Reading Wednesday

[nrgburst]

So I'm doing well enough in my reading goals for the year that I'm going to have to bump up my goal. (From 75 books to 100.) Also, the rain of holds is slowing down now that I've figured out how to delay them, and I may have time to read fic again. LOL

Since my last book post I've finished 4 books, and they were all good to great!

First up was The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden. Amazon kept telling me to buy it because it was supposed to be like Spinning Silver, and there are loads of similarities- it's also set in a world drawn from historical Russia and has a plucky female protagonist and it's high fantasy, with prophecies and magic. It wasn't as compelling and memorable as SS, IMO, but still very good. Now I really want to know what kvas and mead taste like. 


Next was The Obelisk Gate, the second of N.K Jemesin's The Broken Earth trilogy. This one was much easier to get into than The Fifth Season, and ahhh, I really loved the Nassun and Schaffa POV chapters! Also whatever is going on with Hoa and Alabaster is fascinating! The bits and pieces of obviously Lost and Important History/Backstory we've been given feel like pieces of a puzzle we've been handed all along, and we just need to fit them together properly in the right perspective. Can't wait for the last- I think we can guess what Essun's fate is going to be, and that maybe it's not the death sentence it seems?


After that I read When you Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, which is a Newbery Medal winning YA SF/mystery. Time travel, epistolary and lots of references to A Wrinkle in Time to help anchor/understand the time travel parts for younger readers. (Also it's partly a critique of the book's time travel premise, which is delightful to me, and strikes me almost as fanfic?) I figured out the mystery about halfway through, but I loved seeing it play out. 


Finally, I read Magic Breaks by Ilona Andrews and it was absolutely my fave of the series thus far! So many long foreshadowed events finally came to be and ahahahahaha at long last Curran put his money where his mouth was and I'm sure fandom hated it BUT I LOVED IT. YESSSSS I am bemoaning the 14 week wait for the next installment in my holds! 


Next up on my Libby: The Iron Trial, Enchanted, Ella Minnow Pee.

Comments

[eglantiere]

ooooh, it's the book where curran finally resigns, right? TOLD YOU. this makes their relationship practically palatable! he does still have his asshole moments from time to time, but it's a general series shift from small-scale noir to Big Damn Heroic Politics, and i loved it.

[nrgburst]

YUP! LOL I lovelovelove arcs where Big Powerful Man overtly gives up power and prestige. And this one is so that Kate's power and concerns can take priority- like it is all about her having more agency in what happens in their lives instead of always reacting to Pack stuff. I think this kind of female centric arc is still rare? Like fandom always seethes over His Loss and I get that we are wired to think like that, but maaan I love it when it happens! :DDD The more we are exposed to it, the more people go, actually that makes total sense. Actually, it's not emasculating, etc.

[tamsin]

Go you for rocking your reading goals! The Rebecca Stead book sounds cool, I might have to try it.

[nrgburst]

Thanks! It's a novella length book, and light and easily digested. And yet it still makes you go hmmmm, I never thought of things like that! I'm exactly the type of person who will notice a detail that isn't logical in canon and react by writing a fic about it, too. LOL

[spikedluv]

The Obelisk Gate . . . This one was much easier to get into

It's funny that I read this now. The other day I tried to find the second book in my library (but the entire series was out - when I couldn't find the author on the shelf I was like o_O is there something wrong with my brain?!!) to read the blurb and just look at it and get a feel for whether I'd enjoy it, and then I read your comments here.