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highlyeccentricAn important step in my getting-my-shit-back-together plan for the second half of winter: picking up the routines I dropped somewhere in December. Like this one!
Currently Reading:
Edith Wharton's 'The House of Mirth' is about the only thing I'm steadily working through at the moment - I started it in January and have been enjoying it, but keep shying away in anxiety as I can see Our Heroine is going to suffer Indignities and so on and so forth.
I started 'The Lies of Locke Lomora' but haven't got past the first chapter yet.
Recently Finished:
Quite a lot and most of it romance e-books. This isn't going to be the complete January accounting - I'll tack the rest onto the next update.
The Book of DRAGONS by E. Nesbit
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was really... interesting. Essentially it's a collection of fable/fairy-tale stories involving dragons, in various settings (from the magical realist to the outright fairy tale). I found myself grating a little at the gender tropes in some of the stories (the princess is always fixed, while the hero - rarely a prince - is more active and mobile), but after a while, came to the conclusion that, within those norms, it does a pretty good job. The princesses have character, and preferences, and get a full share of POV-narration. I particularly enjoyed the one where the princess married the pig-boy.
There was one which I suspect Phillip Pullman has read - a brother-and-sister pair run away to the North Pole and rescue a dragon - which was well executed, except for the comic antagonists, the 'fur people', who were supposed to be funny (they're all made of fur! not skin!) but were a pretty obvious Sami/Inuit caricature.
One Life to Lose by Kris Ripper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I liked this *much* more than The Queer and the Restless. Partly because Cameron is a character type I have endless love for; partly because the triad dynamics were really really well managed; partly because the romance plot actually worked with the murder plot (perhaps it did better here because this one wasn't trying to be a detective novel as well).
Glitterland by Alexis Hall
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This one was surprisingly good, if somewhat more emotionally challenging than I normally want from my romance e-books. The POV character has depression-dominant bipolar, and that really fucks him up, and fucks with his ability to maintain relationships. This isn't a story about Finding Someone Whose Love Makes It Better. Consequently it's tough going, as a story, but I like it the better for it.
Wanted, A Gentleman by K.J. Charles
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is an excellent book of its kind. It's very genre-aware (which is what gets it 4 stars), it plays with the 'daring elopement' tropes delightfully, and is quite deft with the two protag's background/family situations and their consequent relationships with ideas of liberty and the practice of living freely.
For Real by Alexis Hall
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Okay, Alexis Hall's stock-in-trade appears to be POV protags with notable anxiety/intimacy issues. This one is *really well done*, but really put me through the emotional wringer: it's pretty heavy kink, and the combination of that with the emotional wossname was, erm, perhaps not what I shoulda been reading while having a long-drawn out Anxiety myself.
Up Next:
Honestly, I am really hoping I get enough brain back to make some real inroads in academic non-fiction :)
Currently Reading:
Edith Wharton's 'The House of Mirth' is about the only thing I'm steadily working through at the moment - I started it in January and have been enjoying it, but keep shying away in anxiety as I can see Our Heroine is going to suffer Indignities and so on and so forth.
I started 'The Lies of Locke Lomora' but haven't got past the first chapter yet.
Recently Finished:
Quite a lot and most of it romance e-books. This isn't going to be the complete January accounting - I'll tack the rest onto the next update.
The Book of DRAGONS by E. NesbitMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was really... interesting. Essentially it's a collection of fable/fairy-tale stories involving dragons, in various settings (from the magical realist to the outright fairy tale). I found myself grating a little at the gender tropes in some of the stories (the princess is always fixed, while the hero - rarely a prince - is more active and mobile), but after a while, came to the conclusion that, within those norms, it does a pretty good job. The princesses have character, and preferences, and get a full share of POV-narration. I particularly enjoyed the one where the princess married the pig-boy.
There was one which I suspect Phillip Pullman has read - a brother-and-sister pair run away to the North Pole and rescue a dragon - which was well executed, except for the comic antagonists, the 'fur people', who were supposed to be funny (they're all made of fur! not skin!) but were a pretty obvious Sami/Inuit caricature.
One Life to Lose by Kris RipperMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I liked this *much* more than The Queer and the Restless. Partly because Cameron is a character type I have endless love for; partly because the triad dynamics were really really well managed; partly because the romance plot actually worked with the murder plot (perhaps it did better here because this one wasn't trying to be a detective novel as well).
Glitterland by Alexis HallMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This one was surprisingly good, if somewhat more emotionally challenging than I normally want from my romance e-books. The POV character has depression-dominant bipolar, and that really fucks him up, and fucks with his ability to maintain relationships. This isn't a story about Finding Someone Whose Love Makes It Better. Consequently it's tough going, as a story, but I like it the better for it.
Wanted, A Gentleman by K.J. CharlesMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is an excellent book of its kind. It's very genre-aware (which is what gets it 4 stars), it plays with the 'daring elopement' tropes delightfully, and is quite deft with the two protag's background/family situations and their consequent relationships with ideas of liberty and the practice of living freely.
For Real by Alexis HallMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Okay, Alexis Hall's stock-in-trade appears to be POV protags with notable anxiety/intimacy issues. This one is *really well done*, but really put me through the emotional wringer: it's pretty heavy kink, and the combination of that with the emotional wossname was, erm, perhaps not what I shoulda been reading while having a long-drawn out Anxiety myself.
Up Next:
Honestly, I am really hoping I get enough brain back to make some real inroads in academic non-fiction :)
no subject
Date: 2017-01-25 12:28 pm (UTC)