Recent Reads

[firstroad]

I'm, like, 80% done with a bunch of other books because I was reading all of them together instead of one-by-one, but it's better to split posts I suppose.

Blue by Emmelie Prophète, translated by Tina Kover
Airports as distillation, inheritance & the denial of it, poverty, incredible in the way it is reflective. Lots of people disliked it but I loved it!!!

I’ve never gone to see the coffee of your mountains. I’ve never taken the time to listen to the music of your rivers. Never absorbed your childhood myths. I am an absolute stranger. A poor inheritor of your beauty.

Authority by Jeff VanderMeer

Yes I read this without having read Annihilation. I usually don't care about which book in a series I read first, but in this case I definitely did feel like I'd "get it" better if I'd started properly. (Like, based on vibes, because from what I saw it's a different character focus?) I should probably read the whole trilogy properly sometime.

Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader by Lester Bangs, edited by John Morthland

See, a man who gets being a man. You get to be mean and say stuff and people won't bite you for it and yet 90% of the men out there try to dress their BS under some veil of 'objectivity' or whatever. Mister Bangs just... says stuff. He opens his mouth (grabs his pen) and just blah blah blahs. Good job, dude! I loved this, but it was very much not a page-turner or anything. It took me like... over a month?

(I saw in some reviews that Bangs' quality depends a lot on his editor, but as someone very much not in the know when it comes to music critics, I was just having fun.)

The Saviours of God by Nikos Kazantzakis
A reread because I've been in an extreme reading slump.

1. THE CRY IS not yours. It is not you talking, but innumerable ancestors talking with your mouth. It is not you who desire, but innumerable generations of descendants longing with your heart.
11. IT IS NOT enough to hear the tumult of ancestors within you. It is not enough to feel them battling at the threshold of your mind. All rush to clutch your warm brain and to climb once more into the light of day.

12. But you must choose with care whom to hurl down again into the chasms of your blood, and whom you shall permit to mount once more into the light and the earth.

Is it my fave thing? Nope. Do I think he's all that good at nonfiction? Nope. Am I going to reread this every few years all my life? You bet!

Love responsibility. Say: It is my duty, and mine alone, to save the earth. If it is not saved, then I alone am to blame.

Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen

The first half was okay, but not really all that gripping. I do appreciate what the author made use of (stereotypes, Ava's talking to the detective taking up the one POV of the book which made for interesting narration, a slight but not out-there plot twist that made this all the more fun), but it was just too held down by the American Dream. Ha ha Winnie wants to defeat Americans at their own game ha ha we are all eagerly clinking glasses and supporting her or whatever... Personally, even as it tried to be somewhat critical, it was in the most boring, most unimaginative, most not-drawing-attention-to-views way possible.

Overall fun! The latter half was very easily read.

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Ummm okay slightly meaner than warranted review ahead, because objectively this is a well written book. Nothing the book did was wrong exactly. I recognise that. I even got offended seeing some low-rated reviews on Goodreads (it's all 'I was confused' like oh my god here's a lollipop. stop being a baby. get some patience. (I say as the most impatient person on earth)). HOWEVER: I thought the issue I had with this series was the tone and, good news, it was! Except as I found out through reading this book, which has a tone I much prefer for a good part of it, I also really hate the world. This is science fiction, where's the SCIENCE! The descriptions of all the different parts of the body were the best parts of it and the only thing that makes me want to forgive the necromancing, because it is otherwise utterly boring. It doesn't lean hard enough on either the scifi or fantasy side and it just leaves me sitting there like.... Okay.... Different houses.... I do not care. Also, my God, why is every name so tryhard. Like every single name.

My other issue was the lack of Gideon. Which is my fault because I dropped the first book before finishing LOL but what is the POINT of a work with no aggressive characters :/ where are my brutish people :/ anyway TLDR I would have liked this series if it was only Gideon as a protagonist but with the tone of this book (Gideon you are not funny. stop trying to be funny.) (she is a little funnier in this book but it might just be because it's not constant and tryhard) and more science-y. Also if there was no necromancer-cavalier thing or any other kind of role duo, those always make me fall asleep. So basically I'd have liked this series if it was a completely different series. Happy for all the people this works for but lord it is not for me

I did get #got by the twist and that point onwards I was enjoying the experience though so watch me continue onto the next book teeth clenched. I also feel extremely annoyed by other people who didn't like it because you guys are hating on it for all the wrong reasons!!!

How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

Finally a novel about #ImportantThings that doesn't hit you over the head every 3 pages by being like HEY I'M ABOUT IMPORTANT THINGS. I'd have preferred it as a novella and also since it wanted to be somewhat fable-like it should've had a different writing style. A little tedious to get through at times but I rated it 4/5 so it still wins I guess!!








I have not been having a great reading time :(

Comments

[meikuree]

still stuck in a clump of IRL business, sorry, but I happened across this and I gotta admit I cry laughed at 'I've been in an extreme reading slump' because you seem like you read more in your 'slumps' than I do in a few months (not a criticism just! I think you're more prolific than you think <3)

also HtN and casual tlt normie fan here but it's genuinely refreshing to read your review and I appreciate all your commentary - TLT is ostensibly spec fic but you're right, worldbuilding fans are going to have a bad time with it because tazmuir doesn't give a lot of meat to chew in that department. and your review made me reflect on how I don't really like HtN for all the common reasons people cite (non-exhaustive list off the top of my head: gideon/harrow's 'love story'; the memes; dad jokes; groundbreaking lesbian and queer rep). I like it for reasons like atmosphere, the pretty unique and focalised f/f dynamics and what imo is the strokes of a story in the margins about grief. TLT has spawned a lot of interesting ideas and commentary but like all ... 'classics' or popular texts, it suffers from the problem where the source text itself, when you return to it, will probably feel underwhelming against its wider reputation and the adulation people have heaped upon it.

which is a rambly way to say, I'd love to chat and get your thoughts when I'm back for real, haha :D

[firstroad]

Ahhhh when you're freer and feel like it feel free to drop a message!! :D

YES the unique F/F and the atmosphere were the absolute best parts of this! I was also impressed by how different the prose was compared to the first book - from word choice to overall density. I loved how in the beginning it just carries you along and you're not fully sure what's real and what isn't and you're also left wondering why the heck is there a POV shift when we're following the same character? Surely a small time difference doesn't warrant moving from third to second person and back? This all was done so well, and that's what made me all the more personification-of-the-angry-emoji... Because as much as I cared for the characters and dynamics I just didn't care for the world! Like oh, you're a lyctor? Just unbe. What is a House and a Tomb. Go build a shack up the mountain please. :P

(If I'm being serious about the world stuff for a second: I was mostly disappointed because I expected more. For the first book it made sense, Gideon as a POV character is not exactly a knowledge-for-knowledge's sake hoarder and the setting limiting itself to the trials did not offer much either. But for HtN, given Harrow's higher position, I expected her to have a wide-ranging education and therefore to know more, especially since as a world-in-general it seems to have taken the age old science vs. religion debate and fused it into one thing.) (Instead I just left feeling like so much of the current worldbuilding hinges on the reader 1) caring for loyalty kink (which I don't), 2) caring for the fact that some big characters represent XYZ house or other part (which, again, I don't), and just in general being very narrowly focused. Small cultural details, how the economy works, what's the environment & weather in each place like... You're in space, where's the focus on flora and fauna! It all feels very brushed over.)

I also did really like the Gideon/Harrow 'love story'! I wasn't expecting to and I had actually not seen much of them (since my TLT exposure is mostly through seeing it pop up in exchanges, and Gideon/Harrow doesn't seem to appear much?) so I'm happy I went in with no expectations. But the memes... Oh my God, the memes. If I never have to see another humourous meme-y line in these books it'll be too soon.

I'll love to go see all the commentary once I'm done with NtN! Which I've already started :P Hopefully it won't take me as long to finish as HtN did, and I'll be getting back to you on whether I think the original text suffers from the commentary :D I think, objectively, conceptually, these are pretty great books - multiple very different female characters that don't feel like they're there to be like #GirlbossSlay, the ability for the writing to both be very light at times and very mature in other parts, the very fun emotional repression and other deep sadness that doesn't feel like it's put there to inspire "aw poor baby" feelings in the reader, the fact that it actually trusts the reader(!) and doesn't sit you down to spoonfeed you every tiny part. But petulantly I want them to cater to what I enjoy! And fealty with memes is not it!!!

(This got too long :P But hey, if nothing else the fact that it definitely inspired the most feelings makes it a good book?)