What Are You Reading Wednesday
Feb. 27th, 2019 04:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
highlyeccentricCurrently Reading:
Fiction: Yelena Moscovitch, Virtuoso, still
André Aciman, Call Me By Your Name, which... holy shit. I am reeling.
Lit Mag: Lifted Brow 'Blak Brow' edition, still puttering along
Academic: Nothing
Other non-fiction: A. Revathi, The Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story.
Recently Finished:
Finished vol 2.1 of Emotions: History, Culture, Society, and made some small progress annotating the Chaucer book.
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
You know you're getting old when your YA heroine is making out with a beautiful ageless sorceror and you're like... creepy, my dude, that's creepy.* I liked where this book went with that plot, though.
I just wasn't satisfied with this book overall - I'm dithering between a 3 and a 4, honestly. A lot of great concepts, engaging characters for the most part, and certainly I read the whole thing in one rapid gulp.
It felt rushed, though - like the length and Feels Impact expectations of YA fantasy came at the expense of deep development and tighter plotting. As usual with Bardugo, in short, I feel like she picked the wrong market: this would have made great adult fantasy, and the work required to expand it could have really improved the whole thing.
* Also when you feel the heroine's alright but would be more interesting if she was forty and angsty instead of late teens and naive.
Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Where were these Magic Horse Bonding Books when I was thirteen and in peak need of them?
I love that Our Heroine's has all kinds of magic and socially non-conforming traits, but her true superpower is that of being great at childcare.
View all my reviews
Online fiction:
I read Ha Jin's 'A Tiger Fighter is Hard to Find', which I remember not being all that impressed by when I read it in his collected short stories. I warmed to it a little more as a stand-alone.
Up Next: My aim for this week is to finish either Blak Brow or The Truth About Me, preferably both.
Music Notes:
Bought Bishop Briggs' Church of Scars. Discovered that asking Spotify Mobile to generate a playlist from Dar Williams' February produces many artists I didn't know I needed.
Discovered and am delighted by this:
I've never really found Hozier attractive, much as I love his voice, but this? This is working for me.
Fiction: Yelena Moscovitch, Virtuoso, still
André Aciman, Call Me By Your Name, which... holy shit. I am reeling.
Lit Mag: Lifted Brow 'Blak Brow' edition, still puttering along
Academic: Nothing
Other non-fiction: A. Revathi, The Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story.
Recently Finished:
Finished vol 2.1 of Emotions: History, Culture, Society, and made some small progress annotating the Chaucer book.
Shadow and Bone by Leigh BardugoMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
You know you're getting old when your YA heroine is making out with a beautiful ageless sorceror and you're like... creepy, my dude, that's creepy.* I liked where this book went with that plot, though.
I just wasn't satisfied with this book overall - I'm dithering between a 3 and a 4, honestly. A lot of great concepts, engaging characters for the most part, and certainly I read the whole thing in one rapid gulp.
It felt rushed, though - like the length and Feels Impact expectations of YA fantasy came at the expense of deep development and tighter plotting. As usual with Bardugo, in short, I feel like she picked the wrong market: this would have made great adult fantasy, and the work required to expand it could have really improved the whole thing.
* Also when you feel the heroine's alright but would be more interesting if she was forty and angsty instead of late teens and naive.
Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes LackeyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Where were these Magic Horse Bonding Books when I was thirteen and in peak need of them?
I love that Our Heroine's has all kinds of magic and socially non-conforming traits, but her true superpower is that of being great at childcare.
View all my reviews
Online fiction:
I read Ha Jin's 'A Tiger Fighter is Hard to Find', which I remember not being all that impressed by when I read it in his collected short stories. I warmed to it a little more as a stand-alone.
Up Next: My aim for this week is to finish either Blak Brow or The Truth About Me, preferably both.
Music Notes:
Bought Bishop Briggs' Church of Scars. Discovered that asking Spotify Mobile to generate a playlist from Dar Williams' February produces many artists I didn't know I needed.
Discovered and am delighted by this:
I've never really found Hozier attractive, much as I love his voice, but this? This is working for me.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-27 09:40 pm (UTC)You might enjoy the Green Rider series by Kristen (Kristin?) Britain though I never read past book ... 2? 3? and don't remember those books as well as the first one.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-28 01:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-28 10:53 am (UTC)