maharetr

Currently reading:

Wolfsong by TJ Klune. This is a ‘beloved friend thrust this into my hands’ type acquisition. I’ve had a rough time with Klune’s works. On one hand, his worldbuilding is spectacular, his first third, frequently his two-thirds of his novels are amazing and gripping and filled with feels… and then he’s yet to close it out for me. The romances he establishes don’t seem to have the same carry through as the rest of his work. Or they don’t for me, which as someone who doesn’t read romances on the whole, but who wants to be swept off my feet, feels doubly saddening.

This is a werewolf pack story (a/b/o minus the kinky sex so far), with a very emotionally stilted style that actually really works for its emotionally stilted main character. It’s also tightly written down to its bare bones of scene setting; it gets in and out of its scenes at speed, conveying exactly whatever it needs to and then bailing to the next scene. That…sort of works for it. It makes it difficult to connect properly with the characters, but it makes it an easy read. I gave it my ‘first 50 pages to do something that engages me’ which it did. And then ’50 pages after we finish the main events of the blurb to keep me reading’ which it kinda did. It gave me snippets of emotional intensity, and/or genuinely funny beats. The main character is kept entirely on the sidelines of what feels like the main action for the entire novel so far (360 pages of 560) to the point where the reader is also only introduced to it in that ‘we have two baddies with the same initial that we’ve barely met’ and…ugh. Writing this up, I’m not sure why I’m still reading, other than sunk costs. Acknowledging that is apparently still not quite enough to make me stop. *facepalm*

Sisters of the vast black by Linda Rather. Nuns in space. Attempt number…three? This consistently felt like way too many characters for a novella. Once I stopped trying to keep them straight in my head, and just pressed on with it instead, I got to some interesting things and some very neat world building. Probably going to finish it this time, although I was foolish enough to skim goodreads about it at 60%ish and promptly got brutally spoiled by the summary. More *faceplaming*

…It’s a weird feeling to be in a reading rut while reading. Better than the previous non-reading rut, I guess.

Up next:
Even though I knew the end by C.L. Polk, as a phone read. I lightly bounced off Witchmark despite the gorgeous cover and moderately intriguing worldbuilding (from memory the relationship that was getting established didn’t click for me). But 150ish pages and done, I’m willing to give a shot. Or at least a sample shot.

The ladies of Grace Audeiu by Susanna Clarke as a physical read. Short stories, with a very measured, comfortingly confident opening. I have tentative hope I’m going to enjoy it.

Finished reading:
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood.
Huh. Where to start? I know that some of my reactions to various things were blunted because I'd already processed the things having read surprisingly … not spoilery, but a surprisingly detailed descriptions of some book moments in a review. So, I'll go below a cut.

( No explicit spoilers I don't think, but don't read if you'd rather go in cold to your own read )

We who are about to… by Joanna Russ, published 1976.
A spaceship accident strands a small, disparate group of people on an unknown planet, hundreds of years from rescue. The female narrator isn’t interested in uselessly maintaining humanity. The first half of this was more harrowing reading than The Testaments, actually. For all that Gilead is horrific, and chews people up and spits them out, there’s a structure here, even if it sucks. Like the Joker says: “Everyone stays calm if things are going to plan. Even if the plan’s horrifying.”

Is there a point to surviving? Is there a point to keeping ‘humanity’ going in a place where natural attrition means we’ll die out much sooner rather than later? Russ says no, and while I’m hypothetically inclined to agree, watching the disagreements flare into violence and force and then disintegrate entirely, is grim stuff. I was utterly gripped by the first half. The second half meandered as the character chose to starve, and then gripped me for the last few pages so tightly I barely breathed.

There’s an opacity to Russ’s writing – there’s conclusions reached or ideas formed that seem to be happening just under the surface of the paragraphs, and I can’t tell if that’s the narrative choice to not state them aloud, or if I’m not making the connections. I’m also not sure if it’s a 1970s thing or a Russ thing. I’m pretty sure I found similar issues with the parts of The female man that I read. Glad I read it, if only to have read something from 45ish years ago. Not sure how I felt about it as a novella unto itself.


Currently reading:

The second mountain by David Brooks
Absolutely captivated by his chapters on the valley and the wilderness – those metaphorical (or literal) times when life smacks you off your stable perch and leaves you rattled and questioning everything, and you need to go away for a while to reassess you Everything. Less convinced by his writing on the soul – I think we have one, but I also think animals have souls, too. I am deeply distrustful of any ‘things that separate us from animals!’ spiels at this point. Although I think he’s talking about a moral centre and I’m talking about a life force, so *shrug*. Continuing to read with interest, little bits at a time.

To be taught, if fortunate by Becky Chambers.
Started! I love her concepts SO MUCH. I keep forgetting her writing isn’t as quite as polished and deft in turn. This is still good, twenty ish pages in.


Up next:
Argh, I feel like there’s so many, again, but my brain’s not working.