2/7/12

Points of View

In the past month, I've read three sequels.
  1. The first was Uncommon Criminals, Ally Carter's sequel to Heist Society. Both books are in third-person, and both books switch point-of-views, so I'm going to leave them as-is, because I'm talking about first-person.
  2. Then I read The Ask and the Answer, the sequel to Patrick Ness' The Knife of Never Letting Go. Knife was first-person, and it stuck to Todd's point-of-view like glue. Todd, Todd, Todd, and we never knew what anyone else was thinking. {Thought that's not quite true, because Todd can hear people's thoughts.} But, in Ask, Ness adds in another point-of-view, Viola's. Whaaaat?!
  3. And after that came Crossed, Ally Condie's sequel to Matched. Matched was also first-person, and, like Knife we only knew what Cassia was thinking. {Is this a good time to mention that I had a character named Kassia once, and I feel robbed, somehow? No? Okay.} But, in Crossed, Condie adds in another point-of-view, Ky's. Again, whaaaaat?! 
 What is it about sequels and adding a point-of-view? {Ness took it a step further and added a third point-of-view in the final book of the Chaos Walking trilogy, Monsters of Men. Who knows about Condie, since her third book isn't yet out.}

I never would have noticed this if I hadn't been in the middle of writing a sequel myself. {Yes, I'm writing a sequel to Those Who Trespass. No, I never thought I would do it. Yes, Those Who Trespass is a stand-alone novel.} And while my first book was first-person all the way, this second book {working title: Lead Us Not} was turning out to be first-person...for two people.

I'm still not sure how I'm going to play it. I was mad at Ness for a while when he introduced Viola's POV in Ask, just because Todd's is so freaking awesome. But I quickly forgave him because those books are just that good. I actually enjoyed Ky's commentary more than Cassia's, in Crossed.

But I feel, somehow, like I'm betraying Jenn. This is her story, isn't it?

I'm trying to think of other books that have done this, either added a POV to the second book, or changed characters POVs entirely. One that comes to mind is the Queen's Thief series {The Thief, first-person, Eugenides' POV; The Queen of Attolia, third-person, various POVs; The King of Attolia, third-person, Costis' POV; A Conspiracy of Kings part 1, first-person, Sophis' POV; A Conspiracy of Kings part 2, third-person, various POVs.} {Megan Whalen Turner is the queen of POVs. She always chooses the perfect one for the book.} But I know there are others. Do any come to mind?

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