March Reading
Apr. 5th, 2023 07:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sultrybutdamagedMarch was a productive reading month for me. I did a low-pressure readathon and ended up finishing 12 books.
On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis - a YA story about an autistic teenager trying to win her family a spot on a generation ship after Earth is hit by an asteroid. I loved this one. Duyvis is the creator of the OwnVoices hashtag and she does an incredible job with Denise’s immersive POV. The book is written with a light touch but it has a lot of ideas going on behind the adventure. It’s about who we value as a society and why, and what we owe to the future and to the people still alive now. It’s also one of the most believable depictions I’ve read of a post-apocalyptic world, even with the cool spaceship.
The Girl in the Tower and The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden - Second and third in a fantasy trilogy set in 14th century Russia (well, what would eventually be Russia.) This series started out pretty good and got much better by the end - each book was stronger than the last one. I enjoyed the use of Russian folklore and history, which I didn’t know much about. The series also just had a lot of things I like in it: a protagonist who makes a lot of mistakes and learns from then, an unconventional romance, strong sibling relationships, horses.
The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice - After watching Interview with the Vampire last year, I started a very slow reread of Anne Rice’s books, mostly in publication order. This month I finally got to this one, in which a lot of things happen but the most important is that we discover Lestat was a theater kid and that explains everything. I should do a longer post at some point on these books; they were, uh, weirdly formative for me. As far as this one goes, the fandom considers it one of the best, and that’s definitely true, even if I am a bit of a Lestat skeptic.
Mandlebrot the Magnificent by Liz Ziemska This is a novella about a Jewish teenager who saves his family from the Nazis using math-as-magic. I don’t usually enjoy novellas, because I always want them to be longer, but this book is the exact right length for the story it’s telling. It’s a quiet little story about one family set against the backdrop of war and the Holocaust. There is a lot of math in this book, and I am the last person to ask how much of that is based on anything real, but the author explains it all in a way that makes it clear enough.
The Goddess of Buttercups & Daisies by Martin Millar - This was the only book this month I really didn’t like. I had high expectations because the premise sounded great - it’s like Xena-meets-situational-comedy, about the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes trying to get a play produced while various semi-divine figures are battling out for the future of the city around him - but it ended up being kind of blah. The humor didn’t really land for me and it was a book that really needed to be funny to work.
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng - This was a really slow read for me. I think I actually started it in January. For some reason, it took me a while to get into it, but once I did I found it very powerful. It’s set in a sort of dystopian version of the present where a fascist set of laws have been passed in the US to prevent “unpatriotic” actions, and follows a young boy trying to track down his mother, a poet who has become the face of a movement calling for an end to the laws. It’s unsettling and ends in a way I didn’t expect at all.
Buffalo Soldier by Marcus Broaddus - Another novella, and this one did feel a bit too short. It’s a steampunk story where Jamaica rose to be a world power on par with the British Empire, and focuses on a secret agent-type character on the run with a young boy who’s being hunted for his unique genes. It’s a very thoughtful book, with a lot to say about politics, justice and violence. Unfortunately I did feel like the plot got a bit muddled at the end. I would really love to see more in this world though.
Wild Card by Lisa Shearin - My third novella (can you tell I was rushing to hit a certain number of books by the end of the month?) This one I picked up to see if I might be interested in the series it’s part of. I thought it was good, not great, but enough that I’ll probably read at least one of the novels. It’s got all the tropes of urban fantasy, with a vaguely noir-ish heroine solving mysteries, but in a more traditional fantasy world. My favorite part was a side character, a pirate who is afraid of magic.
Dragon Heart by Cecelia Holland - I don’t even know what to say about this one. The official description is something like “a mute teenage girl bonds with a dragon,” which does happen in the first 20%, but then the book turns into something else entirely. It’s a weird mix of high fantasy and horror, it’s got incredibly beautiful, moody and atmospheric prose, the magic system is bizarre, the characters and their relationships are all wonderful… and it’s got the most disappointing ending I can remember reading recently. If it weren’t for the last chapter, it would have been my favorite book of the month easily. I’m still going to go read everything else Cecelia Holland has written.
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West - My classics read for the month, not the one I was planning, because I ran out of time and needed something shorter. This one is a beautifully written character study about a soldier who returns from WWI with amnesia and the women in his life who have to decide if they are going to force him to remember the truth or let him go on in the happy fantasy he believes is his life. It was incredibly depressing, and the soldier’s story was only the beginning of why. I was impressed by it but I’m sure not going to read it again.
On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis - a YA story about an autistic teenager trying to win her family a spot on a generation ship after Earth is hit by an asteroid. I loved this one. Duyvis is the creator of the OwnVoices hashtag and she does an incredible job with Denise’s immersive POV. The book is written with a light touch but it has a lot of ideas going on behind the adventure. It’s about who we value as a society and why, and what we owe to the future and to the people still alive now. It’s also one of the most believable depictions I’ve read of a post-apocalyptic world, even with the cool spaceship.
The Girl in the Tower and The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden - Second and third in a fantasy trilogy set in 14th century Russia (well, what would eventually be Russia.) This series started out pretty good and got much better by the end - each book was stronger than the last one. I enjoyed the use of Russian folklore and history, which I didn’t know much about. The series also just had a lot of things I like in it: a protagonist who makes a lot of mistakes and learns from then, an unconventional romance, strong sibling relationships, horses.
The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice - After watching Interview with the Vampire last year, I started a very slow reread of Anne Rice’s books, mostly in publication order. This month I finally got to this one, in which a lot of things happen but the most important is that we discover Lestat was a theater kid and that explains everything. I should do a longer post at some point on these books; they were, uh, weirdly formative for me. As far as this one goes, the fandom considers it one of the best, and that’s definitely true, even if I am a bit of a Lestat skeptic.
Mandlebrot the Magnificent by Liz Ziemska This is a novella about a Jewish teenager who saves his family from the Nazis using math-as-magic. I don’t usually enjoy novellas, because I always want them to be longer, but this book is the exact right length for the story it’s telling. It’s a quiet little story about one family set against the backdrop of war and the Holocaust. There is a lot of math in this book, and I am the last person to ask how much of that is based on anything real, but the author explains it all in a way that makes it clear enough.
The Goddess of Buttercups & Daisies by Martin Millar - This was the only book this month I really didn’t like. I had high expectations because the premise sounded great - it’s like Xena-meets-situational-comedy, about the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes trying to get a play produced while various semi-divine figures are battling out for the future of the city around him - but it ended up being kind of blah. The humor didn’t really land for me and it was a book that really needed to be funny to work.
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng - This was a really slow read for me. I think I actually started it in January. For some reason, it took me a while to get into it, but once I did I found it very powerful. It’s set in a sort of dystopian version of the present where a fascist set of laws have been passed in the US to prevent “unpatriotic” actions, and follows a young boy trying to track down his mother, a poet who has become the face of a movement calling for an end to the laws. It’s unsettling and ends in a way I didn’t expect at all.
Buffalo Soldier by Marcus Broaddus - Another novella, and this one did feel a bit too short. It’s a steampunk story where Jamaica rose to be a world power on par with the British Empire, and focuses on a secret agent-type character on the run with a young boy who’s being hunted for his unique genes. It’s a very thoughtful book, with a lot to say about politics, justice and violence. Unfortunately I did feel like the plot got a bit muddled at the end. I would really love to see more in this world though.
Wild Card by Lisa Shearin - My third novella (can you tell I was rushing to hit a certain number of books by the end of the month?) This one I picked up to see if I might be interested in the series it’s part of. I thought it was good, not great, but enough that I’ll probably read at least one of the novels. It’s got all the tropes of urban fantasy, with a vaguely noir-ish heroine solving mysteries, but in a more traditional fantasy world. My favorite part was a side character, a pirate who is afraid of magic.
Dragon Heart by Cecelia Holland - I don’t even know what to say about this one. The official description is something like “a mute teenage girl bonds with a dragon,” which does happen in the first 20%, but then the book turns into something else entirely. It’s a weird mix of high fantasy and horror, it’s got incredibly beautiful, moody and atmospheric prose, the magic system is bizarre, the characters and their relationships are all wonderful… and it’s got the most disappointing ending I can remember reading recently. If it weren’t for the last chapter, it would have been my favorite book of the month easily. I’m still going to go read everything else Cecelia Holland has written.
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West - My classics read for the month, not the one I was planning, because I ran out of time and needed something shorter. This one is a beautifully written character study about a soldier who returns from WWI with amnesia and the women in his life who have to decide if they are going to force him to remember the truth or let him go on in the happy fantasy he believes is his life. It was incredibly depressing, and the soldier’s story was only the beginning of why. I was impressed by it but I’m sure not going to read it again.
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Date: 2023-04-17 09:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-17 01:51 pm (UTC)