Sheri’s
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(group member since Jul 25, 2016)
Sheri’s
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from the EPBOT Readers group.
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Hi everyone, This just continues to be a terrible year. My poor Teddy Pickles is in the hospital again :( Same issue as before, UTI, blockage, crystals. For now he's on another catheter, we're hoping we can avoid surgery because a whole host of complications can come with that. But i guess we'll see, and have to talk with my regular vet as well. I feel like i desperately need a vacation but between all these incredibly expensive curveballs, the cost of gas, the disaster that air travel is, and how everyone I know who has been traveling has come home with Covid I don't really know what to do about that. I could just do a staycation, but a lot of times I end up not feeling rested because I just end up doing a lot of chores/house projects to make sure I don't "waste time". Some friends might visit over labor day weekend, maybe I can take some extra time off then, and it'll feel more vacationy because we can do stuff with them that's out of the house.
Sorry to dump all of that, it was a long bad night.
Book Club Don't forget to make some suggestions in the book club suggestion thread. I saw a few in there, but I'll probably leave it up over the weekend and gather suggestions on Monday or so.
There are also some questions up for The Woman Who Could Not Be Silenced now, I finally managed to get it and finish it. Not sure if people are still reading, if people are still waiting, or if people decided it was a bit too grim/topical/depressing for right now. I will leave the thread open as usual, so if at some point in the future anyone wants to circle back, it will still be available.
this week I finished:
Honey & Spice- I ended up really liking this. It didn't end up falling into some of the tropes I was expecting and gritting my teeth over. Lots of good solid friendship moments too. Slight spoiler (view spoiler)
Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age - did the audio book for this. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Good information of what sort of factors causes people to abandon cities, and what really constitutes abandonment or what makes a city "lost". For example one the the cities, I think it was Catalhoyuk, was considered lost because the French "discovered" it. But local monks were living there, and the local villages were still making pilgrimages there even if it was no longer being lived in as a full thriving city as Europeans might consider it. Lots of really interesting information and perspectives.
currently reading:
Sharks in the Time of Saviors - next books & brew read. For a cool name, i'm not really liking the book and it's taking me forever to read. It's pretty depressing really. But It's a library book and i don't want my hold to run out so I don't want to put it aside to read something happier right now.
No current audio book but i've been listening to The Call of the Void podcast which is really good. Science fiction/paranormal/horror vibes about strange occurrences in the New Orleans bayou.
QOTW:
I'm caught up on Nightvale and I think it's on hiatus right now, and I'm quickly running through this Call of the Void, so I'd like to know what people's favorite podcasts are. I'd personally like to know about favorite fictional ones, but i'm sure others might be interested of podcasts of all sorts.
I don't listen to tons, so my favorites are Welcome to Nightvale and The Call of the Void. I might try getting back into Alice isn't Dead after this, too. I did like what I listened to , and I liked the novel, I just got distracted from it.
Hi all, It's time to select the next book club pick. Standard rules apply.
Please make sure you give a sentence or two why you think we should read it together, not just a list of books you're planning on reading.
If a book is recommended that you also want to recommend, you can mention it again to add support. If there's a bunch of titles, I'll just pick the ones that seem to have the most interest in the poll, if there's just a few i"ll pull them all.
This is a new selection round, so if you want to suggest a book you've suggested before, put it here again to be considered, I won't be going back to past suggestion posts.
Happy reading everyone!
Hi All, I know there was just a post a few days ago, but that was technically for last week and i have a few minutes to make a post so Im making one!
Sorry for the really sporadic posting lately. It's certainly been a year. The spring to our garage door just broke today, whee. We literally just had someone out to fix the circuitry in the garage door opener, that wasn't connecting right to the main button a couple months ago. Sigh. And we STILL don't have a new septic, a thing we've been trying to have accomplished since February. WHo knew it was that hard to spend this much money? I guess i'm glad we're being proactive on this and our septic isn't actually broken. (Our test of the system before our addition said that our system was very old and we had maybe 5 years before we had to start worrying about it. that test was 5 years ago, so we're worrying about it.) I can't imagine trying to deal with this with an actually broken system.
Book club: I finally had gotten the book from the library, and I put some questions in the book club thread. I don't know if there's still interest in the book/if people are just waiting or if people ended up tapping out on it. I think we're about due to be picking the next one soon, i'll try to get another thread up to start picking it.
The last couple weeks I finished:
The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear - finally got this and finished it. I put my thoughts in the book club thread, along with some reading questions.
River of Teeth - this was weird and fun, a sort of hippo western alternate history. I picked up the second, i'll read it eventually.
The Plot - the July books & brew pick for my irl book club. I didn't like this much, it was a mixed read for my book club. But that meant it was actually a pretty lively discussion, and we talked about the book for actually longer than the full book club hour. Usually the best discussions are when people disagree. If everyone loved it, or even if everyone hated it, there's just not much to say. People just gush for a while, or gripe for a bit, and then move on to talking about whatever. This sparked a lot of arguments on whether or not it was meant to be satire, whether or not she was TRYING to write like a crappy white male writer as part of the satire or she just was a bad writer in general, whether it was a bad thing that all her characters were unlikeable jerks, etc.
A Memory Called Empire - finally got around to this, i had picked up on a deal a while ago but kept putting it off. I think I was worried it was going to be one of those really deep meaty sci fi books like Dune that you just have to wade through all the layers and meaning and politics and think about. Which can be excellent, but can feel like work to read. But once I got over the speculative fiction new words/new world/new ideas feelings, it was actually a pretty face paced sort of political thriller with really likable characters. I liked it a lot, have the next one on hold at the library.
Rich People Problems - audio re read
Felix Ever After - this started slow for me, Felix was annoying me first from a "ugh no you're making obviously bad decisions" perspective, but then things didn't go the way they seemed to be going and improved and I ended up liking it pretty well by the end.
Hollow Kingdom - This was interesting, and I do think i liked it but I'd hesitate to recommend it to many. It is NOT the book for anyone sensitive to animal deaths. It's about the zombie apocalypse, but from the perspective of the domesticated animals. The main thing saving it from being WAY too grim is that the narrator is a foul (fowl) mouthed crow who loves humans and has this core of optimism. I might still read the next, but i need some buffer between them.
City of Bones - I love Murderbot so decided to try some of Martha's older stuff. I liked it pretty well. I see a lot of similarities between Khat and Murderbot, specifically. Created races, treated with suspicion and disdain by others unless they're useful at the moment. Sarcastic humor. Tendencies towards violent responses. Pick up a few close friends who see past their races to the actual person. Didn't have the absolute instant love factor that Murderbot has, but still solid.
The Other Black Girl - This was just ok for me. I thought it sounded really good, but fell flat in execution. The ending just left me going "uh...ok?" with way too much unresolved.
Currently reading:
Honey & Spice - cute romance so far
Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age
- audio book. I like their fiction a lot, thought i'd try their nonfiction too.
Chilling Effect - started this and then library holds came in. So on pause until i get caught up.
QOTW:
Going to borrow from popsugar a bit this week: What have been your best and worst reads so far this year?
I would say worst read of the year for me was The Plot that I mentioned above. I just found it so pretentious, and eye rolling and predictable, and I hated all the characters except the cat.
Best is always hard to pick, but up there are probably Light from Uncommon Stars which I loved. It was a lovely mix of sci fi and fantasy, had video game music mixed with violins, faustian bargains, and it just was really great for me. I also really loved The Kaiju Preservation Society and Legends & Lattes
for similar reasons of being cozy sci fi and cozy fantasy, being a much needed respite in a terrible year.
I will say that I'm glad I finished this a couple weeks before the Roe v wade decision, I already had a hard enough time finishing it before then, I don't know if I could have finished it after. It was very well written, and I gave it five stars for being emotionally impactful and well researched. But it was so HARD to read and made me so very sick and angry. It was just so discouraging how little progress it feels like we've made, as a society, in 150 some years. And now, a couple months later, even less so. I was trying to think of what to do in her situation as I was reading and just got increasingly ill as I came to realize how little there would be TO do. She was right enough to realize that kicking and screaming and throwing a fit would just feed right into "proving" that she was mad. She wasn't physically strong enough to overpower all of the guards and orderlies to make any kind of actual escape attempt. The doctor, for all his pretending to be on her side was fully in control of her fate, and prevented any of her sympathetic friends efforts to aid her to come to anything. He wouldn't even allow letters to come in for emotional comfort. Even with modern conveniences like phones and the internet, all it takes is removing the phone and suddenly you're just as cut off as she was. And there's plenty of ways to block internet access with firewalls and such even if there were computers to access within a modern facility.
I got very frustrated with her continual attempts to redeem him. It was glaringly obvious he wasn't to be trusted. But I'm guessing it was a combination of her religious views, truly believing everyone was capable of redemption, and desperately clinging to hope. She knew he was one of her few ways out, and if he couldn't be redeemed she could be stuck there forever. So accepting that he was irredeemable would be to accept that had no hope at all.
Skipping down to the las question,
I certainly think there are still a LOT of stigmas against mental illness today. Just look at how many insults involve "being crazy" or "psychotic" "bipolar" being "ocd " over something etc. And how many haunted houses are there that are mental institution themed? I think it's slowly improving as more people are being open about going to therapy and and things like that, but it's certainly not out of the language, or the public as a whole. I'm not sure what we can do all around, but I know I've personally been trying to correct myself when a "oh that's crazy" slips out, or other language like that.
All and all, I'm glad I read it, but man it was sad and frustrating. Also i was really disgusted (but not surprised) to read that she's STILL thought of as a crazy person who tried to discredit McFarland amongst the medical community, while he has a picture on the wall of mental institutions for being a prominent figure in the field. Hopefully this book goes to help rectify that impression.
Hi all, I finally got my copy and finished it, but then didn't get around to collecting my thoughts right away. Here's a list of some questions, for those who finished! I'm being somewhat picky on the questions I'm choosing. This is a particularly timely book to have finished reading just about now. This group is not an extension of the main facebook group, it was just inspired by it. So it doesn't have to follow the rules. That being said, it did deal with a lot of religion, politics and other hot button issues, and I don't want the thread to be come a total battle ground (not that i think anyone here is THAT hot headed, I just am trying to lay some boundaries). So I am not forbidding discussing current political issues, or religion or anything like that, but I am also not outright pasting the questions that deal with those topics directly.
Elizabeth employs a variety of tactics --- physical resistance, negotiating with hospital staff, writing --- to protest her treatment throughout the book. Which techniques were most effective for her? What strategies would you turn to in her place?
“Novel reading,” masturbation and irregular menstrual cycles are a few of the many reasons that women were admitted to asylums in Elizabeth’s time. Which, if any, of these justifications stood out to you? How has our understanding of these “causes of insanity” changed?
Elizabeth and McFarland have a complicated relationship to say the least. What did you think of her continuous attempts to redeem him? Did she truly think he would change, or was she just trying to improve her own circumstances? What were the long-lasting effects of the relationship on each of them?
Right or wrong, McFarland was completely trusted by the Jacksonville Asylum’s Board of Trustees. What impact did this have on his patients? How did the Board respond to Fuller’s investigation and recommendations? Can you think of a way to avoid such conflicts of interest?
Elizabeth writes: “To be lost to reason is a greater misfortune than to be lost to virtue, and the... scorn which the world attaches to it [is] greater.” Do you think this is still true today? The American Psychological Association recently stated that only 25 percent of adults with symptoms of mental illness believe that people will be caring and sympathetic toward them. How can we improve sympathy for those who struggle with their mental health? And which do you think carries more societal shame: having a mental health problem or being “lost to virtue”? Is the answer dependent on gender?
Any other thoughts you had?
Hi All, Having a quiet week so I can actually make a post! They've been redoing my roads out my neighborhood so it's been noisy the past couple weeks. But I think they're at a lull in the project, nice and quiet today. Asphalt is down, i think it's rebuilding shoulders, fixing culverts/drains, repainting lines etc. left.
I lost track of what all I've posted so here's some stuff I read in the past few weeks:
Clap When You Land - did the audio book, really liked the dual narrator performance. It was sad, but really good.
Girl, Serpent, Thorn - this took me a while to get into. Soyara annoyed me a lot at first, she was so passive, and then continually made obviously bad decisions even after being expressly told what a bad idea they were. But eventually it picked up and i got more into it and I liked how it ended pretty well. I really liked the Persian mythology aspects.
We Sold Our Souls - i liked this one better than horrorstor, it was fun. It reminded me a bit of the movie Knights of Badassdom. Horror comedy with metal helping to save the day. Also here for female protagonists that aren't teens or 20 somethings. 47 year old washed up former metal guitarists? I'm here for it.
The Battle of the Labyrinth - audio re-read
Death on the Nile - read for a book club, i liked better than I expected. Not huge on mysteries. I kinda had some suspicions to what was going on, but hadn't totally figured it out. Was surprised it took half the book for someone to actually die. (i figure that's not really a spoiler since it's literally called death on the nile and she writes murder mysteries)
Currently reading:
The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her - Disappear - i remembered that my library joined a collective, so I have access to five other Michgian library systems collections now. So I was able to line jump and get this instead of waiting another 14 weeks. It's slow going so far. It's nothing against the author's writing style, it's just depressing and given the current world it feels like we haven't come as far as one might hope in over a century. But now i only have 6 days left on my hold so I actually have to buckle down and finish it or i'm back to waiting 14 weeks.
The Last Olympian - audio re-read
QOTW:
I'll borrow from popsugar this week: Can you pick a favorite author? or narrow it down to a few?
I can't narrow it down to one, but a few of my current favorites are Seanan McGuire and Becky Chambers. Lifelong favorites include Mercedes Lackey, Neal Stephanson, William Gibson, Piers Anthony, Anne McCaffery, Bruce Coville, Laurel K Hamilton, Neil Gaiman. (Some of those are no longer favorites, I've grown out of them, but they still were favorites at a time in my life and I devoured everything they wrote for a time, for better or worse)
There's other authors who individual books I LOVE but to be a favorite author I feel like I have to love a significant portion of their catalog, and that also means the catalog has to be big enough to have consumed me for a while. (that's a personal thought, not what everyone has to go by). For example, Night Circus is one of my favorite books ever, but Erin Morgenstern has only written two books so far. And while I liked Starless Sea, I didn't LOVE it to the same level as the Night Circus, so I don't feel like the sample size is big enough to say if as a whole, she's a favorite author or if she just wrote a favorite book.
Hi all, Hope everyone is doing well! Been having migraine roller coasters, probably related to the weather roller coasters we've been having. Doing ok this week at least! Hoping that lasts through the weekend. Rented a movie theatre sunday afternoon to see the new Dr Strange, hoping it's good!
This week I finished:
Book of Night - really ended up loving this. I like messy woman protagonists, urban fantasy, heists, this had them all. I hope there'll be another book, since the way it ended, I want to know what comes next.
Network Effect - more murderbot audio reread
The Kaiju Preservation Society - finally got to my hold for this, I really loved it! I continue to have mixed feelings about covid in my fiction, especially sci fi because it's my escapism. But I mind it less when it's not the focus, and serves more to set the time and place of the book. Otherwise it was absolutely delightful, and I enjoyed thoroughly. I kinda wish they'd make a movie of it, I think it'd be a fun change to have a Kaiju movie where the point wasn't just a big battle sequence.
Commanders in Crisis, Vol. 1: The Action - i've been poking at this on my ipad for months, finally finished. It was in a weird grey area of I didn't dislike it enough to totally abandon it, but it was too wordy and complicated to just skim through it to mark it read and move on. I'm not bothering with continuing the series.
Fugitive Telemetry - more murderbot audio re-read. I'm still confused as to why this book was released AFTER Network Effect. Timeline wise it takes place before the events in Network Effect, but nothing in the narrative really gives an explanation as to why Murderbot would be telling the story after the story from Network Effect. Nothing in the blurb or the cover indicates it's meant to be a prequel either. When i first read it I was really confused because I couldn't figure out why Murderbot was back on Preservation instead of continuing events from the previous book. Now I know at least chronologically why, but not really WHY why. I'm going to go google why now, but i don't feel like I should NEED to google why books are released in a certain order, it should be narratively obvious (murder bot giving explanations in text as to why it is telling the story in that order) or publisher-based obvious (like being marketed as a prequel or numbered as "oh this is actually Murderbot 4.5 not 6"). Just a little annoyance in an otherwise really good series.
Currently reading:
Seasonal Fears - i probably should have read middlegame again first, but my hold came up WAY faster than I expected. I'm having trouble remembering what all went down, so feeling vaguely confused. Eventually I'll have to just read them both again in order.
Stardust - audio reread
QOTW:
Going to borrow from popsugar's group this week: Does reading about food in books make you want to eat that food?
For me, not really. I might be interested in trying at some point if i've heard about it, but it's not like an instant craving.
A lot of it is also more of an atmosphere too. For example, in the Night Circus a lot of fantastical foods are described. But for me just eating a chocolate mouse, or some spiced cider wouldn't really be enough. I want to BE at a black and white circus, wearing all black and white with my red rose or red scarf, nibbling on chocolate mice and sipping spiced cider while wandering through the tents. Or going to a midnight dinner in an eccentric millionaire's mansion surrounded by circus folk while wearing an elaborate gown and eating the fantastical confections. Just eating the food would isn't quite enough, i want the whole experience.
Susan, I think you'll be fine. It just mentions some characters from the first one, and I wanted to remember their connections more. But if you don't know their connections at all, I don't think it'll bother you NOT knowing them. It was more the "vaguely remembering but not quite connecting" that was bothering me.
Hi all, sorry I didn't have a chance to post an update. I had a neurologist appointment where I reported that my new anti-migraine meds seemed to be working, just to be hit with a migraine that afternoon and then it lasted on and off for a week. So...that isn't ideal. I guess I'll give the meds another month or two, and then maybe make another appointment to reevaluate again, i don't think i want to wait another 6 months for my next follow up. the last couple weeks I finished:
Kill the Farm Boy - i know a lot of people didn't really like this, but i thought it was alright. I think it's trying a little too hard to be Discworld, and doesn't quite have the easy humor. There's a difference between people who can easily tell a joke and people who are trying so hard to tell a joke, this felt a little bit like the latter. But I thought it had enough redeeming moments that I finished it, and I'd consider reading more eventually.
How Lucky - this was my books & brew book. I just thought it was ok. It was in a weird grey area of not exactly a thriller, not quite a mystery. There were parts i liked, but a lot of it was just not cup of tea. I think it was maybe the least we ever talked about a book at book club, too. Every one else seemed to like it, but there was nothing really amazing to talk about.
All Systems Red- been feeling crummy so been doing a murder bot relisten. I love murderbot.
Fevered Star - i was really looking forward to this one, but it fell a little flat for me. I think it had second book syndrome. Most of it felt like it was just setting things up for the final book of the trilogy. (I think it's a trilogy? i know there's going to be at least one more, I haven't heard anything about it being an ongoing series). I also get bored of politics in books, even if they're fantasy. Felt like there was just a lot of political grandstanding in this. I just was impatient wanting stuff to happen, and by the time stuff actually started to happen it was over with a "oh...i guess that all's going to happen in the next book". I'm hoping that means the next book will return to what i loved about the first one.
Sea of Tranquility - I liked this quite a bit. I wish i'd realized it was related to The Glass Hotel though, or I'd have tried to read it again, first. I still have mixed feelings about covid in current fiction, but at least this wasn't terribly bleak or disheartening to read, and it was pretty short. It was clearly a book the author was writing to sort of process her feelings of the past couple years.
The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home - finished audio re-read. I really liked Mara Wilson's performance. Really good book if you like pirate adventure horror revenge stories.
Rogue Protocol, Artificial Condition. Exit Strategy - more murderbot audio re-reads
currently reading:
Book of Night - really liking this, should be able to finish it up today. I like authors who aren't afraid to write disaster women protagonists.
Network Effect - more murderbot re-read
QOTW: Hm. I always liked Neil Gaiman's quote "Make good art", but i'd maybe qualify it to just "Make art". Since I think Americans in particular have a hang up where if you're not "good" enough at an art form that you could make money doing it then you might as well not even bother. I think there's a great benefit to just...doing art. Dance, badly, sing badly, draw poorly. It's fine! You'll get better the more you do it. And even if you never get "good", who cares? Do it because it makes you happy or helps you express feelings or feels good. And I define art as whatever works for you. Baking, writing, sewing, knitting, cooking, arranging flowers, etc. Some form of creative expression.
Welcome Beth! Always glad to get new people in the group! And yeah, I feel you on Dresden Files. I tried doing an audio re-read and i think i sputtered out somewhere around white night? It's just long, and I wanted to listen to other books, and I kept getting stuck on library holds etc.
I have Sea of Tranquility checked out, but I need to finish Fevered Star first, and then my Book of Night hold just came in. So many good books just came out!
Hi all, New HVAC system is fully installed! woo! Turns out it's just as well we decided to do the AC too. The place the old AC was caused the pipes and wiring to run across the patio in a way that was NOT to code, and could not be made to BE up to code, so we had to move it. He said that now that it's moved, we shouldn't have a problem pouring a new patio like we had planned. So if our system hadn't gone out, we would have been faced with a big problem when we went to go re-do our patio and they told us "hey we can't do anything with all this piping running across here". So while I'm not exactly PLEASED it happened, I guess at least we avoided a future problem!
This week I finished:
Parachutes - Can't remember if I put this on last week's list or not, i finished it right in the edge window haha. It's about the practice of many parents in China sending their teenagers alone to America to get an education. They aren't exchange students, and they're not really immigrants because they go back to China as soon as the education is done. They often live with host families or if the family is really wealthy in apartments alone. The book was fiction, but the practice is real, based on the afterward that the author wrote. It was good, tw though for sexual assault but handled in a non-gratuitous way.
The Only Good Indians - finally got through this. Didn't end up super loving it, although it wasn't terrible. Never really quite came together into something cohesive. This is my second Stephen Graham Jones so i'm wondering if his writing style just doesn't work for me, since I know others just love him.
Terminal Uprising - Finished this on audio. I really am liking the series, a lot of fun! I like that a lot of modern sci fi is really breaking out of the whole "all members of alien races act the same" that a lot of older sci fi suffers from. This book has a lot of humor and whimsy to it ( I mean the series is called the Janitors of the post-apocalypse) but there's a lot of nuance to the actual conflicts. Factions within factions, none of the groups of monoliths. Even within the little ragtag crew, there's never perfect accord or agreement. Looking forward to the next book coming out this summer.
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within - audio re-read. Just as good the second time around!
Kill the Farm Boy - i thought this was fun, overall. I think it maybe tried a little TOO hard to channel discworld. There's a way to be funny and light hearted and pun-filled that feels effortless, and there's a way to do it that feels heavy handed, and this was more of the latter. But i still enjoyed it more or less overall. I'll probably read the next one eventually, if not immediately.
Currently reading:
How Lucky - next books & brews pick. Not very far in it yet to form an opinion. I'll admit i'm a little wary going in, considering that it appears to be an abled body man writing a book about a disabled protagonist and in the book jacket the man is described as "fiercely resilient". So I'm a
dubious about it coming off as kind of inspiration-porn-ish. but I'm trying to keep an open mind about it. I guess we'll see!
The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home - audio re-read, i wanted to hear Mara Wilson's performance for it, since I read the ebook the first time around.
QOTW:
I don't have any good ideas, so i'll settle for any good plans for the weekend? we're probably just going to work in the yard/house! Maybe see if some friends are free.
Hi all, Book club: The book club selection was The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear, I put up a pre reading thread and a final thoughts thread. There's a long wait list for both digital and audio book for my library, and I don't know if I'll get over there soon to try to get a print copy. If anyone who finished it wants to look up some questions to get the discussion going, feel free! It might take me a while.
Have some time so I'll actually make a post this week! It's certainly been another week. Had a nice Easter weekend. But Monday, we noticed a weird burning smell, and then our carbon monoxide alarm briefly went off, so we flung open windows, put cats in carriers and evacuated while calling 911. Luckily it was NOT a gas leak. But it was the main motor of our furnace burning out. And we'd already replaced a different motor and some other fan in the furnace earlier this year. So came to the reluctant conclusion that it was time to replace the whole thing, on top of our septic replacement. While it was snowing. Was a cold few days. Luckily yesterday they were able to squeeze us in to at least get enough of the new furnace in to get the heat going, and they'll finish the rest on Monday. (AC/humidifier/thermostat were all old so we're just gutting the whole thing while we're at it. Might as well rip the band aid off rather than trying to save some money and just have more stuff falling apart and potentially ruining the new stuff we just replaced). Of course by this weekend it'll be in the 70s, but the house was SO COLD up until the point it was working yesterday.
I'm about ready to just cancel the rest of this year and skip to 2023 and see if it goes better.
So ive been reading:
Legends & Lattes - i did end up really loving this, in spite of my distaste for coffee. Just an all around really cute story. I really need him to write more, I MUST know the story behind Darius, and his chess game and apparent many lives? circular life? I don't even know, but I must!
Mambo in Chinatown - i really enjoyed this one! I always liked dancing, and i did do a few ballroom lessons in a studio very like the one mentioned in this, through a groupon. We simply couldn't' afford the absolutely ridiculous cost of the private lessons, and they STRONGLY push you towards those and out of group as fast as they can. They also strongly push you towards competitions which isn't what we wanted. We just wanted to dance for fun. But it was still cool to revisit the dance scene, and I really like the author's writing. Reading about poverty and racism is always hard, but I think she does a good job at handling it in a very humane and delicate way that isn't just heavy and depressing to the point of being difficult to get through.
Star Mother - this was interesting. I liked it, didn't love it. Some parts of the lore never really seemed to quite click together for me. But overall, was interesting. Might eventually read the next one, but didn't just leave me dying for more.
Currently reading:
The Only Good Indians - I don't know if I don't like this, or just am not in the mood for this. Been slogging through this for over a week, keep setting it down to read other stuff. I keep hearing great things, so I do want to finish. So I'll keep poking at it and finish eventually.
Parachutes - cute YA so far
Terminal Uprising - audio book, liking it so far. Hopefully can find the new one once it's out, hoopla can be slow for new releases.
QOTW:
I'll borrow a question from Popsugar:
Do you ever read or wish you could read spin offs or continuations of movies or tv series in novelizations/graphic novels?
I do sometimes. I read the Buffy graphic novels that are sometimes reboots, sometimes continuations or spinoffs, there were some firefly contiuations/spin offs, my little pony continuations, steven univers etc. Usually not as much with novelization.
I did like the Mass Effect video game novels. At least the first 3 by Drew Karapasyan. I picked up the Andromeda one by NK Jemisen, haven't read it yet but I'll get to it eventually.
This is the place for final reading thoughts. Spoilers allowed here. I have a long wait for this book, so I am making this thread now. When I finish I'll update it with some questions, but I don't want to prevent discussion if others are finished early. Feel free to ask your own questions, if you are!
This is the area to write your pre-reading thoughts about The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear. No spoilers here! Are you excited to read it? Dreading it?
It's on purpose. It drove me nuts because my kindle loaded it as SO TINY, I had to bump my font up significantly to read it which made the regular text way larger than i like to read at. but i didn't want to have to keep jumping back and forth for every diary entry.
I have a hold on the Kaiju Preservation society at my library, so I'll have it read whenever that comes in :) Looks like it says about 10 weeks though.
It’s still a really cute story! I like the idea of an orc leaving the adventure life to build a coffee shop even though no one knows what that is
Ah ok, that makes sense. I love her, but i don't twitter at all. I know she's a coffee fan from how much she writes it into her characters living on it though haha.
Hi all, Thanks for making a post, Susan!
I put up a poll for the book club, it's here https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...
Things are calming down a little bit, still busy but not quite as bad. Next week will be the real test to see how these meds are working as far as preventing my migraines, crossing fingers!
This week I read:
Arsenic and Adobo - read this for the popsugar discord book club, i just found this ok. I think i'm just not much of a cozy mystery fan. Always am vaguely miffed at the idea that some rando thinks they're better suited at solving a murder than someone trained at it, and this one had an added bonus at a supposed super detective who seemed to be making a lot of really wild assumptions based on a lot preconceived notions. There was also a lot of rom-com elements shoved in. I don't like love triangles in my rom coms or YA books, so having one in a cozy doesn't really make me like them more, nor does it make me want to read more books in the series to see it resolved.
The Wolf and the Woodsman - this reminded me a lot of Spinning Silver and the Bear and the Nightingale, although I didn't end up liking it quite as much as either. It was a little less fantastical and more grim. Still had fairy tale elements, but there was a lot more despair and death and a lot more "oh geeze is this really going to end like this?" So very well written, but it's not going to be one I really want to come back to later, most likely.
Currently reading:
Legends & Lattes - I'm guessing I got the same facebook ads that Jen did, I bought it around the same time that i saw it pop on her goodreads hahah. It's cute, I'm enjoying it. Although I am NOT a coffee fan, i think it's disgusting. So I'm somewhat rolling my eyes at how often people are loving inexpertly brewed black coffee at first sip, since even huge coffee fans admit it was an acquired taste and poorly brewed coffee can be bad. And most of them had to doctor it with a LOT of cream and sugar for a while before they worked their way up to enjoying it black. Still, i get it's a fantasy book and we're dealing with orcs and succubi here. Suppose we can imagine a magic world where coffee isn't gross too.
QOTW:
I try to, but a lot of the readers I know are way busier than I am, or are just as fickle/mood readery as I am. So I can recommend the books all I want but the chances of one of them actually READING it to talk to me about it in a timely enough fashion that I still remember what I wanted to talk about....
