cyphomandra

I've had my first COVID swab, which was a) mildly unpleasant and b) negative, but am still feeling a bit flattened by the fever that warranted the swab, plus I had to stay home until I had the results.

Just finished:

Boy Shattered, Eli Easton
Three Hours, Rosamund Lupton

A back-to-back pair about school shootings. In Boy Shattered, Brian is a popular closeted quarterback who is seriously injured when two masked men kill 42 people at his school and escape without trace. In the aftermath, Brian turns to Landon, who helped him during the shootings, is out as gay and now determined to campaign for gun control with students from other affected schools. Brian, however, is trying to find the shooters while dealing with his father, a QAnon follower who thinks the whole thing was staged by the military.

Three Hours, in contrast, is UK rather than US, and - as the title suggests - follows the incident from the first shot to final resolution, moving between schoolchildren and teachers caught by the gunmen and those outside; police, parents, relatives. Two of the main protagonists are Syrian refugees, brothers; as events turn, it becomes apparent that the school’s decision to take them has made them a target.

Three Hours is the more literary one; it’s better written and it deals well with a lot of issues. But I guessed every single one of its twists, whereas in Boy Shattered I missed one of the main two (and it was fair), and in addition there’s a big difference that I can’t talk about without spoilers.
( “SPOILERS )

I do recommend both. Three Hours is tense and will make you think; Boy Shattered will show you how people can start to put themselves back together after terrible tragedy. I would recommend both but I’m more likely to re-read the latter.


Song of the Spring Moon Waning, EE Ottoman.

Wen Yu is studying intently for his imminent exams when a mysterious note arrives, asking him to return a sick song thrush that he has never received; when Wen Yu investigates, he finds Liu Yi, a beautiful eunuch, who possesses a collection of mysterious moon poems that Wen Yu may be able to translate, and thus solve a fairy tale that left its own protagonists cruelly separated. This is more of a mood than a story - it’s nicely told and atmospheric, but not really interested in solving the fairy tale or explaining details like what actually happened to the thrush (I believe a sequel was intended). The romance between Wen Yu (who is transmasculine; possibly intersex, but it’s also said that his father, lacking any sons at birth, insisted one daughter be raised as male) and Liu Yi is sweet and careful.

Have also finished book for beta and the stories in His Magical Pet that aren’t mine, and enjoyed both! Will post about both Magical Pet collections when I’ve finished.

Currently reading:

I am really enjoying Olivia Dade’s Spoiler Alert, which is fanfic wish-fulfilment (of the m/f variety) and is also just really fun. April is a fat geologist who has spent more than enough time letting other people tell her what she should do and who seizes the opportunity of a new job (and move) to actually make public the things that she cares about, which are writing fic (mainly fluffy modern AUs) and cosplaying for Gods of the Gates, a Game of Thrones-esque series (very) loosely based on the Aeneid, and featuring Marcus Caster-Rupp, a devastatingly attractive but cheerfully dim actor as Aeneas - who is also hiding his true self, a shy dyslexic who adopted a persona to deal with his academic parents’ disappointment, and who writes angsty canon-based non-explicit fics to deal with his inner annoyance at the showrunners completely wrecking everyone’s character arcs.

April and Marcus have been betaing for each other for at least a year when the book starts, which is just after the final series wraps (but has not yet been shown). Both have thought about meeting up, but haven’t; what brings them into contact is April tweeting a pic of herself cosplaying, and a fanboy troll tagging Marcus in to mock her, which makes Marcus ask her out on a date.

I am very fond of character who pretends to be dim but has hidden depths, and this is a really nice example, with the fandom references a neat cherry on the top (there are AO3 fics inserted and everything). I do find it a bit odd that no-one’s mentioned slash, despite Marcus’s attractive male co-actor and friend (who even plays Cupid!). I am also tickled by the extracts from Marcus’ terrible past oeuvre, for example his role (roll) in 1 Wheel, 2 Real, where his character joins a unicycle gang on the mean streets of Portland but is brought back into the fold by a pink-haired quirky girl literally called Pixie. Also, I really liked the moment where April is talking to her new coworkers at a sushi bar about their science folk band and her costume abilities, and one of the women says to her wife & co-worker, “Mel, darling, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” and Mel says that actually she’s thinking about how we decide which species we will and won’t consume eggs from, and why. Because I am always fond of books that recognise that, just possibly, the minor characters might have their own stories, and not only be there to reflect the leads.

I am not actually listing all of the other things I am currently reading because it’s a bit out of control, so this is what I’m prepared to own up to. I stuck Endell Street in a bag and so haven’t finished that, nor have I given the library any money so at least I haven’t been able to borrow anything new.

Having physical overdues has no effect on the ebook app, though, where I am reading Layla Reyne’s Dine with Me, m/m romance in which a chef who doesn’t want treatment for his cancer because he is scared it will destroy his sense of taste takes a plastic surgeon who really wants to do oncology on a food tour of the US. The food is fantastic (they visit actual places) and I like the chef, but the surgeon has not quite managed a third dimension and I’m unconvinced by his dilemma of “my incredibly supportive family think I want to do plastic surgery with my dad so of course I could never disappoint them, or even do two things.” I am also about 1/3rd of the way through Marie Brennan’s Writing Fight Scenes and 17% through Agnes Gomillion’s The Record Keeper, YA race-based dystopia. On Kindle in addition to Spoiler Alert I’m reading two m/m romances, The Silver Cage (tortured writer and video gamer/freelance journalist are supposed to produce a New Yorker profile together; there’s a lot of damage here but it’s compelling) and Saving the Senator’s Son, which has a bodyguard falling for the closeted son of a right-wing evangelical senator who (the son) is receiving death threats; they’ve just hooked up and all the tension has totally drained out of the novel for me, because instead of “this is totally inappropriate” the bodyguard has gone straight to “this is the real thing and would you like to come meet my family”?

Up next:

I should really not add anything new to this list. Oh, wait. Possibly something Yuletide-relevant.