Mum's Banana Hotcakes

(I've tried a few times this year to reverse-engineer this recipe from a basic pancake, and failed)

Makes 24

3 eggs
2 tsp honey
1/2 cup water
3 mashed bananas
1/4 cup SR flour
Dash extra baking soda
2 tbsp melted butter

Beat eggs, honey and water together. Mix in bananas, stir in flour and mix until blended. Cook as for regular pancakes.

Book Reviews catch-up post

It's been something like six weeks since I did a WAYRW. Here, some reviews. Mostly short, because time has passed.

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I. loved. this. book. All the things I loved about the first book in the duology, plus some really solid character development work.



The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I read this one for a seminar I was auditing (thus the 'fiction-for-fun' tag is not entirely accurate). It was really, really good - particularly notable, I thought, for the well-written but not voyeuristic rape scene(s). I was very impressed with the links made between the father's early experience of consent violation himself and his later abuse of others, and the delicacy with which Morrison balanced that. Her afterword suggests she now would have done some of those things differently, but I'm impressed all the same.



The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was a fun read! It was much stronger on the frame plot and weaker on the embedded narratives than I'd expected, but I enjoyed the characterisation and delicate interplay. I'm a bit iffy about the lead romance, but I suppose as someone who read the entire Captive Prince trilogy in 48 hours I can hardly talk.



The Best Australian Poems 2015 by Geoff Page

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It's probably not that this collection was less memorable than its predecessors, but merely that I wasn't in a poetry-remembering mood for the second half of the year.



The Butch and the Beautiful by Kris Ripper

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I read this one on the plane, and it fulfilled my plane reading requirements. I *loved* the subplots involving Jaq's teaching work. However, I don't think the main romance plot was sufficiently developed - the couple essentially only had one misunderstanding to overcome, and the majority of tension was derived from a fact about Jaq that was told, not shown (she shies away from commitment), and her angst about that. More of an up-and-down pattern in the main relationship would have strengthened it, I feel - eg, if they had had some sort of early demi-crisis on the theme of the Main Crisis, the stakes would be higher.



The Queer and the Restless by Kris Ripper

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This one was better developed in terms of romance plot structure - there were early hiccups in the lead relationship, and a mini-version of the main crisis. The integration of the romance plot with the secondary plot was stronger, here, than in The Butch and the Beautiful, as it's the secondary plot that's causing Ed to behave unconstructively in his relationship. HOWEVER. The secondary plot was left hanging, and the novel integrated detective tropes so well that that was unsatisfactory. Plus, although obsession with murders isn't great, I think I have to come down on 'team ambition' rather than team 'quit your job and go on adventures'.

'Go on adventures in your statutory paid vacation time' doesn't seem to be an option, in America. Seriously, this guy had had his job for two years and hadn't taken any time off? WTF.



The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was a present from friend R, who knows me well. I opened it in Geneva, so as not to have to carry it to Aus, and then promptly realised I needed to carry it home to share with Dad.

It's good. It's classic Gaiman, the illustrations are gorgeous. I was a leetle disappointed around about 2/3 of the way in when I thought it was going to give me lesbians, but I think I prefer the weird twisty version. I suppose weird and twisty with lesbians would be better still, but there was enough unmarked eroticism in what we got to please me anyway.



Nurk: The Strange, Surprising Adventures of a (Somewhat) Brave Shrew by Ursula Vernon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This I got for my little sister for Christmas and it is VERY GOOD and I want to give copies to EVERYONE I KNOW at once. It's pretty obviously indebted to The Hobbit, but in a good way. I think the thing I loved best about it was the neat utilisation of all the apparently-extraneous details. Bilbo Baggins' pocket handkerchief is a sign of his fussy ways, but not actually a plot device; Nurk's clean socks ARE plot devices. Very little was mentioned in this book, other than in Grandmother Surka's journals, that didn't tie back to something else later on.