convenient props & facile plot devices

this book i just finished reading, inkheart, was good, but the writer had an annoying habit of placing things conveniently into the story. like, afterthoughts that would sure help out, but they weren't placed before, but she just sort of placed them in when needed. annoyingly unsupported props & devices. as per such prigzamples:

- at dustfinger's signal, farid had drawn his knife, too. dustfinger had bought it for him in the village by the sea.... [p348]
isn't that convenient. a knife, just when he needed one, and ooops, forgot to tell you dustfinger had bought it for him earlier.

- basta's breath smelled of mint, fresh & sharp. apparently, a girl he'd once wanted to kiss had told him he had bad breath. [p357]

again, quite convenient about the minty fresh breath with the facile explanation thrown in as an afterthought.

- at that, fenoglio reached under his pillow and put a flashlight in her lap. [p360]
what is he, a magician? hellz to the no! too convenient! too easy! handy dandy flashlight right when they needed it.

sheesh. have a little pride, as an author. fold your ideas into the story. build the plot. don't rely on the consistent use of the prop ex machina.

also, the geographical setting is disturbingly unclear. are we in america? europe? what's with the tunnels & the seashore? the setting in time is also unclear to the point that it's not interesting, it's simply downright annoying. are we in "present day" or "future"? the only thing that is clear is that we are not in the "past", but based on the descriptions of some of the locales, we are either in the now or in some sort of parallel universe or in some sort of post-modernistic future. the world that is given is not supported sufficiently to make it seem real, and the leap of faith to accept it as such is simply too great a leap.

i am not sorry i read it, b/c i wanted to know what the fuss was all about. however, now, i do still want to know what all the fuss is about. at least i can speak from experience when i query... what is all the fuss about? in the post-harry era, are we so hungry for magic that we will stoop to this type of poorly written stuff?

currently reading magyk, book one of the septimus heap series. intriguingly, septimus dies right off the bat! i have my theories as to where he ended up, and who jenna really is, but i'll keep those to myself for now. so far, the world built by angie sage is much more attractive than that built by cornelia funke. but, what would you expect from sage vs. funke!