What I've Read
A Restless Truth - Freya Marske - Second in a series and I bring that up because the people I read who started this book did so without KNOWING that it was the second in a series. (It holds its own but a lot of the background does not make sense).

I really enjoyed this book - the main characters got to do some whacky and hilarious stuff in the midst of quite a serious investigation with high stakes. The sapphic love story is a delight but they are far from perfect people, and I think overall, I enjoyed this more than the first book. I found Maud to be a bit more relatable than Robin, the POV character for most of the first book, but I also just adored Violet and all her showy, prickly ways. Third book comes out this fall.

(I think that The Locked Tomb series may have unlocked something in my brain that really enjoys series, and having to wait for another feels like a gift of future pleasure rather than a punishment for not being a single book.)

Fanfic I've read

cacio e pepe by serephemeral - https://archiveofourown.org/works/21845440 - I adored this "Some Like it Hot" continuation. After movie ends with "Well, nobody's perfect!" Daphe, who is still sometimes Jerry, runs off into the sunset with Osgood. And Joe, and Sugar. The future doesn't look anything like they planned but it's amazing none the less. Kudos to schneefink for reccing this, I would never have found it otherwise and it's officially my favorite Some Like It Hot fic.

Polite Company by spicedrobot - https://archiveofourown.org/works/37924555 - Star Wars Prequels and Clone Wars Cartoon. Maul isn't a very good Jedi. Obi-Wan isn't a very good Sith. They make it work, after the kidnapping.

What I'm Reading

Mexican Gothic - Silvia Moreno-Garcia - 23% - A re-read for me for the Discord book club. Super creepy and really readable.

The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction - Nick Groom - 39% - This is my first time reading the "very short introduction" books and it's really interesting! Pulling together some threads about English history and this aesthetic mode that have never quite tied themselves together in my head. 

Also, I had re-watched Crimson Peak this week, and it was a fascinating re-watch! I caught so much more of the symbolism around Edith's clothing and Lucille's cryptic statements about their mother. I liked Thomas a lot less on this re-watch, before the ending, but I think I saw more of his wistful attempt to escape. I also totally did NOT remember how much Edith's writing shapes the early edges of her relationship with Thomas - he first is interested in her because of her writing! When he's trying to break her heart, he attacks her writing 

The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson - 19% - A re-read before I get into the rest of the books for fun. I'm listening to the audiobook and the narrator, who I will not name, is pronouncing "duchy" wrong for the entire book. (So that it rhymes with "cootchie") and I'm solidering bravely on. I forgot how much of the book is just "terrified lesbian of color gradually sells people out for safety and the promise of future power" and ooooh, man, it's good.

Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection - Julia Kristeva - This is a very navel-gazing literary theory book that makes me realize all afresh that I have real problems with Freudian framing for everything, BUT, it is cited by every major work on horror that I have read. It's French, it's slow, it's worth a read but it's going to be a slog.

True Colors - Karen Traviss - 23% - static

Too Like The Lightning - Ada Palmer - Static

Underline the Black by not_poignant https://archiveofourown.org/works/41396784 - Probably going to return to this when it's finished.

On Earth as It Is in Heaven by samyazaz https://archiveofourown.org/works/833193 - Soulmate AU of Vikings - You don't need to know anything other than the first season or a vague sense of how history went down


What I'll Read Next

The Calculating Stars - Xing Book Club
Babel - Looks like it will on the Hugos list eventually, I'm trying to get out ahead of things

Owned and need to read: California Bones, Raven Song by IA Ashcroft, Kraken's Sacrifice by Katee Robert, Even Though I Know the End by CL Polk, At The Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard, Tamryn Eradani's Enchanting Encounters Books 2 and 3, Like Real People Do by EL Massey, Tom Stoppard, invention of love. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty, "You Just Need to Lose Weight" and Other Myths about Fatness by Aubrey Gordon, Alisha Rai Partners in Crime, the Right Swipe, Aphorisms of Kerishdar

Owned and Read/Reading: Frey Marske's A Restless Truth, Susanna Clarke's Pirenesi, True Colors by Karen Traviss

What I've Read

When A Scot Ties the Knot by Tessa Dare (narrated by Carmen Rose - solid B+ work, good voices but man, the Scottish accent did not work for me.) https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/27f29749-a0f6-4b3f-b0ac-32a823d4a43a
Reading this was fun - I had the audiobook a few weeks back, but it got pulled back from Libby before I finished it - when it came up again as free recently, I just started in the same place and it was really cute. I found this a bit eye-rolly in a couple of places, like I often do for romance novels, but overall, I liked both the leads and the situation was very sympathetic.

November Baby by Astrophyllite https://archiveofourown.org/works/35448196 An Untamed fic - Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín/Niè Míngjué, Sugar Daddy fic, wherein Jiang Cheng is a grad student cut off by his parents after he refuses to disown his troublesome foster brother. This is a very idealized and nonexploitative sugar baby situation - the angsty set-ups mostly landed very softly and miscommunications where smoothed over easily, but there was a some fantastic "pining for the person you are sleeping with" and I adore that.

Girls Weekend by CM Nascosta (narrated by Sierra Kline, who did a GREAT job) https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/a6bc614f-7950-4f17-a4d6-f7b091648fec
A fun and flirty monsterfucking fic, wherein three young women go to a sexy resort to have some fun times, realize that they have an uncomfortable relationship with the societal structures that they left behind, and ultimately maybe choose some things for themselves. Trigger warning for a character having consistent uncharitable thoughts about her fatness, which occur in the context of her attempting to overcome internalized fatphobia that is linked to her mom's past behavior. Honestly, while that was done with a good touch for character, I didn't really enjoy encountering it. Maybe it would have bugged me less reading this on a screen than in an audiobook.

a simple thing by iridan https://archiveofourown.org/works/29099556 - Mandalorian, Boba Fett/Din Djarin, not in canon with Book of Boba Fett, Star Wars Expanded Universe
Oh, god, I unabashedly and unreservedly love this fic. It's so fucking long and carefully constructed and takes seriously that Din Djarin is coming out of a cult and encountering his own religion and tradition outside of that framework for the first time. It's very full of the complicated feelings of someone who going from "I am damned" to "well, if I'm damned, I might as well do what I actually want" to "Wait, maybe I'm not damned" to "Wait, actually, maybe damn all of you assholes for treating people like this!" - a journey that takes him thru Mandalorian history and the Jedi and takes seriously the slaving history on Tatooine. It's an impossibly long fic that posted the final chapter in January this year, and I really wanted to go back and read the entire fic - but alas, that project will remain for me in the future. Finishing these last few chapters was a wonderful journey and I heartily recommned this fic.

What I'm Reading

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir - I'm in Chapter 45 - what the fuck. I love this. due March 4th or so  - EDIT - actually ended up finishing this and I'm not going to edit this entry but, future Kite, please note, you did finish this. 

Good Lord Bird by James McBride (narrator Michael Boatman, who is doing a very complicated thing very well!) Just started the audiobook of this after realizing that I wasn't likely to get to read it while I'm working on my knitting project. I was delighted to see that once again, my project of acquiring as many e-library cards as I could manage has paid off - a new library had it immediately available! I'm going to try and get it done for this Saturday.

What I'll Read Next

Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee - due March 1


Owned and need to read: Frey Marske's A Restless Truth, and Susanna Clarke's Pirenesi California Bones, Raven Song by IA Ashcroft, Kraken's Sacrifice by Katee Robert, Even Though I Know the End by CL Polk, True Colors by Karen Traviss, At The Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard, Tamryn Eradani's Enchanting Encounters Books 2 and 3, Like Real People Do by EL Massey, Tom Stoppard, invention of love. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty, "You Just Need to Lose Weight" and Other Myths about Fatness by Aubrey Gordon, Alisha Rai Partners in Crime, the Right Swipe, Aphorisms of Kerishdar


In other news, Sock Madness has started and I have gotten ten rows into the difficult chart for the sock that I need to complete by next Wednesday. Which, I stopped to do the math on this and realized, if I want to get both socks done for next week, I need to get about 40 rows per day... which is about how much I have done TOTAL. Approx 150 rows of knitting per sock X 2 socks/ 8 days =37.5, but let's be real, that row count does not account for the heel. So, ideally, I would be finishing the whole ballow section of the intarsia chart today, but let's be real, that won't happen.