.It will depend entirely on my mood at the moment. Sometimes I want fairy tale, sometimes I don't mind spoiled biatches. :P
She's an excellent spoiled biatch, as far as those go. Hope you like them - my KEW corner is pretty lonely (just ask Karla).
Yeah, I see that KEW & Karla don't get along well. Heh. Hopefully I'll have better luck, yes? Karla & Charlotte Bronte don't get along either, but I'm a CB fangirl regardless. So there's hope! :DI'll pick up Shanna from PBS tonite, then choose from those two when she arrives. *nod* I'm trying to avoid piling up an untested author without reading any beforehand; that's burned me too often, esp in the PNR shelves. Blech.
p.s. You haven't friended me back on Twitter! Tsk, tsk. ;)
Hey, I haven't taken my remaining unread KEW books and tossed them in a bonfire! I'm willing to go the old girl another try. :P It's just going to have to be a while.
I'm with you on that, Karla. It will be a while before I pick up another KEW They're so big and so dang slow. I will have to be in the right mood.
You haven't friended me back on Twitter! Tsk, tsk. ;But I'm such a newbie I didn't recognize you! Follow request now pending. :)
Tammy wrote: "But I'm such a newbie I didn't recognize you! Follow request now pending. :)"Hee! I figured that's what happened. ;) My userpics used to match, but then I got bored & changed Twitter. Woot.
That excerpt made my brain flatline. It's an auto-KEW response in my neurons. >___>
I think I just turned purple from reading that excerpt. D:
What movie is that Rifftrax gif from, btw?? :D
Shanna moved to welcome the hard thrust, her woman's body reacting instinctively...I'll never understand why authors have to inform readers that the heroine has a woman's body. That's kind of implied, no? I rank that up there with the phrase "his male nipples." Because if they didn't clarify that the nipples were masculine, I'd be imagining a dude with lactating eraser nips.
LMAO! OMG, I think that's the funniest gif I've seen for a long time.
Whoa. That cover takes me back. I don't remember anything else about the book, which could either mean it was dull as tap water or that I was reading it under the influence of the 1980s. Your review is fun, though.
Rachel (BAVR) wrote: "I think I just turned purple from reading that excerpt. D:"Honestly? What little interest I still had evaporated when that ultraviolet sex scene marched onto the page. Yeeeesh. >___<
Karla (Mossy Love Grotto) wrote: "What movie is that Rifftrax gif from, btw?? :D"Birdemic. :D
(Yeah, it was pretty much as you'd predicted. I've only got one other KEW lurking on my shelf. How glad do I feel?)
Susan wrote: "I don't remember anything else about the book, which could either mean it was dull as tap water or that I was reading it under the influence of the 1980s."Either way, approximate brain damage is pretty even. :D
Kerrie wrote: "the ones who enjoy KEW are speed-readers and they just fly through those dense blocks of prose. I like to read every word"Yeah, same here. If I start to skim, that's the end of that book's chances to get more than 2.5 stars.
Wendy, Lady Evelyn Quince wrote: "I'll never understand why authors have to inform readers that the heroine has a woman's body. That's kind of implied, no? I rank that up there with the phrase "his male nipples." Because if they didn't clarify that the nipples were masculine, I'd be imagining a dude with lactating eraser nips. "LOL. Brilliant. That image has given me a case of the giggles on this otherwise boring Monday afternoon.
But yeah. Agreed. Especially after the heroine is repeatedly described as so beautiful & utterly feminine in every single scene. (Okay, fair enough...there might have been one where her beautiful femininity was taken on faith, but I seem to have missed it. :P)
Just once, an editor who doesn't need the job because she's a trust fund baby should replace all mentions of "male nipples " with "perky breasts."
