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A review by violinknitter
Fool on the Hill by Matt Ruff
2.0
What. The. Heck.
That was an INFURIATINGLY pointless book!!! Like, whaat????
The only (fiction) books that make me this angry are ones I’m veryclose to loving, except for whatever *really* rubs me the wrong way.
Things I should love: sooo many references to all kinds of literature, especially fairy tale & fantasy; the college setting; the talking animals, the (fairly cute if a bit banal) human lovers.
Ruff puts a massive cast of characters on his stage, but only some of them are actually relevant to his story. There’s more than one plot thread that’s just... there? Because he couldn’t bear to cut it? He manages to gather up a good number of those threads & tie them up in the last few chapters, but... it’s kinda pointless?
The WHOLE PLOT happens because Phoebus Apollo wants to... tell a story with??? Have a duel with??? a fellow storyteller. Which, ok, maybe? There’s a lot of mayhem on a tiny stage, but none of it has any POINT because it’s LITERALLY deus ex machinas all the way down. And the story ends because... um... maybe another god got involved? Possibly??? Definitely not because George was ANY good at storytelling AT ALL. And waaaayyyyy to sideline the princess, Ruff!!! The freaking CAT had more to do in the story than she did.
Ok, that’s probably enough book rage for now. TL;DR, this came very close to being just the right book for me, but lack of any real motivations and too much plot armor made it an INCREDIBLY frustrating miss.
(Rating 2* instead of 1* because there was some nice language, and the book’s premise had a high degree of difficulty that I feel Ruff should get at least a drop of credit for.)
That was an INFURIATINGLY pointless book!!! Like, whaat????
The only (fiction) books that make me this angry are ones I’m veryclose to loving, except for whatever *really* rubs me the wrong way.
Things I should love: sooo many references to all kinds of literature, especially fairy tale & fantasy; the college setting; the talking animals, the (fairly cute if a bit banal) human lovers.
Ruff puts a massive cast of characters on his stage, but only some of them are actually relevant to his story. There’s more than one plot thread that’s just... there? Because he couldn’t bear to cut it? He manages to gather up a good number of those threads & tie them up in the last few chapters, but... it’s kinda pointless?
The WHOLE PLOT happens because Phoebus Apollo wants to... tell a story with??? Have a duel with??? a fellow storyteller. Which, ok, maybe? There’s a lot of mayhem on a tiny stage, but none of it has any POINT because it’s LITERALLY deus ex machinas all the way down. And the story ends because... um... maybe another god got involved? Possibly??? Definitely not because George was ANY good at storytelling AT ALL. And waaaayyyyy to sideline the princess, Ruff!!! The freaking CAT had more to do in the story than she did.
Ok, that’s probably enough book rage for now. TL;DR, this came very close to being just the right book for me, but lack of any real motivations and too much plot armor made it an INCREDIBLY frustrating miss.
(Rating 2* instead of 1* because there was some nice language, and the book’s premise had a high degree of difficulty that I feel Ruff should get at least a drop of credit for.)