It would be fascinating to have a few different readers try to plot the same books - obviously the how much they liked it would differ, but I wonder how much variation there would be in the rankings of how "well done" the books are. Also, I cannot help but think of the poetry textbook scene in Dead Poet's Society every time I hear about Auden's verdicts!
I love this framework! I’ve long privately rated books on plot, writing/craft, and enjoyment as separate categories. This feels like it articulates something I was kind of intuiting without fully understanding/examining.
I agree about intuiting this without having the name for the framework. It also raises the question should we attribute some of our intuitive thoughts to the direction our English teachers guided us? As I look back, those classes were the ones I enjoyed most.
I love Auden (I too was introduced to him through a college course!) and I had no idea he had all this writing on literature criticism - thank you for introducing me to it!! And as always your accompanying thoughts are so well written
Verdict 3 has happened to me after discussing a book in book club. Discussing with other readers often brings out ideas and themes I hadn't considered.
the picture of your book chart/plotting is so fascinating! recently i’ve been thinking about how my taste as a reader has changed, and this has me wondering if it’s really my judgement that has changed 🤔 i keep thinking about ACOTAR, because i would put it in upper right quadrant - i loved it and i thought it was well done - based on my reading a few years ago. After reading SJMs newest series, which i would put in the upper left quadrant - although more towards the horizontal axis - i wonder if my judgement has changed and it’s affecting my taste? is her newest series really less “well done” or am i just better able to discern “good” from “bad”? i’ve been thinking about rereading ACOTAR so I can explore that and it’ll be interesting to have this framework in mind! i am curious what has you putting it towards the “poorly done” end of the scale!
So I probably should have charted A Court of Mist and Fury too, which I would have put in the upper right quadrant. I didn't think the sentence level writing of ACOTAR was particularly good and the characters felt quite flat to me. That changes in the second book. I think the writing gets a bit stronger, the characters deepen, the themes become more nuanced, and the story becomes less derivative. It's interesting to think about books in series! Like were the characters intentionally flat(ish) in book one because she knew where she was going?? Maybe! And in that case she's accomplishing something really interesting with the arc of the series. There's also a challenge in mixing genres. Some books may be really well done for what they are but if I'm comparing them to more literary works they suffer in comparison. So even with the framework it's all relative!! But I would be curious to hear your thoughts if you do reread. Chelsey and I have talked about covering them on the podcast so I may be rereading too!!
ooooh this makes more sense! I was thinking of plotting it as a series rather than the first book. I very much agree that the first book is less well done but I also have always thought of it like you said - as if she was doing it on purpose because of the shift in book two - but thats part of what I am questioning after reading her most recent series(CC)! Also - your comment about mixing genres, I feel deeply lol. I think I read less literary fiction when I read ACOTAR and now maybe CC suffered more in comparison to the other books I am reading and HOW I read now. A NP episode on ACOTAR would be so fun!!
This is such a helpful encapsulation of Auden’s theory! I’m writing a series of posts about reading romance novels and I will definitely be sending people to your post. It was really helpful to me.
If anyone knows the specific episode of What Should I Read Next where this framework is discussed, I’d love to listen! Really into this new way to think about reading
It would be fascinating to have a few different readers try to plot the same books - obviously the how much they liked it would differ, but I wonder how much variation there would be in the rankings of how "well done" the books are. Also, I cannot help but think of the poetry textbook scene in Dead Poet's Society every time I hear about Auden's verdicts!
I love this framework! I’ve long privately rated books on plot, writing/craft, and enjoyment as separate categories. This feels like it articulates something I was kind of intuiting without fully understanding/examining.
I agree about intuiting this without having the name for the framework. It also raises the question should we attribute some of our intuitive thoughts to the direction our English teachers guided us? As I look back, those classes were the ones I enjoyed most.
I love Auden (I too was introduced to him through a college course!) and I had no idea he had all this writing on literature criticism - thank you for introducing me to it!! And as always your accompanying thoughts are so well written
His poetry is so beautiful. I think about it all the time!
This framework makes so much sense to me! And I can immediately picture how some books would fall on this chart. Helpful!
I feel like this framework formalizes so much of what goes on in my head as I write a review. Thank you for sharing it!
Ooh I love this framework! Thanks for some good food for thought when I write my next review.
Verdict 3 has happened to me after discussing a book in book club. Discussing with other readers often brings out ideas and themes I hadn't considered.
Same!
the picture of your book chart/plotting is so fascinating! recently i’ve been thinking about how my taste as a reader has changed, and this has me wondering if it’s really my judgement that has changed 🤔 i keep thinking about ACOTAR, because i would put it in upper right quadrant - i loved it and i thought it was well done - based on my reading a few years ago. After reading SJMs newest series, which i would put in the upper left quadrant - although more towards the horizontal axis - i wonder if my judgement has changed and it’s affecting my taste? is her newest series really less “well done” or am i just better able to discern “good” from “bad”? i’ve been thinking about rereading ACOTAR so I can explore that and it’ll be interesting to have this framework in mind! i am curious what has you putting it towards the “poorly done” end of the scale!
So I probably should have charted A Court of Mist and Fury too, which I would have put in the upper right quadrant. I didn't think the sentence level writing of ACOTAR was particularly good and the characters felt quite flat to me. That changes in the second book. I think the writing gets a bit stronger, the characters deepen, the themes become more nuanced, and the story becomes less derivative. It's interesting to think about books in series! Like were the characters intentionally flat(ish) in book one because she knew where she was going?? Maybe! And in that case she's accomplishing something really interesting with the arc of the series. There's also a challenge in mixing genres. Some books may be really well done for what they are but if I'm comparing them to more literary works they suffer in comparison. So even with the framework it's all relative!! But I would be curious to hear your thoughts if you do reread. Chelsey and I have talked about covering them on the podcast so I may be rereading too!!
ooooh this makes more sense! I was thinking of plotting it as a series rather than the first book. I very much agree that the first book is less well done but I also have always thought of it like you said - as if she was doing it on purpose because of the shift in book two - but thats part of what I am questioning after reading her most recent series(CC)! Also - your comment about mixing genres, I feel deeply lol. I think I read less literary fiction when I read ACOTAR and now maybe CC suffered more in comparison to the other books I am reading and HOW I read now. A NP episode on ACOTAR would be so fun!!
This is a 1 for me in Auden’s framework. The plotting of books on the axis is fascinating. Love when you dig deep into the reading life!
This is such a helpful encapsulation of Auden’s theory! I’m writing a series of posts about reading romance novels and I will definitely be sending people to your post. It was really helpful to me.
That framework and your chart are really interesting. I’ll definitely be thinking about this with my reading in the future!
If anyone knows the specific episode of What Should I Read Next where this framework is discussed, I’d love to listen! Really into this new way to think about reading