maharetr

Finished reading
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty. This was FUN. I loved the take on demons, and really liked Amina and her crew. The latter parts of the supernatural elements felt as interesting and as consequential as a dream sequence (which is to say, not very), but the author made the 'recounting story to a scribe" WORK, in beautiful, effective hindsight, and she gets many kudos for that. I'll gladly pick up book 2, doubly so if there's a 'the story so far' refresher at the front.

Big magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. Filled with woo and vibes about being creative, but they're *impeccably* my woo and vibes. Read a library copy, and then turned around and went out and bought my own copy.

Nimona by ND Stevenson. I saw the movie first (which I LOVED), and it's hard to tell if I'm unfairly judging the original text by the one that came second, or if it's actually wobbly as a book. It *really* feels to me like a 'started, gonna see where this goes, hey!' web comic. Which it was! And isn't automatically a bad thing (see: Digger by Ursula Vernon, which I think was also this but didn't feel like it), but it kinda... I feel like the movie was better, because as a text it *had* to make coherent sense from the get go, whereas a pantsed web comic doesn't.

The moon of crusted snow by Waubgeshig Rice. Been on my TBR pile forever, finally got it from the library. This was...sadly inconsistent for me. Someone in reviews suggested it should be read more as a fable than as a post-apoca story, and that shift in thinking did help, post-read. A First Nations (North American) community is cut off from the rest of the world by a power outage that also affects the rest of probably the country. I'm still very torn on it in multiple directions. ( general thoughts, positive and negative. No real spoilers ) I'd be really interested in others' thoughts, if you've read it.

The reluctant hallelujah by Gabrielle Williams. This was an impulse secondhand bookshop buy. Australian YA. I was taken in by the title and the cover, and by the strong, assured teenage Aussie voice that was effortlessly rolling along the page. Teen girl goes on road trip to convey Secret of her parents, who have gone missing.

I finished it in three hours of holiday afternoon, and I would absolutely actively seek out more by this author and...did not like this particular book, thinking back on it. It started with a solid premise: parents haven't come home, they have a Secret that their teen has to deal with, and transport. Excellent premise. Except ( spoilers ) The MacGuffin could have been anything and the author went with...that, and also didn't touch it, but also it was such a good Australian teen voice and I am so *clutches hair and growls in frustration*.

Currently reading:
Diving back into Witch king by Martha Wells, which I'd gotten 70-odd pages into during Hugo reading and realised I wanted to savour rather than rush through for a deadline. Picking it back up has been remarkably difficult on the executive function, but I'm back in at page 40 or so, and finding the swing again.

A question of age: women, ageing and the forever self by Jacinta Parsons. Recced by my mum who did it as an audiobook. I have a library paperback, and it's...hmm. Is there a word for purple prose that's a totally different colour but also same vibe? idek. I want to support the idea very, very much and I'll definitely give it 50 pages (possibly 100 pages given the ease of the page layout) but I'm cautious.

Up next:
It's taken me this long to get back into the reading swing, I don't really want to jinx things, but maybe The artist's way by Julia Cameron.

Finished reading:
Sisters of the vast black by Lina Rather. Finished at last! I’d been spoiled for [thing], but that didn’t lessen my grim enjoyment of the plot when it finally arrived. I also didn’t see [other reveal] coming. I feel like I should have but I didn’t, and frankly kudos for that, author. I’d be tempted to keep reading the series, but all the reviews are talking about how the grim gets grimmer, which is very in line of where it was going, but also not somewhere I want to go myself right now.

How to keep house while you’re drowning by K.C. Davis. After having two people use the word lazy in genuine judgement (not at me!) in my presence within a few days of each other, I finally went looking for a sample of ‘Laziness does not exist’ which has been on my TBR for ages. It wasn’t quite what I was after, but the ‘readers also liked’ gave me the above, which was much more what I was after. This is about separating care tasks like housework, eating, and body cleaning from the framework of morality that so many, many people have them embedded in. The book’s designed for people who have ADHD/depression/grief, and who are generally struggling. I’m struggling way less than that general audience, and it’s a very short, very quick read. I still feel like this book lightly rocked my world’s foundations, and improved it in subtle but profound ways.

( Choice quotes )

There’s also several incredibly important chapters on rest: the right to rest, the necessity of rest, and the fact that housework task balance in a relationship/household isn’t about who does the tasks, but the importance of everyone getting the amount of rest they need.

Highly recced. As someone on goodreads reviewed: ‘Short, sweet, and validating as fuck.”

Raven, graphic novel by Kami Garcia, illustrated by Gabriel Picolo. I read this because Beast boy kept bumping onto my radar as a Cool Thing, but it was second in a series, Raven is first, and I’m a completionist to my bones. There’s a really fantastic story here that either would have been better served as a traditional prose novel, or as a substantially expanded graphic novel. We get introduced to Raven as she’s involved in a car accident that kills her foster mother. She gets family-fostered into her aunt’s care, and that and her amnesia left me utterly floundering. The references to her mom left me floundering: her foster mom or her birth mom? I had no grounding in who she was before the accident, and only a vague sense of her personality by the end of the novel. There was so much going on with family history, powers, and baddies that as someone who was coming to it utterly cold, I only had the barest of grips on by the end of the book. Left me wanting a much deeper story.

Beast boy by Kami Garcia, illustrated by Gabriel Picolo. I’d been attracted by the opening pages (funny, charming, really good sense of interiority), and by someone’s tumblr screencap of a found family drawn from a neat camera angle. This was much, much better grounded, helped by Gar’s family, friends, and a full set of memories. Also it’s a much more traditional superhero comes into their own narrative, which helps, but it took nearly a month of not-really reading Raven vs three days of reading Beast boy, which feels like a shame.

Currently reading:
How to do the work by Nicole LePera. Got interested in her work via her Twitter account. This is a mix of working through trauma, soothing the body, developing better relationships with yourself and others type stuff. So far it’s a mix of ‘I knew 80% of that, but the rest of the 20% is new and hella useful’, and ‘oooof’ E.g. I know a fair amount about staying present and grounded so that wasn’t too challenging, but goddamn am I bracing myself for some ego work.

At 52% this a cautious rec so far: plenty of good stuff in here, but there’s also a really hefty thread of ‘yoga solved all my client’s problems!’ and also sincere plugging of intermittent fasting to ‘give your digestive system a break’, which… *makes very sour face*. So, rec, with caveats.

Didn’t finish:
Wolfsong by T. J. Klune. I nudged myself into reading the last chapter to see if I wanted to read the intervening 100-odd pages, and the answer was actually, no. Sadly, but no.

Up next:
- The ladies of Grace Adieu. having another go at it as bedtime/book-book reading.
- One of the many, many epubs I got from the Hugo voter’s packet. Probably the short stories and working up to the longer.

God, I burned out on Hugo reading real hard/early this year, it seems. Or maybe it was right on time, and it's the later con start date that's fritzing things.

Finished reading:
Girls of paper and fire by Natasha Ngan. I inhaled this in a week. The tension really does ratchet up excellently. The romance honestly made about as much sense as the average 'girl falls for mysterious boy', which I can't complain about. I did like Wren as a character. I can't tell if the book is actually disserved by being YA, or if I was just interested in something it was never going to cover, regardless (exploring what intimacy was like after assault).

The galaxy and the ground within by Becky Chambers. My reading of this is so all over the place. It took 100 pages for the story to move out of territory covered the in the blurb, and after it did, I felt like I was sorely lacking for reasons to keep reading. There was a deeply touching moment or two (Tupo and their museum was a particular highlight), but then there were long stretches of not much. Then the denouement hits for each character, and they are (for the most part) breathtakingly perfect, so clearly something worked in the preceding pages, but I'm at a loss to what it was. I want Roveg's story in its entirety, though. And actually, Speaker and Tracker's story, and their people. Thinking back, this felt like a novel-length short story, which is…awkward. Okay! But I wanted to read about these characters in different places than Chambers's wanted to put them.

Avoiding the aging parent trap by Brian Herd. An impulse reserve from the library, by an Australian family lawyer. I'm 60 quick pages in an don't feel like I've learned much, but it's also still in the ground-setting territory, and I'm an only child of an only child, so a lot of the 'bury your sibling hatchet for the sake of your parents' doesn't apply here. It sounds like solid-enough advice for them, though.
Now Finished: Heh. This was somewhat useful. The information about who owns what, and who will get what in which circumstances, was valuable. Also the "get legal advice before you do anything big or even medium-sized in relation to elder care or changing wills or selling anything" advice was very effectively driven home, esp in Australian-specific context. Centrelink doesn't care if you gift away your million dollar lotto win to charity; it still counts as your asset for five years. Ouch.

That said, Big Sky Publishing better be a cover for some guy working out of his study/garage, or I'm gonna be judging them super harshly. The copyediting (children's', ouch) and editing left a lot to be desired, and any half-decent editor should have pulled him up on exposing his biases, and get him to tone down his snideness.

Currently reading:
One last stop by Casey McQuiston. A library reserve, gleefully made while the book was still on order. I've read the first few pages, and it's tight and funny. I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up with its style for hundreds and hundreds of pages, but I'm keen to have a go.

At p175 or so: This was a really good example of (…upping the ante? I'm not sure what term I'm looking for here). But when characters hit the point that I the reader knew about from the blurb, I had QUESTIONS, (with literally that much wide-eyedness interest), and kept reading. The wheels are starting to spin just a little bit, and the 'oh! I can never tell her how I feel about her!' is starting to grate, but I'm also reasonably sure the ante is about to up again, so I'm interestedly sticking it out.

Up next:
I now have a copy of Witness for the dead (Goblin Emperor companion book) by Katherine Addison. It's slimmer than I realized, and so, so pretty and nice to hold in hardback. I'm technically currently reading it, but it's much, much slower going, and requires much more brain power per page, so I'm just dipping in and out atm.

Finished reading:
Black sun by Rebecca Roanhorse. Having finished it, and having had a day or two to digest it, I like it more and more. It was well structured, and everything wove together well. I was slightly peeved that ( spoiler ), which somehow made it feel like not enough things were resolved to justify ending the novel when it did. An even more minor peeve was the use of xie/xer pronouns instead of they/them, which, after someone pointed out it makes gender neutral characters sound like literal aliens, I cannot unsee.

Her writing style—distanced and somewhat heavy on the telling—isn't my favourite, but it got the job done. The worldbuilding is evocative and interesting and new, and I ended up liking or at least being interested in a bunch of the characters. I'm interested enough in them and their new world order to consider picking up the sequel, which is an achievement in and of itself. It might even be new and fresh enough to bump Piranesi off the top of my ballot. Maybe.

Currently reading:
Cemetery boys by Aiden Thomas. mmm. This is published through Swoon Reads, a 'submit your manuscript for public voting! Most popular gets published!' outfit, which, oh boy. It feels like it, too, and that's not a compliment of its opening pages. I am extremely here for a Mexican ghost (a la Coco) romance story with a trans MC. Like, so very yes please. But I'm hoping very much that it smooths out.

Up next:
The city we became N. K. Jeminsin. I (re)read the first few pages (again) and FUCK, they're good. Hits the ground running with character and place and voice. So, so good.

General Hugo musings, for what they're worth
I liked Calculating Stars well enough, but reading Fated Stars somehow just feels like homework. Goodreads says I can jump straight to giving The Relentless Moon a go, which honestly is attractive.

Harrow the Ninth. I bounced so fucking hard off Gideon the Eighth, I can't even. I'm very here for orphan outcast, including orphan outcast raised entirely in a society that grinds her into the ground for being different. But one that somehow maintains a sense of defiant self, and a self of self so apparently outside the culture, really, really threw me. That said, skimming goodreads and opening the sample…I like this. I really fucking like this. FINE. I'll give Gideon another go.

Murderbot. I expected the first novella to grab me, and it just…didn't. I want to give the series another go, though. Goodreads says to read the second one, and then it's safe to jump to the novel, so I'm going to try that.

Finished reading:

The good thief by Hannah Tinti. I really enjoyed her writing style, but then ending sort of wobbled for me. I'd interestedly pick up something else by this author, though.

Piranesi by Susanne Clarke. Oh man. This really is a book I want to reread so I can watch it unfold with my newfound knowledge. Not that Clark did anything startlingly unexpected or novel, but there feels like an immense satisfaction knowing ….ugh. All of it. Trying to put it into works feels like diminishing it into simplistic concepts, but that doesn't help when you're trying to describe it to someone else. As someone who likes books where not much happens? It's good, it's very good. It's not perfect (heads up for not-great queer rep, and also a single paragraph of entirely unnecessary fatphobia), but despite those flaws, it still managed to make me feel immensely peaceful and more secure in the world, so there is that.

Silver in the wood by Emily Tesh Argh. I want to like this so much! This is exactly the sort of story I want to have written! Forest spirits, and forest protector! Multiple types of masculinity, and a queer relationship! But damn. It desperately needs another edit (it's readable! But *makes face*), and the first part of it feels so rushed. I know it's a novella so probably had word count limits, but I really wanted another thousand words to be able to settle into the setting, and then a few more thousand to establish the antagonist properly. I've just started the second half. I love Mrs. Silver already, but idk if she's going to be enough to negate the fact that the first half was a lot of manly-man walking around the forest using a crossbow to kill explicitly-female dryads, and an off-screen human woman described as an ogress for being allegedly overbearing. I'm still reading, but I'm grieving what could have been, and not yet planning to pick up the sequel.

Having now finished it: I rescind the ogress complaint: Mrs. Silver was the GREATEST! But I was left so frustrated and grieving what could have been if the narrative as a whole had been given enough words to breathe. All of it just felt too rushed. :( Not getting the sequel.

“A Guide for Working Breeds” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad. Short story finalist for this year's Nebulas, which was how I stumbled over it, and now Hugo finalist too! This was laugh out loud funny, and still makes me smile. Robots and their robot mentors.

Finna by Nino Cipri (novella) Recced by fredmouse <3. I was utterly charmed by this. I wanted (and still want) more relationship grounding—I know they just broke up, but I wanted to feel what they'd lost—but the ending felt more and more right the longer I sat with it, which is a kudos in its own right. I'm glad it made the Hugo shortlist. I'm expecting something else to be better than it, honestly, but it's a worthy contender.

Klara and the sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. I read Never let me go after seeing the trailer for the movie, which means that I went into that particular book not even realising there was a twist to be slowly, horrifyingly revealed. Of all the books I wish I could (re)read cold for the first time, that book is on the top of the list. So I went into Klara very interested and as cold as possible. I read this over a weekend, ( general, mostly feelings-based spoilers )

The murders of Molly Southborne by Tade Thompson. Holy shit. Passed on to me from fredmouse via chaosmanor. chaosmanor also passed on that it was full of gore and body horror, and confusing, but if I could make it through the first chapter I'd be fine. I knew starting this at night was not a great idea, but I did it anyway, absently picking it up this (Tuesday) evening and started reading the first few pages curiously, on my feet. I figured I could stop should it start to get too creepy. I read it straight through in one sitting, and okay, it helped that it was only 117 short pages, but STILL.

( One tiny detail that I wish had been addressed ) Regardless, I was entirely willing to roll with both the opening and the premise, and still wasn't quite sharp enough to twig to how it pulled together, and goddamn, that was an EXCELLENT use of a novella, and the ending was fucking great. Thinking about it, the writing style/voice feels like The queen's gambit, and it works really, really well for it: that tight third person of someone who's outside the mainstream world but also knows shit.

Epic heads up for body horror and gore and violence, tho. I don't know that I'd want to consume a steady diet of said, and I'll…probably be okay sleeping tonight, but I can see how other people wouldn't be.

The dictionary of lost words by Pip Williams. In 1901, the word 'Bondmaid' was discovered missing from the Oxford English Dictionary. This is the story of the girl who stole it. This was both excellently written and frustrating in tiny, sharp, specific ways. This was so cosy in a white, middle-class British way that I kind of squirm at how much I enjoyed it, but I did. I did keep muttering 'where are the queers? Where are they?' Once I realised the live-together-forever sisters were fictionalized takes on actual historical real people, I relaxed a little, but still, a narrative that included positive feelings towards (former) sex workers, and the stories of working-class people of colour, the silence around queers felt…loud.

The author wanted to tell the stories of women and the women's words that had been excluded from the literal record of the dictionary, and she did a good job there, using a fictional woman to channel that, including several common grief-experiences that hit really well and hard, like, the author is good at this, but the author also for some reason intentionally dodged several moments of emotional impact. Like, it feels very distinctly like the author didn't feel like her fictional character was allowed to make active choices. The story of her life still works, but as a writer, I was left blinking that a few scenes were missing crucial sentences that would have allowed the character to be a fully rounded person, and been immensely emotionally satisfying for (this) reader, and argh. I critique because I liked? I guess? And am also taking notes for my own writing.

DNF:

When rain turns to snow by Jane Godwin. Australian YA. A boy turns up on a girl's doorstep with an infant child. I was tempted into this one by the lyrical writing (for lovers of Fiona Wood indeed <3) and the authentic teenage-Australian voice. I rage-quit at page 50-70 or so when I realised that most of the book was going to be these very young teenagers ineptly not-properly caring for an ill infant and actively not telling an adult (MC's mum is Right There, to be told and for administering life-sustaining care, jfc) for a hundred plus pages and fuck no. Tween/teen me probably would have liked it, but apparently adult-me Cannot. Will Not. Nope.

Currently reading:

Homesick by Nino Cipri. (also from fredmouse) I'm two and half short stories into this collection, and holy shit, it's GOOD. The third story—a ghost? Who-knows-what's-going-on!? Story was so good/unsettling that I stopped reading before bed and was epically unsettled for sleep. Highly recced daytime reading!

Up next:

Genuinely want to re-read Piranesi, doubly so now that it made the Hugos.

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse. Public service announcement: I have been informed that one of the heroines is a bisexual mermaid sea captain, at which point this book goes from "This author's first book was solid, but I didn't grab its sequel, and I'm not really running to pick this new series up, even if it has been Hugo-shortlisted" to 'holy shit, keen library reserve, yes pls!'

Finished reading:
Anxious People, by Fredrik Backman
I liked one of his previous books, am keen to read translated novels, and one of the blurbs of this made me cackle. This was the sort of book felt like it was Being Clever, rather than actually being clever. That said, it made me laugh out loud on public transport, and then made me tear up on public transport, so it's also doing things right. The ending is rather pat, but I'm also giving it a pass for how much it made me smile. On balance, I rec it.

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home, by Jeffrey Cranor, Joseph Fink
I adored the modern-day sections, but the bulk of the novel (the historical sections) didn't hold my interest anywhere near as much as I'd hoped. I feel like it was aiming for Lies of Locke Lamora territory and fell short, which is a damn shame because I love the podcast even if I no longer listen. It might well be better as the audiobook, with Meg Bashwiner's voice to carry it through, but it's still sort of ( general spoiler )


Currently reading:
The queen's gambit by Walter Tevis. Library grab, based on the captivating TV show and chaosmanor's rec. I am just--fucking--what. How did he do that. Genuinely, this is tight-third-person, but also so tell-y, and HOW did he make chess games, where I have barely any idea what's going on, SO TENSE? HOW is his writing so compelling? I am staring at it in writerly baffled awe, and relishing the ...there's a name for it. Voice echo? where you write or talk in the mannerisms of whatever you've just been around. Thank you, Walter Tevis, my god.

Up next:
The good thief by Hannah Tinti. Paused a little way into it so I can go library book reading, but looking forward to getting back to its quietly lyrical language.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. rachelmanija's post about 'go into this as cold as possible', and a brief snatch of 'kindest protagonist' and I'm THERE. I've placed a reserve on it at the local library.

Finished reading:
Mooncakes by Wendy Xu and Susanna Walker. This was so sweet, and I was charmed by the art style. Many points for the diversity rep (MC is Hard of Hearing and uses a hearing aid, and the other protagonist uses they/them pronouns). It was a cozy read, and I'm glad I bought it, but it's also an example of trying to do too many things at once means you don't quite do any of them really well. It was an excellent set up, but taking one or two of its topics and really focusing on those rather than shorthanding and shoehorning and bunch in would have made it a far stronger graphic novel.

Currently reading:
Power and magic, volume 1, edited by . Case in point, this is a graphic *anthology* of very short stories. It was a Kickstarter I backed-and-forgot, so it was a v pleasant surprise when these two turned up in the mail. The covers are gorgeous. I'm a touch sad the interior is entirely black and white, but The second, five-page story managed to do a tight focus on friendship-to-relationship really deftly, to the point where I paused reading there to savour the experience rather than launching into the next one.

Mr Norrell and Johnathan Strange This is going to be on my currently reading for ages, I think. I'm reading a few pages before bed, for example, so it's going to take pleasantly forever. This has been bitingly, startlingly funny in places, although I see what people mean when they say in the first part nothing happens. But that's also sort of the point of my reading, so I'm good with that.

Up next:
> The invisible life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab (for sampling)
> The once and future witches by Alix E. Harrow (I loved January) SO MUCH I'm almost nervous to pick this one up
> The city we became by N. K. Jemisin (I keep hearing Good Things, so sampling)
> Anxious people by Fredrick Backman (on reserve from the library)
> Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (a long time off, once I've finished JS&MR…)

Finished reading:
The witch's kind by Louisa Morgan
This feels like cottagecore at its very nearly perfect: nothing happens, the bad things (while described, and deserve trigger warnings) are in the past thanks to the flashbacks with now-reflections. It's not a Romance Novel by any stretch of the imagination, but reading it I get why so many people devour them. It has the same sort of feelings, even if what Barrie Anne is in love with is her farm and her adopted daughter with her aunt by her side. I really liked the emotional ebb and flow, and the characters' motivations. Motivations sound trite, but I legit believe why Barrie Anne wanted the fantasy of the relationship, and how badly it was going to crash down for her, and I ached for her. I can see how Morgan built to the ending she constructed, but I'm not sure the dramatic climax was necessary per se. I'm seesawing between 3.5 and 4 stars out of five for this one. I definitely don't regret buying it. I'd gladly get another book of this author's from the library, though.
( Trigger warnings slash spoilers )

Currently reading:
The house in the cerulean sea by T L Klune. This is the X-Men meets Miss Peregrine's House meets on-page queers, and dear god, it's also really good. The sentence level could do with some tweaking, but the voice is so incredibly droll and wry and has made me laugh out loud several times. Worth noting, many characters are over-the-top and dare I say hilariously mean to the main character in the lead up to him leaving his routine and going to find the other main characters, but it was all so sharp that I trust that when the catharsis hits, and the comfort flows in, it's going to be just as good. Two lines have made me catch my breath and want to hug it to my chest so far, and I'm anticipating many more. Also worth noting: the main character is fat, and there's a little fatphobia from the (mean) characters, and some internalized fatphobia on his part. I have every hope that the author is better than validating or vindicating that fatphobia in the rest of the book, but I'm also wary. Queer doesn't mean good rep in other areas, so while I'm hoping, I'm also careful. I'll report back.

Some days later, and a hundred pages from the end, and so far so good on the body acceptance, but the emotional pacing has waned a little. After such a good beginning, the middle of the book is flagging for me, sadly. Thinking about it, the first third of the book had the emotional tension of being uncomfortable in the known world, but also being sent away into the scarier unknown. Getting to know the children is interesting, but there hasn't been an underlying emotional tug, either a desire on Linus's part to stay, or a (strong enough) desire for Arthur, or an internal *something*. It's still a good book! But it's been striking seeing my own emotional response to what's going on. I'm really hoping it picks up in the last hundred pages.

Up next:
Picking Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke back up.

Finished reading:
The lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. I know I'm fifteen years late to the party, but Gods, this was so good. As a first-published novel I am SO IMPRESSED. I inhaled 500 pages of it, and I can't think of anything I'd cut, even. I loved Father Chains so much, and the twins, and watching Locke just determintedly bullhead his way through cons to a goal (a set of nice clothes! by this evening!) was watching a master at work. I feel like the story wobbled the dismount ever so slightly, and then nailed the landing so well I literally put the book/phone down and covered my face for a moment. Oh my feels. I'm deeply keen to read the second one, but shall take a short breather and go with some light-obligation/curiosity reading first.

The year the maps changed by Danielle Binks. A debut Australian pre-teen novel. It was a gift from my Granny for my birthday, which means I wanted to like, but as a novel feel like it tried to do way too much. Winnifred (Fred)'s family life is complicated, and not by choice – her mum had Fred as a single mother, met Luca when Fred was three, and Luca then became Fred's adopted dad. Fred's mum then died when Fred was six, leaving Fred with an adopted dad, and a maternal (I think) grandfather. Then as our story starts, Luca has gotten into a relationship with a woman who has a year-younger son, both of whom have moved into Fred, Luca, and Pop's house. I desperately wanted to know what it felt like, psychologically, to be growing up not-quite-adopted, but also so adrift from a 'grounded' for want of a better word, family.

And Binks does touch on it, but she also layers in a ( spoiler ) and the main plotline about small-town Australia grappling with the (based on a true story) arrival of a group of Albanian refugees from the Yugoslavian war, and there's no space for any of those three things to get the proper depth they all deserved, which is a damn shame.

Currently reading:
I'm reading a novel I kickstarted, but it's not great, and I may well DNF. Gonna give it 50 pages or so.

Up next:
Attempting to reserve as an ebook from my local library:
Upright women wanted by Sarah Galliey, which I've had my eye on for a while (post-apoca Western! Queer librarians on horseback!). Goodreads reviews seem to say it's a 'fails well' novella, with much pleading for an actual novel. So I'm doubly curious to read it.

Finished reading:
The mysterious Benedict society by Trenton Lee Stewart. Lemony Snicket with more pages and much, much less grim. This was so sweet and ridiculous and pleasant to read. I would have liked a touch more plausibility in "my child geniuses save the world from some very vague subliminal messaging that's apparently a threat?" story (I know, I know…) But I still read all the way to the end, and faced with nothing to read or the next one in the series, I tried to get the next one.

Currently reading:
The extraordinary education of Nicholas Benedict by Trenton Lee Stewart. I couldn't get book two, but could get the '5th-published prequel, that only contains only spoilers for book one,' so, sold! This is much better, or at least just as well written and much more grounded: this is the elderly Benedict of the first book as a 9 year old genius trying to dodge and outsmart the bullies at the orphanage, make friends, and solve a hidden treasure mystery, and I am HERE for it. At about half way through, It's a very, very cosy read so far.

Up next:
The house in the cerulean sea isn't available for many more weeks, sadness, but I have a witchy fiction book and a witchy non-fiction book incoming, I hope. Also the actual-second book in the Benedict series, maybe, if it comes back.