Finishing Books, Still Somehow Moving in the Wrong Direction

I managed to finish two books this week, The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman and a graphic novel called 30 Days of Night, by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith. They were both short and, I thought, rather average. Also one is a library book, so sending it back doesn't reduce the number of books in my house, and the other was a birthday gift, so that one is actually adding a book.

I picked up The Whipping Boy because it had won a Newbery Medal and I liked the premise. A spoiled prince and the whipping boy who takes his spankings for him run away and get caught in the clutches of criminals. Sounds fun and adventurous! Well... it is, but the characters are all so one-dimensional I didn't really care much about them. I finished reading out of curiosity rather than worry for the prince and his companion. This is a fast read and I think a lot of grade schoolers probably will enjoy it, but considering the far more sophisticated and interesting books that have won Newbery Medals, I was really underwhelmed by this book. I won't be too traumatized when I return it to the library.

30 Days of Night has a fantastic concept and rather good artwork. I love the idea of vampires loose on a city so far North that there is no sun (and no hope of rescue) for a month. It's brilliant, but the characters are so poorly drawn by the writer that it's hard to care that an entire town is being decimated. Additionally, the only way the reader would know how much time is passing is by looking at the title. The few townspeople who survive the initial massacre (which takes who knows how long) find a hiding spot, but they only way you know they have been there a while is that they are running out of food. And considering they are hiding in an old industrial furnace, how much food could there have been in the first place? So the whole thing feels like maybe 2 or 3 Days of Night.

Additional problems include a confusing subplot about someone who appears to (I think?) be a vampire flying in to the city to record the vampire attack and send the information back to his mother (also a vampire?), and the ultimate solution for getting away from the vampires.

The concept is so great, the story needed a lot more work for clarity and detail, in my opinion.

Nevertheless, 30 Days of Night probably will stay in our book collection, at least for now. I have a hard time parting with birthday gifts, I guess.

Next up in my To Be Read pile is another stripped book from my days as a bookseller. It's an anthology of science fiction stories and I have no doubt that it is headed for the recycling bin as soon as I finish it.