Monday 6 February 2017

Musing Mondays - Scott Pilgrim & test driving genres


Musing Monday February 6, 2017

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme that asks you to choose one of the following prompts to answer:


  • I’m currently reading…
  • Up next I think I’ll read…
  • I bought the following book(s) in the past week…
  • I’m super excited to tell you about (book/author/bookish-news)…
  • I’m really upset by (book/author/bookish-news)…
  • I can’t wait to get a copy of…
  • I wish I could read ___, but…
  • I blogged about ____ this past week…

 I’m currently reading…

Scott Pilgrim by Brian Lee O'Malley - at the time of writing this vol. 2 specifically: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

I was up the the stacks at work on Thursday and found myself walking past the graphic novels. Sometimes I just can't stop myself from grabbing something on the way past that section. This time was no different, I saw the 6 Scott Pilgrim books sitting there and though, what the heck these are supposed to be good, so I picked them up. It was my intention/goal to just read all 6 of them this past weekend, but that didn't exactly happen. I didn't pick volume 1 up until like midnight on Sunday as I was going to bed Saturday night. I read the vast majority of volume 1 on Sunday evening after finishing The Hammer of Thor (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #2) (which FYI is awesome as I think all of Rick Riordan's books are :D). Honestly I said several times as I was reading volume 1, what the everloving F am I reading?! Things just happen, seemingly at random! And nothing is really explained? Or at least if it is I must be missing it. I am thinking that these books might be waaaaaay overhyped. But I have committed myself, I want to see out the whole 6 volumes. Therefore at the time of pre-writing this post on Sunday night I am currently about a third of the way into volume 2. I will probably be up to at least volume 3 by the time I make this post go live.

Hopefully I'll start to get what's going on in these books. One thing I don't expect will ever grow on me about these books though is the art style. It is not my style at all, I am just not digging the drawing. I suspect that that is colouring my opinion of the story at least somewhat. It is Canadian though, set in my home town in fact, and I have been saying I wanted to start reading more Canadian stuff, so it's got that going for it!

Does Scott and Ramona's burgeoning relationship have a future? Isn't Scott still supposedly dating Knives Chau? Who is Ramona's second evil ex-boyfriend, and why is he in Toronto? Who are The Clash At Demonhead, and what kind of bizarre art-punky music do they play? Who's their hot girl keyboardist, and what is Scott's relation to her? Why are they Knives Chau's new favourite band? Fights! Drama! Secrets revealed! The answers to all these questions and more! -- via Goodreads

I really hope that summary is accurate because I have so very many questions...

Monday update: Yup totally finished volume 2 before bed last night, onwards to volume 3!

        THIS WEEK’S RANDOM QUESTION: Do you try out genres you have not liked in the past once in a while just to see if your taste changed?


I read a fair number of genres now but I didn't always. I used to be pretty much all fantasy with a sprinkling of sci-fi and I was deadset against romance for years and years. Now though, and probably thanks in large part to both my English degree and my Library Technician diploma (hurrah for reader's advisory class!) I read pretty much every genre but Western. And I suspect that that is only because I have yet to find a Western author who I like. See for me, now anyway, it's not so much about the genre as it is about the writer. Like I was so deadset against romance, but then I tried a Diana Gabaldon book because it was assigned to me in an English class. I really liked it, but I still refused to read romance. Then in my Reader's Advisory class I had to pick from 2 genres I wasn't really a bigger reader of and pick a book from each of them to read, summarise and review. So I picked romance and thriller (because at the time I was also not reading a lot of thrillers) and it was that assignment that changed my perspective on romance and made me realise it's about the writer and the story not the genre as a whole. Although I just realised I still also don't like literary fiction - no matter how many times I try it. And I'm pretty sure that's not just because I haven't found an author I like yet. Every now and then I try the classics again, but I've yet to manage to stick with them so my tastes haven't changed there either.

4 comments:

  1. Oh yeah, western is another genre I don't read either. I don't think I've ever even tried to read a western novel.

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    1. I've tried a couple and the only one I ever liked wasn't even a true western because it was a western styled fantasy novel haha.

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  2. Yay for more comic books! I want to check these out, but judging from the cover, I'm not sure if I could get into the drawing style! Great post as always, Lauren :)

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    1. Yeah the drawing style irks me it just feels so unfinished. The story is just weird enough to keep me engaged, I'm about halfway through volume 3 because the novels I am reading have been more interesting haha.

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