![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Jun. 21st, 2012 10:08 amI have made a resolution to myself to talk more about the books I read. Becaure I read a lot of books and a lot of them are really good. Plus, some of them are by independent authors who deserve a little positive word of mouth.
This past week I read Charitable Getting by Sam Starbuck [print][e-book]. And by past week I mean Tuesday. I opened the Lulu package after work and I couldn't put it down until I'd finished it. A fun, entertaining read that kept me going until the very last page.
I appreciated the novel's dialogue about old media vs. new. It's the real conflict of the story and I appreciate that the author allows the discussino to be nuanced. Starbuck is clearly a fan of new media and a blogger and clearly (in the novel) has a bias toward the new but he also points out the strengths and power of traditional journalism. We're all biased in our own unique ways.
There characters were, as a whole, a lot of fun and the novel really shone when they were all interacting with each other. There was a great sense of family, which is something you know I love. I am, however, still ambivalent about the reporter character, Tonya Montmaray. Her function in the story makes her a difficult character to render and I can tell that Starbuck took a lot of care to try to make her sympathetic, to show her various facets, but she still suffered being cast in the old media role. After the events of the story her ending feels unfinished, a little too pat.
Charitable Getting wasn't as personally enthralling a read as Starbuck's first novel, Nameless, was, but I very much enjoyed it. If you want a fun, easy read with some bonus thinkiness than you should definitely pick it up.
Next on the list: Heroine Addiction by Jennifer Matarese.
This past week I read Charitable Getting by Sam Starbuck [print][e-book]. And by past week I mean Tuesday. I opened the Lulu package after work and I couldn't put it down until I'd finished it. A fun, entertaining read that kept me going until the very last page.
I appreciated the novel's dialogue about old media vs. new. It's the real conflict of the story and I appreciate that the author allows the discussino to be nuanced. Starbuck is clearly a fan of new media and a blogger and clearly (in the novel) has a bias toward the new but he also points out the strengths and power of traditional journalism. We're all biased in our own unique ways.
There characters were, as a whole, a lot of fun and the novel really shone when they were all interacting with each other. There was a great sense of family, which is something you know I love. I am, however, still ambivalent about the reporter character, Tonya Montmaray. Her function in the story makes her a difficult character to render and I can tell that Starbuck took a lot of care to try to make her sympathetic, to show her various facets, but she still suffered being cast in the old media role. After the events of the story her ending feels unfinished, a little too pat.
Charitable Getting wasn't as personally enthralling a read as Starbuck's first novel, Nameless, was, but I very much enjoyed it. If you want a fun, easy read with some bonus thinkiness than you should definitely pick it up.
Next on the list: Heroine Addiction by Jennifer Matarese.