![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Reading... Saturday
Jan. 23rd, 2021 01:32 pmJust finished:
Silver Spoon 9-11, Hiromu Arakawa. I will review these when I finish the series (four more to go) but they continue to be a delight. My six year old son picked up volume 4 and read his way through it with determined bemusement; I think reading things beyond your age range is a valuable experience and have given him volume 5, although I have suggested he go back to 1-3 at some point.
The Viscount Who Loved Me, Julia Quinn. Sharp-tongued older sister Kate wants to see her younger sister married well; Anthony Bridgerton, the eldest son & head of the family after his father’s untimely death, believes he will also die early and so is looking for a wife who satisfies his family obligation but whom he will not inconveniently love. This was not all that engaging and the family battles of Pall Mall were not as endearing to me as the author obviously thinks they are.
An Offer From A Gentleman, Julia Quinn. I was going to return the 3 in 1 with this unread, but I was looking for something better than Common Goal, gave the first chapter of this a go and it pulled me in. Sophie is an earl’s bastard, raised in his household but never fully acknowledged; he marries again to a woman with two children who hates her and, after the Earl’s death, forces her to become her maid. One night Sophie sneaks out to a masquerade ball in a borrowed outfit and meets Benedict Bridgerton, only to have to leave him at midnight – yes, it’s all very obvious, but it’s also deeply satisfying. Sophie is a great character, existing in that liminal space between social acceptability and being outcast, and Quinn is setting up quite a few things for her large cast in this story. However, now that Netflix is playing the series, all the library copies are locked up for months. I do have an audio of the next one so will give that a go.
Common Goal, Rachel Reid. Eric is a bi & divorced goal-tender in his 40s who is considering retiring and men, not necessarily in that order; Kyle is a grad student bartender who has a hopeless crush on his soon-to-be married friend but also really likes older men. This was a solid meh. The whole “I will educate you in how to hook up with guys but oh no, feelings” felt way too artifical, the sex itself was boring, and Eric is a bit of a vanilla pudding of a character. Every so often Ilya Rozanov shows up and the whole thing tightens up, but my enthusiasm for the forthcoming Heated Rivalry sequel is tempered by the hints in this book that it may well be kidfic (I’ve read great kidfic (Maldoror’s Kindred, Speranza's With Six You Get Eggroll ) but I’ve read a lot that was totally dire).
Currently reading:
My Dark Vanessa, by Kate Elizabeth Russell. When she was fifteen Vanessa had a sexual relationship with her English teacher, a relationship that she tells herself was love, special and consensual; sixteen years later in the #MeToo age the teacher is accused of sexual abuse by another student, and Vanessa has to re-examine her past. This is brilliantly disturbing writing, grounded and all too believable in every last telling detail.
At my single-sex high school one of the male teachers there had his own special coterie of favourite students; it took twenty years for a complaint to be filed and 25 for him to resign while under investigation. I wasn’t in the coterie, but a friend of mine was, and I was taught by the teacher in question for a year; it’s exhilarating, feeling that an adult recognises how special you are, takes you seriously, treats you as an adult – and it’s a line that blurs very easily when the adult involved wants it that way.
Up next:
I put Vita Nostra aside as My Dark Vanessa was due back sooner, so that, and the rest of Silver Spoon. I am also reading Robin Stevens' Death Sets Sail, the last of the Wells & Wong 1930s schoolgirl detective series, at a glacially slow pace because of MASSIVE SPOILER; hitting the line, "And [X} had two" at the end of one chapter made me too mournful to continue for about a week.
Silver Spoon 9-11, Hiromu Arakawa. I will review these when I finish the series (four more to go) but they continue to be a delight. My six year old son picked up volume 4 and read his way through it with determined bemusement; I think reading things beyond your age range is a valuable experience and have given him volume 5, although I have suggested he go back to 1-3 at some point.
The Viscount Who Loved Me, Julia Quinn. Sharp-tongued older sister Kate wants to see her younger sister married well; Anthony Bridgerton, the eldest son & head of the family after his father’s untimely death, believes he will also die early and so is looking for a wife who satisfies his family obligation but whom he will not inconveniently love. This was not all that engaging and the family battles of Pall Mall were not as endearing to me as the author obviously thinks they are.
An Offer From A Gentleman, Julia Quinn. I was going to return the 3 in 1 with this unread, but I was looking for something better than Common Goal, gave the first chapter of this a go and it pulled me in. Sophie is an earl’s bastard, raised in his household but never fully acknowledged; he marries again to a woman with two children who hates her and, after the Earl’s death, forces her to become her maid. One night Sophie sneaks out to a masquerade ball in a borrowed outfit and meets Benedict Bridgerton, only to have to leave him at midnight – yes, it’s all very obvious, but it’s also deeply satisfying. Sophie is a great character, existing in that liminal space between social acceptability and being outcast, and Quinn is setting up quite a few things for her large cast in this story. However, now that Netflix is playing the series, all the library copies are locked up for months. I do have an audio of the next one so will give that a go.
Common Goal, Rachel Reid. Eric is a bi & divorced goal-tender in his 40s who is considering retiring and men, not necessarily in that order; Kyle is a grad student bartender who has a hopeless crush on his soon-to-be married friend but also really likes older men. This was a solid meh. The whole “I will educate you in how to hook up with guys but oh no, feelings” felt way too artifical, the sex itself was boring, and Eric is a bit of a vanilla pudding of a character. Every so often Ilya Rozanov shows up and the whole thing tightens up, but my enthusiasm for the forthcoming Heated Rivalry sequel is tempered by the hints in this book that it may well be kidfic (I’ve read great kidfic (Maldoror’s Kindred, Speranza's With Six You Get Eggroll ) but I’ve read a lot that was totally dire).
Currently reading:
My Dark Vanessa, by Kate Elizabeth Russell. When she was fifteen Vanessa had a sexual relationship with her English teacher, a relationship that she tells herself was love, special and consensual; sixteen years later in the #MeToo age the teacher is accused of sexual abuse by another student, and Vanessa has to re-examine her past. This is brilliantly disturbing writing, grounded and all too believable in every last telling detail.
At my single-sex high school one of the male teachers there had his own special coterie of favourite students; it took twenty years for a complaint to be filed and 25 for him to resign while under investigation. I wasn’t in the coterie, but a friend of mine was, and I was taught by the teacher in question for a year; it’s exhilarating, feeling that an adult recognises how special you are, takes you seriously, treats you as an adult – and it’s a line that blurs very easily when the adult involved wants it that way.
Up next:
I put Vita Nostra aside as My Dark Vanessa was due back sooner, so that, and the rest of Silver Spoon. I am also reading Robin Stevens' Death Sets Sail, the last of the Wells & Wong 1930s schoolgirl detective series, at a glacially slow pace because of MASSIVE SPOILER; hitting the line, "And [X} had two" at the end of one chapter made me too mournful to continue for about a week.
