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Reading (Saturday)
Jun. 12th, 2021 09:56 pmGood news: my calf has mostly healed, and I've been climbing again three times. Last night I did a grade 16 climb and got a little further up the two 15s I am stuck on. One has an overhang, and while I fully admit I see other people do these all the time I still cannot actually convince my brain that yes, I can do it without automatically falling off. Last night I got over and halfway up before I couldn't find the next hold and my arms gave out. The other is a chimney and I can stand there with one leg on each wall for quite some time, but actually moving upwards gave me massive thigh cramps
Bad news: My elderly laptop's screen got damaged a few weeks back - initially just a black blotch on one corner, but the day before I was going in to buy a replacement the whole screen went. And then it refused to boot to an external screen. And then the Apple people could not get it to copy most of the data over to the new laptop I (belatedly) bought. Much of the old stuff is backed up via Time Machine and external hard drives, but the last couple of months of transient working documents haven't been (unless I've copied them to Google Docs or emailed them to myself, which I do intermittently). I am hoping I can still salvage it but I'm currently at the stage of not wanting to check the old laptop again in case I find out it's definitely gone.
Anyway. Reading (while in a state of suspended denial).
Just finished:
Two Shots Down, TS Joyce. Bullshifter/human romance, blue collar heroes making a living as rodeo bulls. Two Shots, the titular bull, accidentally killed a rider before the start of the book; his widow, Cheyenne, decides to take the job of the bulls' manager, getting them the pay and credit they deserve for their work, and then feelings (and sex) get in the way. Fast and often funny; I liked the characters but wasn't particularly engaged by their romance.
Donkey on the Doorstep, Lucy Daniels. Kids' animal fiction, not a shifter romance. Mandy helps out at her parents' veterinary surgery, but there isn't room there for Dorian, the elderly and stubborn donkey no longer wanted by the rich local family who are selling their daughter's horse to make her focus on tennis. Fortunately Dorian has his own ideas about how to find a home. I have to say that the donkey's name gave me unhelpful From Eroica with Love flashbacks (actually, I did read a great fanfic in which Klaus is transformed into an Alsatian dog) and the format means Mandy is actually more of an observer than a participant at a number of key moments, but it's okay.
Ring Shout, P Djeli Clark. In Georgia, in the 1920s, the Klan are gathering, ridden by demons who use this hate for their own purposes; only a few people can see them, like Maryse, the monster-hunter protagonist driven by her past and instructed by ambiguous, inhuman Aunties. Her group of friends are all great, distinct in personality and dialogue, and the whole novella moves at a rapid, horrifying clip, keeping the reader engaged and off-balance in equal proportions. The butcher as a figure of horror is particularly effective, as is the examination of anger as a double-edged sword.
Shield of Justice, Radclyffe. I found a whole box of Radclyffe books at the yearly Steiner school medieval fair (don't ask) and grabbed a handful, as I've been meaning to read them. First in a series in which driven detective Rebecca Frye is trying to hunt down a serial rapist/murderer, and becomes entangled with psychiatrist Catherine Rawlings, whose scenes always read as if she's being filmed in soft focus. Radclyffe head-hops a lot, and the sex scenes feature an odd number of rigid shafts (there's a bit where Rebecca feels her clitoris "become impossibly larger"), plus a lot of the plot threads are left hanging or unexplained. I have two more in the series that I will probably get around to reading at some stage, and compared with some of the terrible lesbian romances I read in the early 2000s these aren't bad, but they're not great either.
In Progress:
Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, Alexis Hall. I don't love Hall's books the way so many people do; I find his wallowing angsty characters often go too far into cruelty for their forgiveness to feel earned rather than as a result of the other character continuing to be a doormat, and his romances far too syrupy - but they are readable, and I do like his supporting casts. Rosaline is single, bisexual, and the mother of 8 year old Amelie after a teen pregnancy that derailed her original career plans; she goes on a not!GBBO and ends up involved with one (or possibly more) of the contestants. The baking is really well done but the romance is not working for me at all as.a love triangle.
Touching the Void, Joe Simpson. Loved the play, which I watched last week on-line, thought I'd read the book. So far leaving me with the firm desire to keep my climbing indoors.
Three in one St Clares book, Enid Blyton. The first three, I think, although when your first two books in a series are "The Twins at St Clare's" and "The O'Sullivan Twins" possibly either you or your editor should rethink your titling system. Written prior to the better Malory Towers series and also during WWII; it's interesting seeing Blyton trying out the boarding school story form, especially as she also produced the Naughtiest Girl series around the same time (which is set at a progressive co-ed school that owes a lot to AS Neill's Summerhill)
Up next:
I have a bunch of ebooks out from the library that I really should read, including Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life, about which I have heard much (mainly as a terribly overdone h/c fest, but I thought I'd take a look).
Bad news: My elderly laptop's screen got damaged a few weeks back - initially just a black blotch on one corner, but the day before I was going in to buy a replacement the whole screen went. And then it refused to boot to an external screen. And then the Apple people could not get it to copy most of the data over to the new laptop I (belatedly) bought. Much of the old stuff is backed up via Time Machine and external hard drives, but the last couple of months of transient working documents haven't been (unless I've copied them to Google Docs or emailed them to myself, which I do intermittently). I am hoping I can still salvage it but I'm currently at the stage of not wanting to check the old laptop again in case I find out it's definitely gone.
Anyway. Reading (while in a state of suspended denial).
Just finished:
Two Shots Down, TS Joyce. Bullshifter/human romance, blue collar heroes making a living as rodeo bulls. Two Shots, the titular bull, accidentally killed a rider before the start of the book; his widow, Cheyenne, decides to take the job of the bulls' manager, getting them the pay and credit they deserve for their work, and then feelings (and sex) get in the way. Fast and often funny; I liked the characters but wasn't particularly engaged by their romance.
Donkey on the Doorstep, Lucy Daniels. Kids' animal fiction, not a shifter romance. Mandy helps out at her parents' veterinary surgery, but there isn't room there for Dorian, the elderly and stubborn donkey no longer wanted by the rich local family who are selling their daughter's horse to make her focus on tennis. Fortunately Dorian has his own ideas about how to find a home. I have to say that the donkey's name gave me unhelpful From Eroica with Love flashbacks (actually, I did read a great fanfic in which Klaus is transformed into an Alsatian dog) and the format means Mandy is actually more of an observer than a participant at a number of key moments, but it's okay.
Ring Shout, P Djeli Clark. In Georgia, in the 1920s, the Klan are gathering, ridden by demons who use this hate for their own purposes; only a few people can see them, like Maryse, the monster-hunter protagonist driven by her past and instructed by ambiguous, inhuman Aunties. Her group of friends are all great, distinct in personality and dialogue, and the whole novella moves at a rapid, horrifying clip, keeping the reader engaged and off-balance in equal proportions. The butcher as a figure of horror is particularly effective, as is the examination of anger as a double-edged sword.
Shield of Justice, Radclyffe. I found a whole box of Radclyffe books at the yearly Steiner school medieval fair (don't ask) and grabbed a handful, as I've been meaning to read them. First in a series in which driven detective Rebecca Frye is trying to hunt down a serial rapist/murderer, and becomes entangled with psychiatrist Catherine Rawlings, whose scenes always read as if she's being filmed in soft focus. Radclyffe head-hops a lot, and the sex scenes feature an odd number of rigid shafts (there's a bit where Rebecca feels her clitoris "become impossibly larger"), plus a lot of the plot threads are left hanging or unexplained. I have two more in the series that I will probably get around to reading at some stage, and compared with some of the terrible lesbian romances I read in the early 2000s these aren't bad, but they're not great either.
In Progress:
Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, Alexis Hall. I don't love Hall's books the way so many people do; I find his wallowing angsty characters often go too far into cruelty for their forgiveness to feel earned rather than as a result of the other character continuing to be a doormat, and his romances far too syrupy - but they are readable, and I do like his supporting casts. Rosaline is single, bisexual, and the mother of 8 year old Amelie after a teen pregnancy that derailed her original career plans; she goes on a not!GBBO and ends up involved with one (or possibly more) of the contestants. The baking is really well done but the romance is not working for me at all as.a love triangle.
Touching the Void, Joe Simpson. Loved the play, which I watched last week on-line, thought I'd read the book. So far leaving me with the firm desire to keep my climbing indoors.
Three in one St Clares book, Enid Blyton. The first three, I think, although when your first two books in a series are "The Twins at St Clare's" and "The O'Sullivan Twins" possibly either you or your editor should rethink your titling system. Written prior to the better Malory Towers series and also during WWII; it's interesting seeing Blyton trying out the boarding school story form, especially as she also produced the Naughtiest Girl series around the same time (which is set at a progressive co-ed school that owes a lot to AS Neill's Summerhill)
Up next:
I have a bunch of ebooks out from the library that I really should read, including Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life, about which I have heard much (mainly as a terribly overdone h/c fest, but I thought I'd take a look).
