Middlegame

Okay fine, here it is. My previous “review” is at the bottom.

My major problem with Seanan McGuire's writing, specifically her long books, is how repetitive they are (examples/screenshots below). She repeats phrases/words or even says the same sentence in slightly different ways. She repeatedly brings up the same character trait over and over again. Not in a subtle way either, not in a way that demonstrates the trait and shows it in action but in a blatant telling that it's that character's trait. It results in her smacking the reader over the head repeatedly with what she wants us to know instead of being more nuanced and allowing us to engage with the information and infer the importance of different actions and thoughts.

For example, if we know a character has a thing for donuts, and the character eats a donut or mentions donuts or walks by donuts, every single time Seanan McGuire will also write “Ashley loves donuts, it's their favorite food, they'll choose it over any other option if they have the ability” like it's not already super obvious. And then if they eat any other food we get an explanation that even though they prefer donuts they also have to eat other food to survive so that's why they're eating other food and not a donut. Like no shit.

Middlegame is very Roger=Words, Dodger=Math, but there are less heavy-handed ways to show the reader those things. You can have a character perform an action or think a thought that makes sense based on what we know about them (perhaps Dodger calculating something super complex during a party, measuring ingredients for baking by sight, kicking ass at billiards... Or Roger mentioning or quoting dense literature/famous authors, solving or spouting interesting word puzzles, or using complex words/phrases - as it stands, he talks like an idiot most of the time) and leave it at that. Because the reader can understand that their actions support what was told to us, that Roger=Words and Dodger=Math. But any time something like that happens, McGuire also writes “Dodger understands numbers, Roger knows words” (yeah, we already know). It just makes me want to rip my hair out. It's like she wants to make sure no one misses the connection she's making or support she's providing for the character trait, which leaves the reader with a feeling of being hit over the head with the information. And as my friend said, it feels like the Rodger =words and Dodger=math was so superficial in how they equal those things.

Moving on, the alchemy was surface level, mostly consisting of the hand of glory, and seemed to rely on the reader having previous knowledge from other books. There wasn't even a satisfying explanation for the Improbable Road and Impossible City. Seriously, what are those things, what's the point, and how did they come to be? Oooooh, alchemy. Got it. But, how? What does that look like???

The villians were nonexistent and cartoonish. They never felt threatening and were defeated with very little effort. And they made incredibly stupid decisions. Why did Leigh think killing Dodger's parents would make her give up and surrender? You hold them hostage, not kill them! Killing them provides absolutely no motivation to surrender. I literally laughed out loud at that part.

And just, the end, what even was that? I don't understand why Roger and Dodger were like, “Let's wait.” Ummm what?

I have always loved the concepts Seanan McGuire comes up with, and that's why I continue to read her books. But honestly, I think I'm done with her full novels.

And now, I offer you a couple of examples of the repetition that annoys me so much



Why? Seriously, why write this sentence more than once?



0:00 PST means midnight! Have some faith in your reader to READ!

A variation of “knows/doesn't know/doesn't understand the words” is used about 50 times (not kidding, go ahead and count).

I really don't want to write this review because I'm still annoyed. Go check out this review instead: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2775699939?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=3