This past week I have been trying to do some more reading for my dissertation. I've read two fiction books, both (supposedly) within the same genre as Hide and See. The first book I quite liked; the second was approaching good in the middle but tailed off to such a disappointing end that the first words out of my mouth on finishing it were 'ugh, lame book'. Not exactly positive criticism.
When I say that they are 'in the same genre', I have basically been searching for any primary world fantasy novels. The only problem is that a lot of these seem to be just romance novels with fantasy elements chucked in. Quite often I think that if the fantasy bits were taken out and a few scenes were jigged around, the novel could still exist and sit within the 'romance' genre.
Hide and See, from my point of view anyway, isn't about romance. There will probably be some towards the end of the book but the primary driving force of it is the supernatural abilities of the characters and the world surrounding them. (My markers for my second chapter would probably disagree with this though - first time I've ever written something which was compared to Bridget Jones. Oh dear, shoot me now.)
I therefore went to the local car boot sale today on the search for more books (poor little unemployed students can't afford to buy new). I found a couple and will hopefully read at least one this week. I'm trying to keep the effort going on the dissertation if only by doing reading. All motivation for actually writing anything went swiftly out the metaphorical window after above-mentioned chapter two comments. I'm planning to head into uni to use the library this week for some critical reading - got that dreaded 3k essay after all. Another thing to make a pig's ear of.
But it's less than a week until I go on holiday - and I'm going to be a complete rebel and take a secondary world fantasy fiction to read. Just for fun. I know, I live dangerously.
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