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A review by eesh25
Fool Moon by Jim Butcher
2.0
It would be so much easier to like Dresden if the author would stop fucking trying so hard to make him likable. Seriously, every scene in this book practically drips 'Look how great Harry is!'. But before I get more into how much I hate Harry now, I want to revisit a couple of things from my review of the first book.
I ended that review by saying that I hoped the next book would be better. It's actually worse. I also said that I thought the audiobook would've improved my enjoyment of the book. It didn't. Once the novelty of the good narrator wore off, the book had to stand on its own merits, of which it doesn't have many. The world did get some expansion, so I was right about that. Some of Harry's problems still felt made up, the book's treatment of its female characters was still terrible, and the detailed descriptions of every woman's body were amped up. So aside from one positive development, everything else is either unchanged or worse.
I don't know why I felt the need to compare the two books, but here you have it. Even James Marsters couldn't come and save my mood at the end. So I'm gonna need a month or so before I can read the third book. And yes, I'm still going to read it because I said I'd read at least three. Moving on.
The case Harry is working on this time is about werewolves. There are different ways one can become a werewolf in this world. Some are simpler, others a lot more complicated. And the type of werewolf you become depends on the method you use. That was a part of the book I liked. I also liked a couple of scenes where you could see the potential this series has. There's so much to explore, and you get hints of that. Unfortunately, that, and the last five minutes, was pretty much all I liked about the book. Everything else sucked.
Let's start with Harry. I'm so fucking sick of his... I don't even know what to call it. If a person died on another planet, he would find a way to blame himself. And usually, I find characters who feel a lot of guilt sympathetic. But with Dresden, the whole thing makes no sense and feels manufactured to make him likable.
Making it all worse, if someone literally stabbed him in the back, he would be all, "I can't believe I made this person betray me. I'm the worst." You know, because he's a condescending shithead. And especially if the person who stabbed him were a woman.
Speaking of... I'm not gonna get into the book's treatment of women. I already covered it in my Storm Front review. But I will take a second to wonder why Butcher decided to make Murphy such an irrational and unreasonable moron. Like, she wasn't great in the first book, but she's so much worse here. And it actually just made me hate both Harry and the author more. Because the objective of her behaviour seemed to be to make Harry look good. And of course, to manufacture conflict without having to put much effort into it.
Finally, the actual case Harry's working on, the one with people being killed ...It was fine. It didn't stand out. I liked the elements it introduced to the world (werewolves, demons, curses), but the case itself was just there and not very interesting. No wonder Butcher felt the need to put Harry in mortal peril every other chapter. The book would've been so dull otherwise.
And... that's all I have to say. I'm hoping the third book will be an improvement. I'm not looking for anything big, but I need at least a three-star read. I really want to like this series. Fingers crossed?
I ended that review by saying that I hoped the next book would be better. It's actually worse. I also said that I thought the audiobook would've improved my enjoyment of the book. It didn't. Once the novelty of the good narrator wore off, the book had to stand on its own merits, of which it doesn't have many. The world did get some expansion, so I was right about that. Some of Harry's problems still felt made up, the book's treatment of its female characters was still terrible, and the detailed descriptions of every woman's body were amped up. So aside from one positive development, everything else is either unchanged or worse.
I don't know why I felt the need to compare the two books, but here you have it. Even James Marsters couldn't come and save my mood at the end. So I'm gonna need a month or so before I can read the third book. And yes, I'm still going to read it because I said I'd read at least three. Moving on.
The case Harry is working on this time is about werewolves. There are different ways one can become a werewolf in this world. Some are simpler, others a lot more complicated. And the type of werewolf you become depends on the method you use. That was a part of the book I liked. I also liked a couple of scenes where you could see the potential this series has. There's so much to explore, and you get hints of that. Unfortunately, that, and the last five minutes, was pretty much all I liked about the book. Everything else sucked.
Let's start with Harry. I'm so fucking sick of his... I don't even know what to call it. If a person died on another planet, he would find a way to blame himself. And usually, I find characters who feel a lot of guilt sympathetic. But with Dresden, the whole thing makes no sense and feels manufactured to make him likable.
Making it all worse, if someone literally stabbed him in the back, he would be all, "I can't believe I made this person betray me. I'm the worst." You know, because he's a condescending shithead. And especially if the person who stabbed him were a woman.
Speaking of... I'm not gonna get into the book's treatment of women. I already covered it in my Storm Front review. But I will take a second to wonder why Butcher decided to make Murphy such an irrational and unreasonable moron. Like, she wasn't great in the first book, but she's so much worse here. And it actually just made me hate both Harry and the author more. Because the objective of her behaviour seemed to be to make Harry look good. And of course, to manufacture conflict without having to put much effort into it.
Finally, the actual case Harry's working on, the one with people being killed ...It was fine. It didn't stand out. I liked the elements it introduced to the world (werewolves, demons, curses), but the case itself was just there and not very interesting. No wonder Butcher felt the need to put Harry in mortal peril every other chapter. The book would've been so dull otherwise.
And... that's all I have to say. I'm hoping the third book will be an improvement. I'm not looking for anything big, but I need at least a three-star read. I really want to like this series. Fingers crossed?