Zoe's Tale discussion

!!!SPOILERS!!!

After reading The Last Colony I was really looking forward to this but ended up a little disappointed. I've got a couple of issues I wanted to mention.

First, Scalzi portrays Zoe as such a typical American teenager, though she's never been to Earth. Yes, John Perry is from Earth, but she grew up among an alien colony with her father, later lived alone with aliens and eventually settled on Huckleberry with mostly Indians and on Roanoke with a lot of Mennonites. I just found her typical attitude and behavior to be far too 'American teen' to be believable.

Second, I was really pretty bored with the retelling of events. There were two interesting scenes in the book. The part when Zoe and her friends encounter the 'werewolves' and the explanation of what happened when Zoe visited the Consu with the Obin. Other than that I just wasn't very fun.

I've really enjoyed the series and Zoe really is just a retelling from a different perspective.

But, worst? That's a little unfair.

'Worst' might imply there are other bad books in the series and that this one was not good. I should have clarified that the rest of the series is great and I found this book to be a little dull.

I think the OP is taking this wayyyy to seriously. I thought this was a novel (pun intended) little twist. Unfortunately, I am old and senile now and a tad sentimental. There were actually parts of the book that caused me to tear up. I will say that his interpretation of an american teen was off base. His character showed a maturity well beyond her years, and at times I couldn't tell the difference between her and John Perry's character.

This book was a fraud on Scalzi's readers.

I read the Last Colony a year ago. So reading Zoe just last week, I really enjoyed it. For an adult male, I though he wrote Zoe pretty well as a teen growing into "who" she is. She was mature, but after having gone through her life experiences as a child and in light of who her parents are, I would expect her to be more mature than her peers. But, she still came across as a teen discovering her power as a person. I liked it. Maybe the year break after The Last Colony made a difference in being able to appreciate it.