Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 90

So About The Last Graduate . . .

I just finished Naomi Novik’s sequel to A Deadly Education, and I have thoughts, but they are not organized. So in no particular order, just off the top of my head as I close the book . . .

SPOILERS BELOW, DO NOT READ ON IF YOU HAVEN”T READ A DEADLY EDUCATION AND THE LAST GRADUATE.

This is not a book that can be read without reading the first one first. I’m not sure I’m going to understand it all without reading it again.

It’s not as focused as the first one, and it’s not as compelling. I’m thinking that’s because it’s a second act, and middles are always squooshier than beginnings (world building and set-up) and endings (big finish and closure).

She still didn’t pay off the mysterious ending to the first book, which is annoying unless this is actually just one really long three-act book that she hasn’t finished yet, which think is what it is. That is, unlike Rivers of London or the Allingham mysteries or most of the other series I’ve been reading, none of these books are stand-clones (alone if the first one didn’t have the last line, it would have been).

The characters are so well drawn here, that it’s worth it wading through all the mythology to get to them. I could have done with less political background and more character in action, but the characters still carry it.

I love the mice.

El’s arc isn’t nearly as satisfying as in the last book, but it’s hard to top outcast-to-power-player; at this point all she has is power-player-to-mega-power-player. Orion is already a cross between Hercules and Thor, so I’m assuming El becomes a goddess in the next one.

what are the odds that El’s seer-Mom warned her about Orion because he’s knocked her up the night before he shoves her out the door to save her the same way her dad shoved her mother out the door?

I do not believe Orion Lake is dead. I am wondering if when El shoved him and the school into outer darkness, he doesn’t come back evil. Mostly I’m annoyed that he stayed behind to die fighting the whatsis. Too much like Jack drowning instead of climbing up on the door (there was room on that door, damn it).

I’m still a little fuzzy on how El managed to get all the male in the world into the school. And if she was going to obliterate the school anyway, why did Orion have to stay behind to kill the whatsis?

And what about Great-Great-Grandma’s prophecy? And why is Orion such a monomaniac about killing monsters? And what’s with Mom’s warning about him? Too many prophecy/mystery things banging around in the plot at the point.

If I were rating these books, I’d give A Deadly Education an A+ and The Last Graduate a B. The second book is well worth reading, but it has that mess in the middle feeling and no closure. Maybe I just need to read the second one again. Novik’s work is so layered and complex and detailed that I can’t get it all in one read.

So those of you who read it, what did you think of The Last Graduate?

Happiness is Change

It’s getting colder up here in the northern hemisphere. Days are shorter. Apple cider is everywhere. School buses, those big yellow motarized bricks, are back on the road. The leaves aren’t changing here–this is NJ, we don’t get vibrant falls–but up in Vermont they’re getting cold nights and their usual ridiculous foliage (Vermont just shows off in the autumn, flaunting it’s loud sense of color and maple syrup). There’s always a part of me that listens for the Wapakoneta High School band, something I heard every fall for the first seventeen years of my life: down the alley, across Auglaize street, down the side street, across the river, past the swimming pool and there was the stadium (very small stadium) and the band practicing, faintly but insistent. (Ohio State has its famous “Script Ohio,” so we had the not nearly as famous “Wapakoneta Wiggling W” where each band member stood in place and wiggled like they were trying to get rid of a wedgie. Well, it was a small high school.) It’s funny how a season is always an amalgamation of things: what’s happening in nature (didn’t the days used to be longer?), what’s happening in the community (I grew up in Ohio so that was football), what’s happening in stores (temporary big box Halloween stores, OMG), all of it schmushing together to let you know that Change is happening, kick up your heartbeat, remind you that it’s a new season, time to start over again.

I love autumn. It makes me happy.

What made you happy this week?

This is a Good Book Thursday, September 30, 2021

It has just occurred to me that I have slowly been easing over into the dark side of fiction. Okay, not exactly dark maybe, but definitely supernatural. I just re-read most of the Rivers of London series, I have the sequel to A Deadly Education on deck, and I am eagerly awaiting the arrival in mid-October of the next Time Police novel. This may explain how I ended up writing The Devil in Nita Dodd.. I also have a lot of plain contemporary novels started, but even some of them have ghosts (good old Alice). Since we’re heading into October and Halloween territory tomorrow, this may just be the universe sending me a sign.

So what have you been reading?

Working Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Today I am reinforcing my mail box, painting a sign for my house numbers, and doing another medical appointment. Oh, yeah, and working on a book. Just one damn thing after another.

What did you do this week?

Argh Author: Nancy Yeager’s Five Ways to Seduce a Duke

Argh’s own Nancy Yeager has a new book out: Five Ways to Seduce a Duke (Harrow’s Finest Five Book #5) And right now, it’s at a reduced price of $2.99 because of BookBub:

She’s hiding secrets, including her desire for the duke next door. Unfortunately she’s already engaged…to his brother.

When Simon, the Duke of Wrexham, assigns his brother Robert to settle a land dispute with the lady artist next door, he doesn’t foresee Robert proposing to the woman. Nor does he anticipate his own ardent attraction that makes him share his secret passions with her. Now Simon can’t stop coveting his brother’s fiancée.

When Miss Angelique Barstow agrees to an arranged marriage with her friend Robert, she doesn’t appreciate the duke’s interference. Nor does she welcome her own burning desire that makes her reveal her secret life to him. Now Angelique can’t stop painting her fiancé’s brother.

Simon and Angelique embark on a clandestine affair that leads to a love they no longer want to hide. But the truth will endanger the one person they both swore to protect, and the secrets that bound them together could tear them apart.

Buy it at Amazon or Apple Books

To learn more about the series and her other adventures in writing, visit Nancy at nancyyeagerbooks.com.

Happiness is a Rescue Cat

Or dog. Rescue dogs are excellent, too. But right now, Emily is making me extremely happy. She’d been a stray for two years (I hadn’t noticed her) when my neighbor said, “You don’t want a cat, do you?” and I said, “You know, that would be a good idea.” So she told me about this stray cat that was spending a lot of time in my garage, and it turned out to be a three-pawed Maine Coon who might let you pet hero nce (so not feral) but mostly ran like hell any time I got close. Kathleen had been feeding her, but the neighborhood was a full of foxes and Kathleen worried . . .

So I started feeding her instead of Kathleen, and we developed a very cautious relationship as I slowly moved the food and water dishes into the tool room that separated the garage from the house. Emily adapted (and so did the damn raccoons) and one cold December day, I slammed the door and trapped her inside.

She was not amused.

But being Emily she adapted; she found the back bedroom, and I put a heating pad back there and an enclosed cat bed and moved her food and water there, and after a couple of days, I showed her the dog door so she could come in and out. I figured there was a 50/50 chance she wouldn’t come back, but it turned out Emily liked a place with designer cat food, fresh water, heated sleeping, and no foxes. Then came the real test: Krissie came to visit so the dogs and I had to move from the front bedroom to the back; yes, we moved in with Emily. I predicted some snarling but it turned out that several months of observing each other from opposite ends of the house creates familiarity: they pretty much climbed up on the bed and fell asleep together and that was it.

But the real payoff came this summer when Emily decided I was her person and started curling up next to me when I typed (like now). And when I read. And when I slept. She still has her enclosed bed (and two scratching posts and a window platform, the cat is spoiled rotten) but once I settle in to read or work or sleep, she curls up besides me and sacks out, purring, one of the best sounds in the world along with dogs snoring and the wash of waves on the shore down by the lake.

Happiness is rescue pets.

What made you happy this week?

Happiness is Rich Story

I can categorize my reading into roughly three types: wallbangers/DNFs, pleasant one-offs, and re-reads. I know why the first category happens, but it just this week occurred to me to wonder why there two other categories. If I finish a book, doesn’t that mean it was good? Isn’t that enough?

(Note: I am not one of those readers who feels obligated to finish a story. If the author wanted me to finish, they shouldn’t have betrayed/bored/infuriated me early on.)

Because those books I finished obviously all had good characters, good world building, good plots, or I’d have DNFed them. So of course character development matters, of course world building matters, of course pacing and plotting matter, but a book can have all of those and I still don’t re-read. In trying to track this down, I’ve been re-reading some of my multi-multi rereads (at least a dozen times or more) and I think the difference is richness. Richness of character, world, and plot, yes, but also a depth and originality that draws me back again and again. Stories written with heavy cream and peppercorns, layers of flavor and texture. I’m thinking of Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series, Martha Wells’ Murderbots, Naomi Novik’s A Deadly Education, Casey McQuiston’s Red, White, and Royal Blue, all stories with characters whose motivations are not assumed (not “she got dumped once so of course she’ll never love again”), worlds whose settings are not standard even when they’re a McDonalds and communities full of people with their own complex lives and motivations, and plot that take left turns that surprise even though later you realize those things were inevitable. And then beyond that, new in a way that enthralls me, layered in a way that makes each re-read a new read, and that ineffable something that keeps me from putting the book down and thinking about it long after I’m done.

Okay, those are all tough acts to pull off, especially all at once in a single story, but they all come together, you get story on steroids, story that stays with you a long time, story that demands that you come back and make that journey again.

So what made me happy this week, beside glorious weather and lush greenery all around me and a physical that led to my doctor saying, “You are in excellent health,” was rereading rich stories, and then thinking about them, trying to figure out how the authors achieved that richness. Because that’s the kind of story I want to write. (Set the bar high, Jenny.)

Enough about me. What made you happy this week?

This is a Good Book Thursday, September 23 , 2021

This week my preorder of The Antiquarian Sticker Book: Bibliophilia arrived, and OMG it’s just as excellent as the first Antiquarian Sticker Book. Highly recommend.

What book(s) do you recommend this week?

Working Wednesday, September 22, 2021

So I read this article that said the best way to redo a room was to take everything out of it so it was empty and then just put back in what you need, which I though was brilliant until I did it and realized that I now I had acres of stuff piled in all the other rooms. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.

What did you work on this week?

Happiness is a Another Birthday

Thank you all for the birthday wishes, especially since I wasn’t expecting it since I didn’t yell, “Hey, it’s Constitution Day, I’m a year older!” Very nice surprise. I had a lovely quiet day during which I did anything I wanted to. One of the many great things about old age is that you reset to toddler wisdom and live your life according to “Fuck it, I can do anything I want.” Which this year included buying a curtain of stars to go on my bedroom window, counting my blessings, and once again not dying. All in all, a full and very happy day.

What made you happy this week?