What are you reading (not on a) Wednesday
Sep. 1st, 2016 10:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricCurrently Reading: 'Why are Faggots so Afraid of Faggots', 'A Handful of Dust', 'Glenarvon', and for work a book called 'Cinematic Illuminations' on medieval film.
Recently finished: Jenkins et all, Spreadable Media; Riggs, 'Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children'; and Christopher Currie, 'Clancy of the Undertow'. All of which need a little time to percolate before I write them up.
Whyborne and Griffin, Books 1-3: Widdershins, Threshold, and Stormhaven by Jordan L. Hawk
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Well, I regret buying these as an ominubus, because I would like to give 'Threshhold' a vindictively bad rating for egregious cultural appropriation nonsense, but I quite liked Widdershins and Stormhaven.
There was legit no reason to involve native american mythology in your aliens-from-another-universe-invade-a-coal-mine paranormal detective plot. None whatsoever. And the 'creatures assembled from body parts' gambit was recycled from the previous novel.
Stormhaven was better, although it too recycled plot elements from Widdershins.
I like the pairing, I like side character Christine a lot, and my annoyance with Whybourne's persistence in believing himself ugly is only matched by how endearing I find his conviction he has no courage or strength of character either.
I don't know if I will pursue this series furter.
Urn Burial by Kerry Greenwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
As usual, a great read - better than the m/m detective stuff I've been reading lately, for sure. Bonus points for having a sekrit m/m romance as a plot feature, though.
The book's handling of race is... interesting, as Prhyne takes Lin Chung among her own peers. However, I could've done without the venture into exoticising yin/yang and dragon metaphors for interracial sex.
For Love Alone by Christina Stead
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really do not know what to make of this book. I mean. What.
Things that stood out about it:
- For the first half, the scenic descriptions of Sydney were spot on. So spot on. Consider this one:
That's the main reason I read the book, I was promised modernist sense of place, so I guess it wins on that score.
- Good lord Christina Stead's descriptions of the depressed cynical prospectless academic dude. It's like she predicted my terrible taste in men well in advance of my birth:
- In theory, I think I approve of this book in the way it embraces female sexuality and desire. However, I am not without reservations.
Things that were weird about this book:
- Its treatment of homosexuality. The subject wasn't mentioned at all until England, whereupon Jonathan's willingness to countenance the idea of male-male relations is used as proof of his corruption and misogyny. I mean. His opinions are a pretty plausible hash of the opinions of the likes of the Society of the Special, who did see m/m homosexuality as the pinnacle of patriarchal achievement, so... But I found myself reading him as a closeted bisexual, too afraid to approach homosexuality in anything but theory, and unable to have genuine relationships with women partly in consequence. Which, I'm pretty sure, was not the reading Christina Stead wanted me to take.
- The final love plot was very ???. I really don't think it sounded terribly healthy, the de facto husband fellow was a bit of a wet blanket, and the whole adultery plot was both hilarious and bizarre. (I mean, if I ever need a great one-page excerpt to illustrate the exchange of women as male homosocial bonding, I know where to go!) And it was all very... it's like Stead didn't know what to DO and rushed the ending, or something. Very odd. Still, I like the idea that the time to fall in love with your pseudo-husband is after some strategic adultery.
Raisins and Almonds by Kerry Greenwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was pretty interesting, and managed to handle the cross-cultural stuff without weird-ass exoticising metaphors in the way the previous book had handled Lin Chung. And I appreciate that Phryne has actual qualms about violent zionism - after reading enough Corinna Chapman where the heroine has apparently zero thoughts about the IDF despite dating an ex-member thereof, this was reassuring.
Up Next: Hmm. I have Locke Lomora, and The Price of Salt, and a few others. One of those, I guess.
Recently finished: Jenkins et all, Spreadable Media; Riggs, 'Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children'; and Christopher Currie, 'Clancy of the Undertow'. All of which need a little time to percolate before I write them up.
Whyborne and Griffin, Books 1-3: Widdershins, Threshold, and Stormhaven by Jordan L. HawkMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Well, I regret buying these as an ominubus, because I would like to give 'Threshhold' a vindictively bad rating for egregious cultural appropriation nonsense, but I quite liked Widdershins and Stormhaven.
There was legit no reason to involve native american mythology in your aliens-from-another-universe-invade-a-coal-mine paranormal detective plot. None whatsoever. And the 'creatures assembled from body parts' gambit was recycled from the previous novel.
Stormhaven was better, although it too recycled plot elements from Widdershins.
I like the pairing, I like side character Christine a lot, and my annoyance with Whybourne's persistence in believing himself ugly is only matched by how endearing I find his conviction he has no courage or strength of character either.
I don't know if I will pursue this series furter.
Urn Burial by Kerry GreenwoodMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
As usual, a great read - better than the m/m detective stuff I've been reading lately, for sure. Bonus points for having a sekrit m/m romance as a plot feature, though.
The book's handling of race is... interesting, as Prhyne takes Lin Chung among her own peers. However, I could've done without the venture into exoticising yin/yang and dragon metaphors for interracial sex.
For Love Alone by Christina SteadMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really do not know what to make of this book. I mean. What.
Things that stood out about it:
- For the first half, the scenic descriptions of Sydney were spot on. So spot on. Consider this one:
That's the main reason I read the book, I was promised modernist sense of place, so I guess it wins on that score.
- Good lord Christina Stead's descriptions of the depressed cynical prospectless academic dude. It's like she predicted my terrible taste in men well in advance of my birth:
- In theory, I think I approve of this book in the way it embraces female sexuality and desire. However, I am not without reservations.
Things that were weird about this book:
- Its treatment of homosexuality. The subject wasn't mentioned at all until England, whereupon Jonathan's willingness to countenance the idea of male-male relations is used as proof of his corruption and misogyny. I mean. His opinions are a pretty plausible hash of the opinions of the likes of the Society of the Special, who did see m/m homosexuality as the pinnacle of patriarchal achievement, so... But I found myself reading him as a closeted bisexual, too afraid to approach homosexuality in anything but theory, and unable to have genuine relationships with women partly in consequence. Which, I'm pretty sure, was not the reading Christina Stead wanted me to take.
- The final love plot was very ???. I really don't think it sounded terribly healthy, the de facto husband fellow was a bit of a wet blanket, and the whole adultery plot was both hilarious and bizarre. (I mean, if I ever need a great one-page excerpt to illustrate the exchange of women as male homosocial bonding, I know where to go!) And it was all very... it's like Stead didn't know what to DO and rushed the ending, or something. Very odd. Still, I like the idea that the time to fall in love with your pseudo-husband is after some strategic adultery.
Raisins and Almonds by Kerry GreenwoodMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was pretty interesting, and managed to handle the cross-cultural stuff without weird-ass exoticising metaphors in the way the previous book had handled Lin Chung. And I appreciate that Phryne has actual qualms about violent zionism - after reading enough Corinna Chapman where the heroine has apparently zero thoughts about the IDF despite dating an ex-member thereof, this was reassuring.
Up Next: Hmm. I have Locke Lomora, and The Price of Salt, and a few others. One of those, I guess.