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kitewithfish) wrote2024-03-06 11:24 am
kitewithfish) wrote2024-03-06 11:24 am
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Wednesday Reading Meme - March 6 2024
What I’ve Read:
A Court of Thorns and Roses – Sarah J Maas – Audiobook read by Jennifer Ikeda – Ok, actually, I was expecting this to be like Fourth Wing (aka my expectations were subterranean but I picked it up so I could have an informed opinion) and this turns out to have interesting characterization and some cleverness with the plot, tho the writing style is… kind of middle grade and the language choice is sometimes jarringly modern.
So, chiefly my irritation at our main character, Feyre (Fay-rah) is that she’s in a book with “faeries” and therefore her name is doubly irksome, being both easy to misread and annoying to spell. Her characterization is moderately discontiguous at the beginning of the series – her internal narration informs us she is afraid, but her interactions with others do not really portray that effectively, and that works much less well at the beginning of book one than it does later. It's a bit of a blank canvas at the start but she improves towards the end.
The writing is nothing special, but the story structure is interesting and pulled off something pretty sneaky in a way that I admired once I got there. None of the sentences were particular worthy of attention, nor any paragraph, but much of the structure of the story was innovative enough that I think it's worth taking a look at it.
Spoilers- I have some thoughts that will contain spoilers – oddly, this is where I’m most complementary?
Honestly, it’s surprising how much I was spoiled for WITHOUT being spoiled for the main twist of the book.
In short, I was expecting this to be Fourth Wing but I begin to realize that (based on a number of shared tropes) probably Fourth Wing was trying to be ACOTAR.
His Forsaken Bride by Alice Coldbreath – audiobook by Anne Flosnik – This was fun and shameless. Didn’t realize it was 500+ pages while I was reading it, and that’s telling you something. A conniving bastard seeking to make his life easier accidentally falls in love with the woman who was supposed to be convenient, and is just kind of not. Coldbreath has a particular element to her romances that works for me because it’s fictional and historical and therefore pleasantly removed from real life, but yeah, this male leader is not a paragon of virtue and I'm here for that.
What I’m Reading:
A Court of Mist and Fury – Audiobook read by Jennifer Ikeda – book 2 of ACOTAR series – Reading is fun! The second book has characters suffering right from the start! I do love to watch fictional people suffer.
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York – Robert Caro – about 23% This section covers the first few years of Moses’s work in the newly created Park Commission and how he immediately began to use his power to bulldoze people to make parks in the image of his vision Some delightful takeaways: blackmailing public officials by promising them a project would take only $1 million and getting jusssst far enough into the project that they have to pour much more money into it or risk being seen to be corrupt or incompetent; starting projects in the middle of lawsuits arguing if he even had a right to build on the land and betting that the judges would not demand the completed buildings be pulled down; and outright lying to his allies on local park commissions that his new job at the state level commission would just be an advisory position. This also disregards the number of people who lived in the way of his parks that he just completely disregarded and forced to move. I was worried I would not get it read before the next 99% Invisible episode and so I bought the audiobook and I'm very happy with that choice.
The 99% Invisible podcast has special episodes on the chapters along this schedule, which I am trying to keep up with:
Reading schedule -
Episode 1 — January 19 — Introduction through Chapter 5Episode 2 — February 16 — Chapters 6 through 10Episode 3 — March 15 — Chapters 11 through 15
Fellowship of the Ring – JRR Tolkien – 17% - Haven't touched this is a bit, maybe switch to audiobook?
The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation – Vol 4 (Mo Dao Zu Shi) – 65% I slowed down a lot with this and I’m not sure why – probably the audiobook reading has been easier the last few days.
What I’ll Read Next:
Witchmark
Silver Nitrate
Gunslingers Paean #3
City of Miracles
Children of Time
Owned and need to read: Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, California Bones, Raven Song by IA Ashcroft, At The Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard, Tamryn Eradani's Enchanting Encounters Books 2 and 3, Tom Stoppard, Invention of love, "You Just Need to Lose Weight" and Other Myths about Fatness by Aubrey Gordon
A Court of Thorns and Roses – Sarah J Maas – Audiobook read by Jennifer Ikeda – Ok, actually, I was expecting this to be like Fourth Wing (aka my expectations were subterranean but I picked it up so I could have an informed opinion) and this turns out to have interesting characterization and some cleverness with the plot, tho the writing style is… kind of middle grade and the language choice is sometimes jarringly modern.
So, chiefly my irritation at our main character, Feyre (Fay-rah) is that she’s in a book with “faeries” and therefore her name is doubly irksome, being both easy to misread and annoying to spell. Her characterization is moderately discontiguous at the beginning of the series – her internal narration informs us she is afraid, but her interactions with others do not really portray that effectively, and that works much less well at the beginning of book one than it does later. It's a bit of a blank canvas at the start but she improves towards the end.
The writing is nothing special, but the story structure is interesting and pulled off something pretty sneaky in a way that I admired once I got there. None of the sentences were particular worthy of attention, nor any paragraph, but much of the structure of the story was innovative enough that I think it's worth taking a look at it.
Spoilers- I have some thoughts that will contain spoilers – oddly, this is where I’m most complementary?
Book one has a certain clever element of being a melding of two fairy tales – first, Beauty and the Beast (she’s brought to a fairy castle with the people under a curse from an enemy, falling in love with the lord of the castle will free him, he’s portrayed with many bestial qualities, she’s a normal person) and then, Cinderella (she’s abused by a powerful woman, she experiences magic induced nights of dancing, there’s a scene where she has to pluck lentils from ashes, and she’s triumphant by virtue of her connection to a prince).
What is interesting is how the Beauty and the Beast section both sets up the Cinderella section AND lulled me into thinking that the book was going to be a much simpler fantasy world than it is. Sections of the B&B storyline seem like lazy storytelling or relying on fantasy tropes without adding much too them, and then actually turn out to be a really quite interesting play on my expectations.
All the doofy scenes where Feyre is eavesdropping on important information? Turned out to actually be a set up – characters were trying to pass her information indirectly, and she's not nearly as sneaky as she thought. The Cinderella section pulls in the vindictive fairy from Beauty and the Beast to act as the vicious stepmother and manages it to pull it off for me by linking it to a larger power struggle that is original to the book. The second half is much much darker and I do enjoy watching characters put thru the ringer, so I found it a great improvement over the first half. Reminder, I like horror, I was probably supposed to be grossed out for a lot of this.
I see from the wiki that there’s supposed to be a connection to the story of Tam Lin, which I am less familiar with, but doesn’t seem to have a strong connection to the plot of the ballad on Wikipedia. I don't really see a lot of that there in other works.
I was also soothed to know from (SPOILERS FOR LATER BOOKS) that Tam Lin, her love interest in this book, does not stick around much and therefore I was eased to know that I would not have to deal with him.
End Spoilers
What is interesting is how the Beauty and the Beast section both sets up the Cinderella section AND lulled me into thinking that the book was going to be a much simpler fantasy world than it is. Sections of the B&B storyline seem like lazy storytelling or relying on fantasy tropes without adding much too them, and then actually turn out to be a really quite interesting play on my expectations.
All the doofy scenes where Feyre is eavesdropping on important information? Turned out to actually be a set up – characters were trying to pass her information indirectly, and she's not nearly as sneaky as she thought. The Cinderella section pulls in the vindictive fairy from Beauty and the Beast to act as the vicious stepmother and manages it to pull it off for me by linking it to a larger power struggle that is original to the book. The second half is much much darker and I do enjoy watching characters put thru the ringer, so I found it a great improvement over the first half. Reminder, I like horror, I was probably supposed to be grossed out for a lot of this.
I see from the wiki that there’s supposed to be a connection to the story of Tam Lin, which I am less familiar with, but doesn’t seem to have a strong connection to the plot of the ballad on Wikipedia. I don't really see a lot of that there in other works.
I was also soothed to know from (SPOILERS FOR LATER BOOKS) that Tam Lin, her love interest in this book, does not stick around much and therefore I was eased to know that I would not have to deal with him.
End Spoilers
Honestly, it’s surprising how much I was spoiled for WITHOUT being spoiled for the main twist of the book.
In short, I was expecting this to be Fourth Wing but I begin to realize that (based on a number of shared tropes) probably Fourth Wing was trying to be ACOTAR.
His Forsaken Bride by Alice Coldbreath – audiobook by Anne Flosnik – This was fun and shameless. Didn’t realize it was 500+ pages while I was reading it, and that’s telling you something. A conniving bastard seeking to make his life easier accidentally falls in love with the woman who was supposed to be convenient, and is just kind of not. Coldbreath has a particular element to her romances that works for me because it’s fictional and historical and therefore pleasantly removed from real life, but yeah, this male leader is not a paragon of virtue and I'm here for that.
What I’m Reading:
A Court of Mist and Fury – Audiobook read by Jennifer Ikeda – book 2 of ACOTAR series – Reading is fun! The second book has characters suffering right from the start! I do love to watch fictional people suffer.
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York – Robert Caro – about 23% This section covers the first few years of Moses’s work in the newly created Park Commission and how he immediately began to use his power to bulldoze people to make parks in the image of his vision Some delightful takeaways: blackmailing public officials by promising them a project would take only $1 million and getting jusssst far enough into the project that they have to pour much more money into it or risk being seen to be corrupt or incompetent; starting projects in the middle of lawsuits arguing if he even had a right to build on the land and betting that the judges would not demand the completed buildings be pulled down; and outright lying to his allies on local park commissions that his new job at the state level commission would just be an advisory position. This also disregards the number of people who lived in the way of his parks that he just completely disregarded and forced to move. I was worried I would not get it read before the next 99% Invisible episode and so I bought the audiobook and I'm very happy with that choice.
The 99% Invisible podcast has special episodes on the chapters along this schedule, which I am trying to keep up with:
Reading schedule -
Episode 4 — April 19 — Chapters 16 through 20
Episode 5 — May 17 — Chapters 21 through 24
Episode 6 — June 21 — Chapters 25 through 26
Episode 7 — July 19 — Chapters 27 through 32
Episode 8 — August 16 — Chapters 33 through 34
Episode 9 — September 20 — Chapters 35 through 38
Episode 10 — October 18 — Chapters 39 through 41
Episode 11 — November 15 — Chapters 42 through 46
Episode 12 — December 20 — Chapters 47 through 50
Fellowship of the Ring – JRR Tolkien – 17% - Haven't touched this is a bit, maybe switch to audiobook?
The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation – Vol 4 (Mo Dao Zu Shi) – 65% I slowed down a lot with this and I’m not sure why – probably the audiobook reading has been easier the last few days.
What I’ll Read Next:
Witchmark
Silver Nitrate
Gunslingers Paean #3
City of Miracles
Children of Time
Owned and need to read: Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, California Bones, Raven Song by IA Ashcroft, At The Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard, Tamryn Eradani's Enchanting Encounters Books 2 and 3, Tom Stoppard, Invention of love, "You Just Need to Lose Weight" and Other Myths about Fatness by Aubrey Gordon
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