Into the Forest discussion

A place to discuss the book with spoilers.

I'm unimpressed to say the least. It seems like the story was just barely getting started by the time the book was over. I know that this is just the first in a trilogy, but there's almost no plot at all. And the one answer to the one real mystery -- Gwyneth's parentage -- is given away on the second page.

Nothing really fresh or original in the whole book -- just a hodgepodge of overused and clichéd elements.

Makes me wonder if this one isn't popular mostly because the fancy clothes and the cute boy.

P.S. Still not seeing any fairy tale connection -- not even in motifs. If you see the connection, please explain!

I liked it but not so much that I feel like rushing out and reading the next 2 books, Sapphire Blue and Emerald Green afterwards. I agree absolutely no fairy tale motifs or mythology, but it was fun.
If any of you are familiar the Children's series The Magic Treehouse, it is like the author is targeting teens who used to like that series when they were younger!

I wasn't impressed either. Personally, I felt Gwyneth was a bit naive even though she is "sixteen and a half" as she kept pointing out. I'm definitely not in a hurry to read the second book. Gideon seemed to be an ass as well. Also, I have to agree that the story was pretty much over before it began. How disappointing it was that there was really no plot and Gwyneth's parentage was pretty much given away right at the beginning. Ugh!

Welp I guess I'm in the minority on this one :) because I wasn't disappointed, other than it not being fairy tale related. I posted my thoughts here.

I'll be checking out Sapphire Blue because I wanna know more about the following:

1) Why does Gwyneth see ghosts? Is that the "magic of the raven"?

2) Upon exiting her first elapse at the Temple, was that key Gwyneth grabbed of any significance?

3) What's the secret? Is it something to do with the Count making a philosopher's stone aka immortality?

4) What happens to the 12 travelers if the Circle is closed? Will the Count (or whoever holds the chronograph when the Circle closes) be left as the only one capable of traveling through time, possibly as an immortal?

5) Why did Lucy and Paul leave Gwyneth with Grace? Does the Count really want to kill the Ruby, not just prick her finger for the chronograph?

6) What's the story between Grace and Falk?

7) What's Rakoczy's story?

8) Is Gideon really that big of an ass? Or is he just brainwashed?

9) Why did Gwyneth see herself with Gideon in the past during her second trip of uncontrolled time travel?

10) Why no women in the Lodge? Does it have to do with the Ruby being dangerous to the Count?

So yeah, obviously my curiosity was piqued. :D

Leah I agree that Ruby Red left a lot of questions unanswered that will most likely come to light in the next two books. When I looked up the author on GR it appears Sapphire Blue has not been translated into English yet. I mut admit I am curious too!

I forgot to mention that I do think the Count is up to no good,so he is definitely a baddie. Gideon on the other hand has just been brainwashed. Since this is a thread that allows spoilers I can say I think it is pretty obvious that Gwyneth and Gideon will end up together. That is why Gwyneth saw her future self, traveling back in the past kissing him.

This book was OK. I got the next one from the library, but let it sit on a shelf unread for 3 weeks until it was due. Guess I won't be reading it. ;)
I agree with some of the other posters on it was just one massive cliche. It's like authors don't even TRY anymore. "Twilight and 50 Shades of Gray were best sellers? HOT DAMN! Time to pump out some garbage and hope I get lucky!" (No offense intended to fans of said garbage.)

P.S. It's only OK to announce your X years "and a half" while still in the single digits. Once you hit 10, knock that stuff off. Come on.

Leah - in Celtic mythology, Ravens are linked with darkness and death, especially the death of warriors in battle. In Norse culture, we have Odin's ravens: Huginn is Thought, and Muninn is Memory. The Raven in Irish and Welsh mythology is generally linked with prophesy.
So likely, yes, her Raven magic likely has something to do with the dead/memory/prophesy.

As for "Is Gideon REALLY that big of an ass?" That seems to be a trend in YA fiction - the "hero" is the biggest jerkiest ass in the universe. And generally he means well/is just misunderstood/doesn't know any better. That way, the heroine gets to "save" him.

Elley, I agree! I'm proud to report I have not read those books LOL. Seriously, I have over 1,000 books on my TBR shelf and there's only so much time in my life. FYI: I borrowed Sapphire Blue (here's my review) and Gwyn/Gideon "love" story only gets worse in book two. The only reason I plan to finish the trilogy is for the mystery / time travel.

Why in the world would authors want to keep promoting such a destructive mindset in young women, and young men for that matter? Apathy? Money? Fame? Certainly there's enough creativity somewhere deep in their imaginations to deliver something different. Or perhaps it's supply and demand; publishers wanna keep churning out what's hot at the minute so writers (starving artists after all) turn off their conscience and supply the demand.

It's age old - the desire to save the bad boy or thinking you'll be the one to change / fix him - but dang, shouldn't we evolve at some point?

Shouldn't we break this cycle and, instead, encourage and nurture the notion of falling head over heels for someone that at the very least doesn't verbally abuse the other person?

Sigh.

Majority of the young adult novels I read with a moderate amount of romance seem to be following the same twisted mentality. Sure people will say "Lighten up! It's just a book; it's only make believe." Unfortunately many young people look to mainstream media as a guidepost for social norms, acceptable behavior, and what they "should" be looking for in a relationship. I wonder how Twilight and its spawn affect those young minds? It's the same when I read books with teens who text and drive without consequence. When you're writing to a young audience (17 and under) at a certain point there should be awareness, at least on some level.

Sorry for the rant! I dunno. Maybe I've simply outgrown mainstream YA.

"Maybe I've simply outgrown mainstream YA." I think I'm starting to come to this same conclusion. So much of it just disgusts me. It's pretty disheartening. Where are the Anne Shirleys and the Caddie Woodlawns and the Alana the Lionesses for this generation?

Well Amazon did market a version of Green Gables with a blonde Anne on the cover. They stopped when people got very vocal about how stupid it was.

Here's a link to an article and photo. Silly amazon.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapte...

Elley wrote: ""Maybe I've simply outgrown mainstream YA." I think I'm starting to come to this same conclusion. So much of it just disgusts me. It's pretty disheartening. Where are the Anne Shirleys and the Cadd..."

I see your point but there are a few exceptions, Juliet Marillier,Robin McKinley and Charles de Lint for example don't seem to fall into this.

LMAO! Oh, blonde Anne! That's hilarious.
And you're right, Jalilah, there ARE some good ones. I LOVE Robin McKinley and Charles deLint, they're two of my favorite authors. It's not to say that there aren't some few gems, but the majority of YA fic seems to be sliding into this disgusting morass of vampires and insta-love and abusive men.

Do you think it is YA or romance plots in general?

Chris - it seems to be YA Romance specifically. though it coukd be romance in general, but I tend to read fluffy stuff with no-nonsense ladies and cute nice guys, not bad boys, so maybe I'm not seeing the trend as much romance in general. but it seems to be in a lot of YA that's not strictly ROMANCE, but does have romantic elements, like Ruby Red. (sorry for any horrible typos or weird caps, typing on my phone is strange)

To be fair to Amazon -- the Anne books are out of copyright, so anyone can release copies of them. Whether they've actually read them or not!

Amazon was selling them, but they'll sell anything anyone wants to self-publish (Create-Space is Amazon's self-publishing platform). I"m pretty sure that whole end of Amazon is automated... They limited who can publish classic e-books, but not paperbacks, as far as I know.

And it's not just YA that's been swallowed up by vampires, werewolves and insta-love. Half of the new releases for adult fantasy seem to have half-naked people or people dressed in tight leather. I've been hoping it would die out for the past 5 years (at least!) and that hasn't happened yet.

I think we can blame it on the vamps and werewolves... Big, dangerous, creature men, and tiny weak (comparatively) human women. If you get too much of a power imbalance, it's way too easy to slide into the man knowing more than the women and wanting to "protect" them.

Edited to add: I know this doesn't describe Ruby Red since it's not really Paranormal Romance, but I think the generic fantasy romances in general have been influenced by the Paranormal tropes...

Well.....some people hate the Beauty and The Beast for this reason. They would argue that it supports the idea that a beast can be turned into a Prince Charming, thus encouraging women to go into dysfunctional relationships hoping they will change. I myself enjoy the Fairy Tale for what it was originally intended to be: a preparation for marriage in a time when women did not have much say as to who they married and had no choice but to stay in the marriage. It is fantasy that I enjoy, but not reality. However for YA novels, I prefer the authors I mentioned before.

I read the original Villeneuve "Beauty and the Beast" novella earlier this year and it WASN'T the Disney love story we think of today! In that first version, it was all about doing your duty and marrying who you are told (whomever benefits your family) rather than the person that you love. In fact, she even falls in love with the human version of the Beast in her dreams. And turns her back on the human version she loved to marry the Beast she was obligated to!

So, yes, it definitely was originally meant to be a preparation for arranged marriages.

That message of blind obedience is in a lot of fairy tales, though. Look at "Bluebeard". You'd think knowing that your husband is a murderer who killed all his wives is is something GOOD to know -- especially since it turned out just fine and the murderer was killed. But my impression from reading Perrault is that the moral you're supposed to take away from the story is "Look at all the trouble a woman's curiosity caused her!"

Hahaha, yes, well, those original stories are from well before feminism was a thing. ;) And there ARE retelling of Beauty and the Beast where the beast/gentleman in question is NOT abusive and nasty to the heroine. Mercedes Lackey's The Fire Rose, for instance - he's legit disfigured and whatnot, so he's physically monstrous but also kind and good and blah blah blah. So just because the base tale is about doing your duty and marrying the monster or murderer or abusive husband and not asking questions, modern interpretations of stories don't necessarily need to follow that pattern. And I think I'm a little more forgiving of it in something that is clearly based on a fairy tale, like a Beauty and the Beast retelling.

Ruby Red, however, is not a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. It's about a group of time traveling people, and the mystery, intrigue and romance surrounding their secret society. So they get zero passes on having what I can only assume is the heroine's love interest be the biggest ass. And not evern a straight up ass, but blowing hot and cold for no reason. Yes, there are people like that in real life. Yes, it's probably a good idea to have them in YA fiction, as they either know or will know at least someone in their life who is your friend one minute and your enemy the next. But it's NOT great to idealize that and make it something that's attractive in men. "OK, young women, let's condition you into liking men who are going to treat you like garbage and like you are their possession or pet!"

I agree it is one thing to read a tale that has been written centuries ago and be able to appreciate it for what it is, and it is another thing to intentionally write a book geared for teens living in the 21st century. I am tolerant for the former but not of the latter.

Hehe--this thread makes me think of this "retitled Disney movies" pic I saw yesterday: http://pinterest.com/pin/157837161913...

- e.g., retitling The Little Mermaid "Change For Your Man". :D Indeed, it's a bit disheartening that the princess/damsel-in-distress ideal is still so vitally alive and well. We need more common-born and ordinary-looking but smart and resourceful young women to be heroes too.

I've lately suspected myself of "outgrowing" YA too--and perhaps that's why I've embraced the idea of NA (and enjoy writing it), even though I usually don't like newly invented genre names. But if YA means that time when you're in high school and don't have a clue what a healthy relationship looks like...well, I remember that time, but I don't care to re-live it very often. NA at least seems to mean learning how to be a responsible adult and, if romance is involved, how to make smart choices about it rather than just the swooniest choices.

That said, bad choices make for good drama, so if the writer handles it well, I can get on board. :)

Ahem. Lackey is NOT really the author you want to bring up when you're talking about healthy relationships! Granted, she's better than most, but I hate all of her "soul mate" drivel.

To get back to the book, we keep talking about how much of a jerk Gideon is... but really, isn't Gwyn's expectations of him irrational at this point?

He's been training since he was young to be the partner to someone else. Now suddenly his partner is gone from his daily life, and he has to deal with this other girl who knows absolutely nothing she needs to know to survive, nor does she know anything about this mysterious "mission." So now he has to do his own work, and what was supposed to be Charlotte's work, plus keep Gwyn from screwing up unknowingly.

What right does Gwyn have to get mad at him talking to Charlotte? Frankly, it's ridiculous to expect him NOT to.

Melanti - Depends on the Lackey novel. ;) Within Valdemar, I agree with you. I think the Elemental Masters series is better at having strong women characters. And based on fairy tales!

And my problem isn't SOOO much with Gideon (but it sort of is) - it lies mostly with GWYN. After all, you're going to meet people in real life who treat you like crap. It's up to YOU not to be a moron and fall in lurve with them and try to change them. Gwyn is completely not self aware at all, and is just DUMB. I don't like her.

The Elemental novels are better than her Valdemar series, I agree.

I guess I'm just trying to say that not only is Gwyn a moron for thinking she could change "HER"man, she's a moron for thinking that he was hers and for thinking there was anything to change.

Melanti, I might be more compassionate toward Gideon and his situation if it wasn't for all his mixed messages and attack snogging. Hot and cold, wishy washy irks me big time. But no, Gwyn isn't off the hook either. I mentioned in my review of Sapphire Blue, Gwyn whines about everything but does nothing which also irks me.

So yeah, only reading the trilogy at this point for plot, not characters.

Melanti wrote: "Ahem. Lackey is NOT really the author you want to bring up when you're talking about healthy relationships! Granted, she's better than most, but I hate all of her "soul mate" drivel.

To get back..."

I agree with this assessment of Gwen and Gideon. He had been programmed from a young age to be working with Charlotte and also had not had an ordinary childhood. In this case I think he is surprised and dismayed that he suddenly has to work with someone else, someone with no training and experience with the exact thing both he and Charlotte had prepared for all their lives.

Molly wrote: "Hehe--this thread makes me think of this "retitled Disney movies" pic I saw yesterday: http://pinterest.com/pin/157837161913...

- e.g., retitling The Little Mermaid "Change For Your Man". :D I..."

Molly, what does NA stand for?

As for reading YA, because many Fairy Tale characters are young adults and so many Fairy Tale re-tellings are YA, so I do end up reading a lot of it.
There are some books that manage to have an ageless, timeless quality about them that make them a fun read for any age. What I do not enjoy reading about is all the clichés about high school: the snobby prom queens, the stereotypical bullies, the lonely outcasts and then very old supernatural creatures, but who look like teens and for some reason choose to go to high school again!

Jalilah wrote: "Molly, what does NA stand for? ..."

NA = New Adult. It's like Young Adult books for the college age crowd. It's a pretty new "genre". Wikipedia

Seems a bit weird to have that as its own classification, personally, since I was reading from the adult shelves on a regular basis from about 13 onward. My library's YA section was TINY and it only had a handful of fantasy and sci-fi books in it!

I read a lot of YA/middle grade books too - mostly either fairy tales or from authors who write both YA and adult works.

But this particular YA work is the kind I don't really care for. Boys, clothes, relationship drama, and "OMG, I'm special!"

Melanti wrote: "Jalilah wrote: "Molly, what does NA stand for? ..."

NA = New Adult. It's like Young Adult books for the college age crowd. It's a pretty new "genre". Wikipedia

Seems a bit weird to have that a..."

New Adult? How strange! I also would assume one would read regular adult books at college age. Times change! When I was in High school I remember we had to read things like Tess of the d'Urbervilles, For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Grapes of Wrath for English class and I went to a regular public school. On the other hand my son goes to very academic Catholic school and up to now he has only read YA books in his English class!

I guess New Adult is supposed to be when you're first starting out. New jobs, moving out on your own, getting engaged/married and having the first kid, etc. All that seems like normal "adult" material to me. Maybe I'm just an old fogey.

I have mixed feelings on assigned high school reading... In some ways, if you don't force classics on people and at least introduce them to the complexities, they may never try them on their own, and if they did, they may not have the background knowledge to understand all the nuances of symbolism and such if they did read them. But in other ways -- I've read a lot of classics as an adult that I am very glad that I wasn't forced to read back then because I don't think I was mature enough to appreciate them back then.

We had a TON of assigned reading in high school. A book every week to 2 weeks... But my coworkers down here have said thy were assigned 2-3 books a year, if that. They don't have a clue what something so basic as Poe's "The Raven" is, much less The Iliad or The Odyssey or Shakespeare! Things vary a lot from one school system to the next.

In any case, there's lots of great, meaningful YA work out there. And lots of YA classics. I hope your kids are at least getting assigned high-quality YA work.

Hi again!
Yeah, I suspect the sub-genre divisions are much more for the publishers than for the readers. We readers usually are content to say we like "fiction," and then discuss the types of fiction we especially enjoy (or dislike) with all kinds of flexible parameters to define it. "I like fiction with interesting characters of any age, and a paranormal element, without the characters doing things that are too unbelievably stupid," etc. :)

I ordinarily am a lumper rather than a splitter when it comes to categories of most things. So the only reason I ended up accepting the "New Adult" label was that as a writer I ran into difficulties in getting a novel published, a few years ago before NA was a thing. The characters were just out of high school--age 18-19, so they had some adult situations and language, as one might expect with such an age group. But some of the YA agents/editors I queried said, "Sexual situations in a YA novel? We have to keep in mind a readership of 13-year-olds." (I know; that hardly makes sense, given the content of so much of YA out there, but that's what I was told.) And when I turned to a regular adult romance publisher, they said, "The characters just seem so *young*. Can we add a few years to them?" So I was stuck in some kind of no-man's-land between YA and adult, apparently.

But that precarious age was exactly right for the story, I felt, so I kept to it and did finally get a publisher. And now that age group has been defined as its own genre--I guess for teen readers looking ahead, or for anyone who can reminisce about being newly-adult and finding their way in the world. If it were up to me, I'd rename the genres so that NA was "Young Adult"--since 18-25 or so is when you're actually a young *adult*--and the adolescence-aged stuff would be "teen lit" or similar.

Or we could call it all "fiction" and let smart readers figure it out for themselves. :) But publishers insist on their demographics and won't stand for such things. Agreed on demographics being a mushy concept all around, though: I read the classics in high school (fell promptly and permanently in love with Jane Eyre), and these days am happy to read any engaging fiction for any age. It's much more about how well it's written than who it's "intended" for.

And, ha, yes: why on earth would immortals want to go to high school over and over again?? College, maybe...maybe.

Molly wrote: "And, ha, yes: why on earth would immortals want to go to high school over and over again?? College, maybe...maybe. ..."

Publishers are crazy, that's all there is to it. There's a big difference between what's appropriate for someone who's 13 and what's appropriate for 17/18. They should abolish both YA and NA and go back to just listing suggested age/grade-levels.

Speaking as someone who was a couple of years older than usual by the time I graduated... As a slightly older college senior, forced to hang out with college freshman on occasion - they do seem horribly immature at times even with just a handful of years difference. I can't imagine having to go hang out with college freshman over and over again! My last couple of years I was taking mostly night classes for my remaining basic subjects just so I could be with a slightly older class!

(My guilty confession... I disliked Jane Eyre in High School and dislike it more today. Just tried to re-read it a couple of months ago, and failed.)

The age/grade levels did make more sense ultimately. Though presumably they'd stop above the early 20s and call that all "adult."

Yeah, if I were immortal, I might go to college for the classes, but not so much for the social life. I don't ever want to live through another frat party! (They were *worse* than Animal House, from what I saw.)

Ha, it's okay on Jane Eyre--I was supposed to love Great Expectations, according to all the Amazon algorithms, and found it exasperating instead. We all have that guilty list of classics we can't quite face. And also the ones we inexplicably love.

Oh, I despise Dickens! I don't remember exactly what I wrote in my high school essay about A Tale of Two Cities but it must have been a rant of some sort, cause my teacher wrote "I'm sorry you didn't like the book" right next to my grade.

Amazon algorithms used to be great. Not so much these days. I find they consistently recommend a book that was on sale at the same time as other books I've bought. And Classics? Their algorithms are useless for those.