Comments on: Review: The Crane Wife, Patrick Ness

By: zibilee

zibilee — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:41:08 +0000

I also don’t get the nice guys finish last thing. I like nice guys, and am happily married to one as well. And from what you’ve said, he wasn’t that nice of a guy anyway, so it was all false advertising! I don’t think that I would like this one, but that little sample did make me take notice of the elegant prose. Very forthright and honest review today. I really appreciated it.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:34:50 +0000

Interesting to have your thoughts and Ana’s here, knowing you both like his work. I was thinking similarly to what Ana said, though I’ve not read the book the nice guy aspect does seem like it might be the point, but it would have to be obvious.

By: bermudaonion (Kathy)

bermudaonion (Kathy) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:12:58 +0000

Hm, I would have had high expectations for this one too. I don’t think I’ll seek it out now.

By: Ana

Ana — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:02:23 +0000

Oh thank you, I felt basically the same too. What bugged me the most was the lack of subtlety. It made me think about an article from Diana Wynne Jones about how (contrary to common belief)when writing for adults she had to spell things out as opposed to when writing for kids where she could be subtle. I thought about that a lot when reading The Crane Wife

By: Beth F

Beth F — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 10:23:10 +0000

Aww too bad. I might avoid this one.

By: Ana @ things mean a lot

Ana @ things mean a lot — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 08:07:44 +0000

“I also felt that, as the book went on, he actually proved more or less that he wasn’t really that nice a guy.”

I agree, but just the other day I was telling Ana that the one reason why the “Nice Guy” thing didn’t bother me is that I felt this was sort of the point. But as I said the other day, overall I couldn’t connect with the book either. I think the main problem might have been that I didn’t feel that the story and the prose could carry the weight of emotional impact they were supposed to have. So like you said, there was this huge disconnect between how it was supposed to be affecting me and what I actually felt (which unfortunately was nothing much).