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What Are You Reading (not on a) Wednesday
Nov. 10th, 2014 11:21 amServed early, because I won't have time throughout the week.
Currently Reading: Harry Potter et la Coupe de Feu, on hold while I'm away. House of Leaves, likewise on hold, and it's really not engaging me. I've just started Anne Bronte's Agnes Grey, and am liking that rather a lot. For vaguely work-related purposes I have 'Asking the Right Questions', which is crappier than expected, and 'The Lesbian Premodern'.
Recently Finished:
Monstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales by Kelly Link
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I bought this for the SRB short story 'Wings in the Morning', companion piece to her free serial Turn of the Story, and it did not disappoint. I read it first, and then again, and then twice when i came past it reading the book cover-to-cover, and once at the end. <3<3
Wings in the Morning was adorable fluff, but much of the rest of the collection was unexpectedly hard-hitting. Teen pregnancies and abusive families came up surprisingly often. There was one abortion and one miscarriage. I particularly liked the story about the vampire who worked for a nursing home in order to be around people his own age (and feed from them, naturally). The was a story about a girl who heard the kraken sing which did *fantastic* things with unreliable narration vis-a-vis the kraken while presenting her perspective on her abusive stepfather as utterly reliable.
One story I was *not* happy with involved a white american girl on tour with her folk-singing father who, while in New Zealand, meets the embodied spirit of the local river and, after forewarning the folk festival of a coming flood, inspires her father to take up the anti-development cause of the local maori activists. That left a sour taste in my mouth - double whammy of -american sees the world- and -white people save the day-. If it had been a NZ pakeha singer's daughter, or, hey, an indigenous person from somewhere *else*, I'd have given it more credit. (I reckon some depth could have been added to the girl's relationship with her father if her mother had been native american and the father the hippie white folk singer, too.)
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow. The blurb on this book did not sell it to me at all, but I really liked Kent's op-ed pieces during the Stella Prize season. As a friend's copy had fallen into my hands I bumped it up the to-read list. I was expecting to read it slowly, over several weeks, as one does with Literachur. Nope. I read all of it in one sitting with half a bottle of wine and sobbed my heart out over the ending.
I *loved* the sense of place, and the gritty detail of daily life. The sausage-making scene stands out particularly as one in which plot, character and setting all spin together in intricate detail without ever being over-burdened by description.
I got to the end and realised the damn thing was Kent's PhD project and huffed for a bit - if anyone other than me cries over my PhD it'll be because I bribed them into editing. Further research suggests that Kent got the novel published but hasn't finished the doctorate itself, so I feel slightly better.
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a *beautiful* book, with a gorgeous sense of place, and a deft way of handling the borderline between realism, whimsy, and religious practice, as each is given different weights by the various characters. However, there was something unsatisfying about it - some characters were under-developed, chiefly the love interests of the judge and Sai. Sai was annoyingly passive and her resolve to 'leave' at the end of the novel was unconvincing. HOW would she leave? With what, to do what? Given she had two tutors and a cambridge-educated grandfather, what were they educating her *for*? Why was no one suggesting she go to university? That could have added another layer to Gyan and Sai's relationship, if he knew he was tutoring her for entrance to a better university than he would ever be able to access.
I liked the expat storylines best - those seemed to have fewest plotholes, for one thing.
To Read Next:
I've just bought 'Love in the Time of Global Warming', will probably start that on the plane. I'm expecting 'Stone Butch Blues' and 'The Harp in the South' to arrive in the post soonish.
Currently Reading: Harry Potter et la Coupe de Feu, on hold while I'm away. House of Leaves, likewise on hold, and it's really not engaging me. I've just started Anne Bronte's Agnes Grey, and am liking that rather a lot. For vaguely work-related purposes I have 'Asking the Right Questions', which is crappier than expected, and 'The Lesbian Premodern'.
Recently Finished:
Monstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales by Kelly LinkMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I bought this for the SRB short story 'Wings in the Morning', companion piece to her free serial Turn of the Story, and it did not disappoint. I read it first, and then again, and then twice when i came past it reading the book cover-to-cover, and once at the end. <3<3
Wings in the Morning was adorable fluff, but much of the rest of the collection was unexpectedly hard-hitting. Teen pregnancies and abusive families came up surprisingly often. There was one abortion and one miscarriage. I particularly liked the story about the vampire who worked for a nursing home in order to be around people his own age (and feed from them, naturally). The was a story about a girl who heard the kraken sing which did *fantastic* things with unreliable narration vis-a-vis the kraken while presenting her perspective on her abusive stepfather as utterly reliable.
One story I was *not* happy with involved a white american girl on tour with her folk-singing father who, while in New Zealand, meets the embodied spirit of the local river and, after forewarning the folk festival of a coming flood, inspires her father to take up the anti-development cause of the local maori activists. That left a sour taste in my mouth - double whammy of -american sees the world- and -white people save the day-. If it had been a NZ pakeha singer's daughter, or, hey, an indigenous person from somewhere *else*, I'd have given it more credit. (I reckon some depth could have been added to the girl's relationship with her father if her mother had been native american and the father the hippie white folk singer, too.)
Burial Rites by Hannah KentMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow. The blurb on this book did not sell it to me at all, but I really liked Kent's op-ed pieces during the Stella Prize season. As a friend's copy had fallen into my hands I bumped it up the to-read list. I was expecting to read it slowly, over several weeks, as one does with Literachur. Nope. I read all of it in one sitting with half a bottle of wine and sobbed my heart out over the ending.
I *loved* the sense of place, and the gritty detail of daily life. The sausage-making scene stands out particularly as one in which plot, character and setting all spin together in intricate detail without ever being over-burdened by description.
I got to the end and realised the damn thing was Kent's PhD project and huffed for a bit - if anyone other than me cries over my PhD it'll be because I bribed them into editing. Further research suggests that Kent got the novel published but hasn't finished the doctorate itself, so I feel slightly better.
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran DesaiMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a *beautiful* book, with a gorgeous sense of place, and a deft way of handling the borderline between realism, whimsy, and religious practice, as each is given different weights by the various characters. However, there was something unsatisfying about it - some characters were under-developed, chiefly the love interests of the judge and Sai. Sai was annoyingly passive and her resolve to 'leave' at the end of the novel was unconvincing. HOW would she leave? With what, to do what? Given she had two tutors and a cambridge-educated grandfather, what were they educating her *for*? Why was no one suggesting she go to university? That could have added another layer to Gyan and Sai's relationship, if he knew he was tutoring her for entrance to a better university than he would ever be able to access.
I liked the expat storylines best - those seemed to have fewest plotholes, for one thing.
To Read Next:
I've just bought 'Love in the Time of Global Warming', will probably start that on the plane. I'm expecting 'Stone Butch Blues' and 'The Harp in the South' to arrive in the post soonish.