Alysa’s Comments (group member since Jun 27, 2015)

Alysa’s comments from the Nothing But Reading Challenges group.

@M
Can you check your edition for Kushiel's Dart?
The page count on the spreadsheet doesn't match the version you have shelved. Thanks!

But... the entire bottom part of the image is a dark brown leather couch... Plus brown hair, beige ceiling & skin and possibly one of the suits. Srsly, to me this cover is like 90% brown!

Make your screens brighter, people! ;D

Speaking of brown, the Back Room BOM also looks pretty brown to me!



Agreement?

Definitely brown

Suzanne wrote: "I finished reading tonight and added it to my tower teams shelf!"

Thanks Suzanne! You shelved the Kindle edition, is that correct?

@Jessi, it looks like this book has been tagged Dark Fantasy on Top Shelves, but only 1 time, so I took a screenshot :)

Rebecca wrote: "I can't remember for the genre can it be sci-fi-fantasy-dystopian or does it have to be straight up dystopia?"

Has to be straight up dystopia on the first page of Top Shelves.

Joanne wrote: "Blue, right?
"

It's one of those in-between colors, but I'm willing to say this one is more blue than green.
Anyone else wanna vote?

Looks like it can be used for Contemporary if we don't wanna risk color cover dispute.

Was it on Sinful Chat or here in the team thread when we were talking about speeding up Audios?
There have been a couple of exceptions, when the narration was slooooooow so I went to 1.25x or 1.5x speed, but otherwise I never do that, as I find that for me it takes away from the performative experience, and also I would probably miss a lot of stuff. But I think it's impressive when other people can listen at 1.5x or 2x speed on the regular. :D

ETA: I listen at work too, depending on what I'm doing. There are weeks when I am pretty much alone in my office all the time, and other weeks where it's like non-stop action. I am hoping for more of the former and less of the latter soon!

Oh but I am over halfway through Blood Heir, so that's something :D

You are a listening speed demon!

I am only like 1/3 thru Pillars, which I started on 7 Oct, because of my trip and because I keep getting interrupted and having meetings and shit. Right now I think I'm about to have about 2 hours of listening time though. Yay.

Ugh I just wrote out a whole thing, and then accidentally hit refresh before posting and lost it :(
Basically, I was saying that it's great when staff put out rotating recommendations, either in general or on a special theme, but otherwise I like it in bookstores when books are integrated/dumped everywhere by genre (mystery, romance, sci-fi...) with no regard to things like sexuality or race.
Teens, or anyone, can come in with personal interests and preferences -- lesbian necromancers, say ;D -- but it should still be possible to home in on books that fit those preferences, without relegating the book that has (vagely or not) lesbian necromancers to the "LGBT ghetto", ya know? Just put it in the fantasy section, point the teenager to it when they ask, and let other people stumble upon it later and expand their worldview. :D

Anyway, I am SO BEHIND on The Pillars of the Earth because RL work stuff is slowing me down dammit!

The Charioteer by Mary Renault

After enduring an injury at Dunkirk during World War II, Laurie Odell is sent to a rural veterans’ hospital in England to convalesce. There he befriends the young, bright Andrew, a conscientious objector serving as an orderly. As they find solace and companionship together in the idyllic surroundings of the hospital, their friendship blooms into a discreet, chaste romance. Then one day, Ralph Lanyon, a mentor from Laurie’s schoolboy days, suddenly reappears in Laurie’s life, and draws him into a tight-knit social circle of world-weary gay men. Laurie is forced to choose between the sweet ideals of innocence and the distinct pleasures of experience.

Originally published in the United States in 1959, The Charioteer is a bold, unapologetic portrayal of male homosexuality during World War II that stands with Gore Vidal’s The City and the Pillar and Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories as a monumental work in gay literature.

@M: Mea Culpa!

I was referring specifically to the ghettoizing of contemporary LGBT fiction, and it just came out wrong. I absolutely do not think you are an idiot!

Jessi wrote: "Hey Alysa will you add this edition of Les Miz from Scribd."

Actually there's the ISBN 1974917665 on Scribd, which makes this an alternate cover edition of an extant entry, so I created this one:

Les Misérables


You should be good to shelve it, but I'm still not sure whether you should use the GR Default ed for page count or if you should use an edition w/the same translator (Isabel F. Hapgood translated yours, whereas Lee Fahnestock translated the GR Default edition).
We might need to ask Caps/Mods.

Day 6: Chapters 34 to the end

22. In chapter 3 we get the first of the big reveals. Were you surprised by the actual dynamic between the twins? And were you as creeped out as I was by Ianthe's little speech about the place between life and death..."where the things are that eat us."?

I was only moderately surprised by the twins’ dynamic, because Gideon – the audience stand-in in so many ways – was already suspicious of them. And yeah, that speech was a bit creepy. I think it would have been creepier coming from Dulcinea though!

23. There have been many types of necromancy and magic and science talked about and demonstrated in this story. In sci-fi and fantasy books, I often find myself wishing that some of the science or magic was real. Are there any aspects of this world that you wish was real, or that intrigues you?

Well, it would be pretty cool if broken bones and bloody injuries could be instantly healed by bone or flesh magic, respectively! I also wouldn’t mind some skeleton servants running around washing my laundry and cooking my meals, but only if they are blank puppets like robots, not fully aware people, lol.

24. The second big reveal gave us the name of the big bad. I personally did not find clues to this littered throughout the story, so I was surprised. Did you find this reveal satisfying? Surprising? Did you enjoy the fight at the end?

It was totally out of nowhere, in part because from the very beginning I didn’t understand the whole Lyctor thing, what Lyctors are supposed to be for and why new ones were needed. I was just rolling with it. So the big bad being an older Lyctor was like, “Eh, okay, whatevs.” I did like the whole eternally-dying-of-consumption thing: Since she was dying at the time when she became immortal, she wasn’t healed, just stayed “dying” forever. That is so awesomely grim. And gross.
The fight at the end felt a little long but I enjoyed it. Except when Gideon sacrificed herself. I did not like that part at all. I had to think about it a lot before rating the book. I will explain more in Q#26 below!

25. Was anyone else waiting for a sex scene? Why use the term "lesbian necromancers" in the description? Who cares if they are heterosexual or gay if it really doesn't come into the story? Marketing? Or do you think it was an important story point that the main character liked girls?

I didn’t think there would be a full-on sex scene, but somehow get the sense that the author might not have been comfortable writing one? At least not in this book. It wouldn’t really have fit.
I’m a little annoyed by the “lesbian necromancers in space!” marketing ploy. The only word in there that’s really relevant to the substance of the book at all is Necromancers.
I liked the fact that Gideon’s attraction to girls being entirely irrelevant is was makes it relevant. Or to put it simply: we need more books where LGBTQ sexual orientations are present, but irrelevant, just like it’s always been for heterosexuality. So, this book is successful in that sense.

26. Will Gideon's and Camilla's bodies or selves be recovered? Will you read the next book to find out? Did you like the book?

I will absolutely read the next book! I liked this one, and I want to know what happens next. Harrow, the missing, the Locked Tomb. All intriguing. But I must say, I felt extremely shortchanged by the EFFING ALLEGEDLY PERMANENT SOUL DEATH OF THE EFFING PROTAGONIST, and I think there’s more to come, like Harrow finding some mysterious way to release Gideon’s soul back into her body once it is found. I mean, that just cannot be it for Gideon. Damn.

Day 5: Chapters 27 - 33

18. We get a lot of thanalogical (??) science theory chat in the section, with the exchanges between Palamedes and Harrow, which seems to confuse them at least as much as it did me! Did you enjoy the science chat and reveals, or did it get in the way of the action?

I liked that stuff; it was a good breather from the action. Some books are all action action action and it gets to be way too much. Also… thanalogical is a great word! Thanks for that!

19. We see other sides to a couple of the Houses during this section: the Eighth, who had been reported as being super weird with the cavalier being effectively a vegetable, actually transpire to be super weird with the cavalier trying really hard to hold to whatever shred of his life he can claim as his own (Colum says: "I've got my sword. I've got my honour. Everything else is yours." "Your sword is mine also" said Silas. Silas is an ass of the highest order, btw) Similarly, the Second become all noble and self-sacrificing in chapter 33, a change from the rule-bound nimrods they'd been up to that point. Do you like the shifting understanding of the characters? Have your favourites / least despised changed over the course of the book?

These shifts have all been pretty interesting, and some of my preferred characters have changed. I liked Coronabeth from the beginning and continued to like her, but my reasons changed. That is, I like her as a book character but not as a person! The Eighth do become a little more sympathetic.
In general it is difficult to understand any of these people because we’re given so little background info about the Houses/planets that they came from. But the young author does do an impressive job of giving them all distinct personalities and voices, especially considering the size of the cast.

20. Speaking of changes: MASSIVE emotional reveal between Harrow & Gideon. I loved the line "she wrapped her arms around Harrow Nonagesimus and held her long and hard, like a scream", which is just SO Ninth House. How does this information make you re-evaluate Harrow & Gideon's relationship?

I LURV them like this. That was one of my favorite scenes in the book.

21. Something a bit lighter: in the midst of the blood and death and bone-key making and such, there are still some moments that made me snigger. one that I particularly enjoyed was "Hm," said Camilla neutrally, and Gideon knew immediately that she organised Palamedes's and her socks by colour and genre." The little blips of humour have definitely helped me whilst reading the book. Do they work for you?

Absolutely work for me. This book is a black comedy, really, and the offbeat humor of these stray observations is great.

Day 4: Chapters 21-26

14. More deaths! Do you have any theories on why the Fourth were killed? Why Gideon was spared? Who do you think is committing these murders?

They’re all being picked off because… I am actually not sure. Regarding why Gideon was spared, I like Minx’s theory that it’s because she’s not a threat to whoever is doing the killing. Either that, or they enjoy playing mind games with people.

15. The Third House (maybe Ianthe) seem to be lurking in the background of this book, all sneaky and suspicious. Coronabeth seems like the nicer one out of the Twins. But do you think this is the case? Do you think Coronabeth has something up her sleeves?

Definitely something weird going on with those two, but at this point in the book I hope Coronabeth proves a Good Guy.

16. Gideon had a weird encounter with the Eighth house. What did you make of the comment, 'because you grew up servant to a murderer, in a tribe of murderers. You are, more than anything, a victim of the Ninth House'. Do you think Gideon will accept their invitation?

No, not unless Harrow gets in on it too. At her core, Gideon still feels some sort of loyalty to the Ninth, and certainly to Harrow. Gideon is curious about the Eight, but when it comes to how awful the Ninth is, methinks she doth protest too much.

17. (This is a bit of a silly question). Over the course of the book, Gideon has been getting closer to Harrow, Dulcinea and Coronabeth (although it seems she wishes she could get closer to the latter). Put yourself in Gideon's shoes. Harrow, Dulcinea and Coronabeth - Kiss, Marry, Kill.. Explain your reasoning haha!

LOL! Let’s see. Kiss Coronabeth because she is hot but possibly too shallow for anything else. Marry Harrow because she is the most… stable somehow? And I kind like the enemies to lovers trope in this particular context. Kill Dulcinea because she’s dying anyway!

Awesome!

Speaking of LGBT-
A reminder that this month’s Backroom BOM, Save the Date, starts on Sunday 20 Oct (not tomorrow like the YA one).

Last I checked, the book was still free on Amazon. So if you are willing to read a short MM romance, it’s not too late to join Back Room! Go Team!

Sorry, woke up and realized how mean that last comment sounded if any of you work in a book store. 😔
It was just my sleep-deprived a$$hole way of saying I don’t understand why, in some stores, the merest whiff of LGBT themes or content has people ghettoizing a book that doesn’t belong in a special section. In a perfect world, IMO almost all such books would be shelved amongst everything else, except for maybe LGBT history or overt “issues” books like Coming Out novels.