Reading Thursday
Jul. 29th, 2021 01:04 pmI bought an Olympic TV pass to our cable network and thus am currently watching vast amounts of Olympics - all the sports that I never see any other time (gymnastics, diving, archery, cycling, etc etc) and NZers in anything that's not soccer or rugby. Grace Prendergast and Kerri Gowler just won Aotearoa New Zealand's first gold medal, for women's pair rowing, and although obviously I would rather not have a pandemic be the reason for it, it is lovely that they get to put the medals on each other.
Finished:
Rosalind Palmer Takes the Cake, Alexis Hall. I thought this was competent while not really engaging me. The initial love interest is so obviously hideous and the end-game one is another of Hall’s heart of gold working class types, and although the challenges and baking competition were well thought out I didn’t end up craving anything in particular. I did like having a bisexual heroine though.
The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read, Philippa Perry. I read the first half of this ages ago and finally got it back via the library ebook app. It’s good about treating children as individuals; it does not really consider that parents might, possibly, have more than one child and that these children might have incompatible needs and wants.
Requiem for a Wren, Nevil Shute. If you happen to be feeling particularly cheerful and want to correct that, why not this book? Alan, a ex WWII pilot who lost both his feet in a crash, returning to the family sheep station in Australia to discover that his mother’s maid/companion Jessie has just committed suicide; when he investigates, he finds out that under her birth name of Janet she was a former Royal Navy Wren, his (now dead) brother’s fiancée, and the woman he himself has been obsessively looking for for years. There is then a long flashback war sequence in which everyone Janet loves or gets close to dies, usually in a way that allows Janet to blame herself for it. Tender-hearted readers should note that this most definitely includes the dog. Shute then plasters an extremely unlikely upbeat ending on this that did not convince me at all, as I don’t think it could possibly work without extensive therapy. Did leave me thinking that it must be about time to re-read A Town Like Alice, which I do like and remember as more upbeat, although possibly that’s in comparison to On The Beach.
The Buddha in the Attic, Julia Otsuka. I haven’t read a lot of first person plural narratives (I’m sure there are some Le Guin short stories? Daryl Gregory’s We Are All Completely Fine, or at least bits of?). This one works really well, because it’s about a group of people - Japanese mail-order (picture) brides - who came to the US in the interwar period, and tells their stories under themed headings (e.g. “Come, Japanese!”, “First Night”, “Babies”, Traitors”, “Last Day”) that take the women from arrival through to WWII, when they are all sent to internment camps. At that point the narrative leaves the women and instead does focuses on the causally curious or uncaring responses of the (predominantly white) neighbours left behind. This last bit is quietly horrifying in a way that reminds me of Shirley Jackson; the rest of it is poetic, evocative and compelling.
Tiger Daughter, Rebecca Lim. Wen Zhou is the only child of two Chinese immigrants to Australia; her father is a doctor who could not pass the Australian medical exams, and so now manages a restaurant and deals with his guilt and shame by channeling them into a ferocious rage. Subsequently Wen and her mother lead impoverished, limited, controlled lives; but Wen is fighting back. She and her school friend Henry Xiao, also the child of immigrants, dream of getting into a selective high school via an exam. Then Henry’s mother commits suicide, and everything falls apart; but maybe there can be something new created from the wreckage. I liked this a lot; it’s a heartfelt, caring book, and it shows how people’s exteriors may differ greatly from their interiors.
Enemies to Lovers, Aster Glenn Gray Megan, a grad student and h/c stoic woobie fanfic writer for the not-at-all-based on Bucky fictional TV series Paranoid, goes to a mixer and discovers that Sarah, in her writing club, is not only hot but also a fan of ParanoidStarlight, disapproving of her traumatised assassin who can no longer use a fork interpretation and referring to it and other p]fics like it as “the cancer that was killing fandom”. Obviously a relationship between them is impossible! Fortunately they are then handcuffed together as a writing exercise and in short order work through hot banter and fandom clichés with equal alacrity. It’s fun, fast, and very, very fannish. Very enjoyable. I was particularly taken with the bit when they end up in Megan’s room and find her Mishka plushie (“He doesn’t usually sleep on my bed,” [Megan] said, still a little defensive […] “Well of course not. We know that at brainwashed assassin school they taught him to sleep on the floor like a dog.”). As per![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
china_shop I would like the occasional story about fans who’ve made it out of high school/college as well, but this did work for me much better than Ship It or Fangirl, and was 100% less het than Spoiler Alert.
Search for a Song, Elfrida Vipont. American visiting the Lake District wants to find a folksong; local family help him track it down. Nice atmosphere, especially the wintery bits, family a bit too smug for me, but very readable.
Straight, Dick Francis. I read this afterskygiants posted her review and I realised it was one of my unread ones (I exist in a state of tension between wanting to read them ALL and not wanting there to be any I haven’t read). Jockey inherits his brother’s gemstone importation and sales business, and along with that a number of people who want to kill him, his brother’s mistress who is dealing with her grief, interesting staff, and a drawer full of mysterious gadgets. It’s a bit like Reflex with gadgets instead of photographic oddities, although the passage of time means that the gadgets (especially the mini computer) feel a bit less entrancing than they would have at the time. The support characters are all particularly strong.
In progress:
Elatsoe, by Darcy Little Badger. In a contemporary America filled with traditional magics and the supernatural, Elatsoe, whose family bloodline gives her the power to raise the spirits of dead animals, tries to track down the killers of her beloved cousin. This has a great ghost dog but hasn’t quite grabbed me yet.
Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe, Preston Norton. Hefty loser Cliff is nicknamed Neanderthal at high school, a place that has only gotten more unpleasant for him since his older brother’s suicide. Then the cool high school quarterback Aaron has a near-death experience and returns with a list of things he must do and the belief that God wants Cliff to help him. I can no longer remember where I got this recced from and so I am wondering whether or not Aaron & Cliff end up together, which is keeping me going even though I am seriously burned out on US high school drama.
I have also re-read KJ Charles’ A Case of Possession and Flight of Magpies, and Noel Streatfeild’s White Boots. All still good, although I’d forgotten how abruptly White Boots ends.
Up next:
I have Double Life by Alan Shayne & Norman Sunshine, a dual memoir by a gay Hollywood couple with a longstanding relationship. Mary Jane, by Jessica Anya Blau (girl from uptight family gets summer job at local doctor’s house, only to find they are hiding a famous rock star and movie star couple), Unsheltered by Clare Moleta (appears to be dystopia with woman searching for her daughter), and I have been bouncing around trying to find some new m/m that grabs me and failing (so far).
Video Games:
I am playing Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword on the Switch! Initially the motion controls were giving me flashbacks to Twilight Princess, where I struggled massively with them on the Wii and did things like spend two hours rounding up goats while on horseback, but I am getting slowly better and it’s intriguing; I do miss the open-world aspects of BoTW, but this is much more puzzle-based and has some really neat gimmicks, like the beetle. I also like the fact that Zelda is doing the whole thing ahead of me and is much, much faster.
I got a trial membership to Apple Arcade with my new laptop and have tried out a few games. Assemble with Care is by ustwo, who did Monument Valley; you’re Maria, an antique restorer-fixer who arrives in a small town, fixes things for the locals and learns about them; Possessions is a game by an Indian developer where you have to reconstruct objects by shifting the camera, and in doing so slowly unlock the story of a family. I like both and would recommend them but am not desperate to replay; the puzzles are a little too easy and the stories are similarly predictable. I’ve started Fantasian (from Hironobu Sakaguchi & Nobuo Uematsu, who worked on the Final Fantasy series, and it looks amazing (they built miniatures for the locations) but the story isn’t as good and I may just wait until part 2 is out. I also have Over the Alps, which is a bit like 80 Days as a 1930s spy thriller but more pictorial; haven’t yet finished a game.
Finished:
Rosalind Palmer Takes the Cake, Alexis Hall. I thought this was competent while not really engaging me. The initial love interest is so obviously hideous and the end-game one is another of Hall’s heart of gold working class types, and although the challenges and baking competition were well thought out I didn’t end up craving anything in particular. I did like having a bisexual heroine though.
The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read, Philippa Perry. I read the first half of this ages ago and finally got it back via the library ebook app. It’s good about treating children as individuals; it does not really consider that parents might, possibly, have more than one child and that these children might have incompatible needs and wants.
Requiem for a Wren, Nevil Shute. If you happen to be feeling particularly cheerful and want to correct that, why not this book? Alan, a ex WWII pilot who lost both his feet in a crash, returning to the family sheep station in Australia to discover that his mother’s maid/companion Jessie has just committed suicide; when he investigates, he finds out that under her birth name of Janet she was a former Royal Navy Wren, his (now dead) brother’s fiancée, and the woman he himself has been obsessively looking for for years. There is then a long flashback war sequence in which everyone Janet loves or gets close to dies, usually in a way that allows Janet to blame herself for it. Tender-hearted readers should note that this most definitely includes the dog. Shute then plasters an extremely unlikely upbeat ending on this that did not convince me at all, as I don’t think it could possibly work without extensive therapy. Did leave me thinking that it must be about time to re-read A Town Like Alice, which I do like and remember as more upbeat, although possibly that’s in comparison to On The Beach.
The Buddha in the Attic, Julia Otsuka. I haven’t read a lot of first person plural narratives (I’m sure there are some Le Guin short stories? Daryl Gregory’s We Are All Completely Fine, or at least bits of?). This one works really well, because it’s about a group of people - Japanese mail-order (picture) brides - who came to the US in the interwar period, and tells their stories under themed headings (e.g. “Come, Japanese!”, “First Night”, “Babies”, Traitors”, “Last Day”) that take the women from arrival through to WWII, when they are all sent to internment camps. At that point the narrative leaves the women and instead does focuses on the causally curious or uncaring responses of the (predominantly white) neighbours left behind. This last bit is quietly horrifying in a way that reminds me of Shirley Jackson; the rest of it is poetic, evocative and compelling.
Tiger Daughter, Rebecca Lim. Wen Zhou is the only child of two Chinese immigrants to Australia; her father is a doctor who could not pass the Australian medical exams, and so now manages a restaurant and deals with his guilt and shame by channeling them into a ferocious rage. Subsequently Wen and her mother lead impoverished, limited, controlled lives; but Wen is fighting back. She and her school friend Henry Xiao, also the child of immigrants, dream of getting into a selective high school via an exam. Then Henry’s mother commits suicide, and everything falls apart; but maybe there can be something new created from the wreckage. I liked this a lot; it’s a heartfelt, caring book, and it shows how people’s exteriors may differ greatly from their interiors.
Enemies to Lovers, Aster Glenn Gray Megan, a grad student and h/c stoic woobie fanfic writer for the not-at-all-based on Bucky fictional TV series Paranoid, goes to a mixer and discovers that Sarah, in her writing club, is not only hot but also a fan of ParanoidStarlight, disapproving of her traumatised assassin who can no longer use a fork interpretation and referring to it and other p]fics like it as “the cancer that was killing fandom”. Obviously a relationship between them is impossible! Fortunately they are then handcuffed together as a writing exercise and in short order work through hot banter and fandom clichés with equal alacrity. It’s fun, fast, and very, very fannish. Very enjoyable. I was particularly taken with the bit when they end up in Megan’s room and find her Mishka plushie (“He doesn’t usually sleep on my bed,” [Megan] said, still a little defensive […] “Well of course not. We know that at brainwashed assassin school they taught him to sleep on the floor like a dog.”). As per
china_shop I would like the occasional story about fans who’ve made it out of high school/college as well, but this did work for me much better than Ship It or Fangirl, and was 100% less het than Spoiler Alert.Search for a Song, Elfrida Vipont. American visiting the Lake District wants to find a folksong; local family help him track it down. Nice atmosphere, especially the wintery bits, family a bit too smug for me, but very readable.
Straight, Dick Francis. I read this after
skygiants posted her review and I realised it was one of my unread ones (I exist in a state of tension between wanting to read them ALL and not wanting there to be any I haven’t read). Jockey inherits his brother’s gemstone importation and sales business, and along with that a number of people who want to kill him, his brother’s mistress who is dealing with her grief, interesting staff, and a drawer full of mysterious gadgets. It’s a bit like Reflex with gadgets instead of photographic oddities, although the passage of time means that the gadgets (especially the mini computer) feel a bit less entrancing than they would have at the time. The support characters are all particularly strong.In progress:
Elatsoe, by Darcy Little Badger. In a contemporary America filled with traditional magics and the supernatural, Elatsoe, whose family bloodline gives her the power to raise the spirits of dead animals, tries to track down the killers of her beloved cousin. This has a great ghost dog but hasn’t quite grabbed me yet.
Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe, Preston Norton. Hefty loser Cliff is nicknamed Neanderthal at high school, a place that has only gotten more unpleasant for him since his older brother’s suicide. Then the cool high school quarterback Aaron has a near-death experience and returns with a list of things he must do and the belief that God wants Cliff to help him. I can no longer remember where I got this recced from and so I am wondering whether or not Aaron & Cliff end up together, which is keeping me going even though I am seriously burned out on US high school drama.
I have also re-read KJ Charles’ A Case of Possession and Flight of Magpies, and Noel Streatfeild’s White Boots. All still good, although I’d forgotten how abruptly White Boots ends.
Up next:
I have Double Life by Alan Shayne & Norman Sunshine, a dual memoir by a gay Hollywood couple with a longstanding relationship. Mary Jane, by Jessica Anya Blau (girl from uptight family gets summer job at local doctor’s house, only to find they are hiding a famous rock star and movie star couple), Unsheltered by Clare Moleta (appears to be dystopia with woman searching for her daughter), and I have been bouncing around trying to find some new m/m that grabs me and failing (so far).
Video Games:
I am playing Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword on the Switch! Initially the motion controls were giving me flashbacks to Twilight Princess, where I struggled massively with them on the Wii and did things like spend two hours rounding up goats while on horseback, but I am getting slowly better and it’s intriguing; I do miss the open-world aspects of BoTW, but this is much more puzzle-based and has some really neat gimmicks, like the beetle. I also like the fact that Zelda is doing the whole thing ahead of me and is much, much faster.
I got a trial membership to Apple Arcade with my new laptop and have tried out a few games. Assemble with Care is by ustwo, who did Monument Valley; you’re Maria, an antique restorer-fixer who arrives in a small town, fixes things for the locals and learns about them; Possessions is a game by an Indian developer where you have to reconstruct objects by shifting the camera, and in doing so slowly unlock the story of a family. I like both and would recommend them but am not desperate to replay; the puzzles are a little too easy and the stories are similarly predictable. I’ve started Fantasian (from Hironobu Sakaguchi & Nobuo Uematsu, who worked on the Final Fantasy series, and it looks amazing (they built miniatures for the locations) but the story isn’t as good and I may just wait until part 2 is out. I also have Over the Alps, which is a bit like 80 Days as a 1930s spy thriller but more pictorial; haven’t yet finished a game.
