Wow, it's been almost exactly a year...
Mar. 18th, 2017 07:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furyofvissarionStarting the slow process of catching up by listing things off, no matter how briefly I end up logging them:
Days of Blood and Starlight - Laini Taylor. Second book in this YA trilogy about, well, angels & monsters & their long bloody hatred of each other. I continue to be much more interested in just about anything in this series apart from the Romeo & Juliet romance that I think is its main selling point, alas. I'd much rather keep delving into the questions of how you tease apart a generations-long cycle of violence & genocide, whether people really can change that deeply, & how. It's been (ahem) months (maybe even a year?) between me reading this book & writing about it here, but I remember this second book had a lot more gut-wrenching stuff about the moral questions, & the cruelty of war, & how people keep (or don't) their humanity in the middle of it.
Dreams of Gods and Monsters - Laini Taylor. Still so uninterested in the main romance, apart from how it, like the other relationships in the book, deals w/the struggle to unlearn patterns of abuse & violence & vengeance. Still, a decent end to the series -- this trilogy drew me in way more than I expected; it's the kind of brain candy that has heart-clutching tropey goodness that I know I'll reread for comfort later on.
Night of Cake & Puppets - Laini Taylor. This novella was so adorable, & featured the secondary romance that I found much more endearing & interesting than the main pairing in Taylor's Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy. Sadly, like the trilogy, & like most fantasy by dominant-culture authors, the good stuff comes along with occasional racial/cultural microaggressions.
Cupcakes, Trinkets, & Other Deadly Magic - Meghan Ciana Doidge. Jade, a not very powerful witch, owns a cupcake bakery in Vancouver & gets mixed up in supernatural hijinks. Kind of charming at the start, but nothing particularly memorable. Fun & lighthearted enough, though not anything sticking in my brain.
Trinkets, Treasures, & Other Bloody Magic - Meghan Ciana Doidge. Book 2 of the Dowser series. Convinced me I probably didn't want to read the rest. Just the right (or wrong, really) combination of slightly dubious sociocultural moments, characters I discovered I didn't care about much after all, & a not hugely engaging plot.
The Terracotta Bride - Zen Cho. So good it kept me riveted while getting my thigh tattooed!! This novelette takes place in the tenth court of Hell & is just a beautiful, thoughtful & also funny story about queer ladies. Really a delight.
How to Write About Music: Excerpts from the 33 1/3 series, magazines, books and blogs with advice from industry-leading writers - edited by Marc Woodworth and Ally-Jane Grossan. This was so interesting! Though it was dude-heavy and also some of the writing reminded me of the casual sexism in rock music & rock music journalism & how gross it is. But I really liked seeing people enthuse about music & reading about how they could choose to enthuse and through what lenses.
Days of Blood and Starlight - Laini Taylor. Second book in this YA trilogy about, well, angels & monsters & their long bloody hatred of each other. I continue to be much more interested in just about anything in this series apart from the Romeo & Juliet romance that I think is its main selling point, alas. I'd much rather keep delving into the questions of how you tease apart a generations-long cycle of violence & genocide, whether people really can change that deeply, & how. It's been (ahem) months (maybe even a year?) between me reading this book & writing about it here, but I remember this second book had a lot more gut-wrenching stuff about the moral questions, & the cruelty of war, & how people keep (or don't) their humanity in the middle of it.
Dreams of Gods and Monsters - Laini Taylor. Still so uninterested in the main romance, apart from how it, like the other relationships in the book, deals w/the struggle to unlearn patterns of abuse & violence & vengeance. Still, a decent end to the series -- this trilogy drew me in way more than I expected; it's the kind of brain candy that has heart-clutching tropey goodness that I know I'll reread for comfort later on.
Night of Cake & Puppets - Laini Taylor. This novella was so adorable, & featured the secondary romance that I found much more endearing & interesting than the main pairing in Taylor's Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy. Sadly, like the trilogy, & like most fantasy by dominant-culture authors, the good stuff comes along with occasional racial/cultural microaggressions.
Cupcakes, Trinkets, & Other Deadly Magic - Meghan Ciana Doidge. Jade, a not very powerful witch, owns a cupcake bakery in Vancouver & gets mixed up in supernatural hijinks. Kind of charming at the start, but nothing particularly memorable. Fun & lighthearted enough, though not anything sticking in my brain.
Trinkets, Treasures, & Other Bloody Magic - Meghan Ciana Doidge. Book 2 of the Dowser series. Convinced me I probably didn't want to read the rest. Just the right (or wrong, really) combination of slightly dubious sociocultural moments, characters I discovered I didn't care about much after all, & a not hugely engaging plot.
The Terracotta Bride - Zen Cho. So good it kept me riveted while getting my thigh tattooed!! This novelette takes place in the tenth court of Hell & is just a beautiful, thoughtful & also funny story about queer ladies. Really a delight.
How to Write About Music: Excerpts from the 33 1/3 series, magazines, books and blogs with advice from industry-leading writers - edited by Marc Woodworth and Ally-Jane Grossan. This was so interesting! Though it was dude-heavy and also some of the writing reminded me of the casual sexism in rock music & rock music journalism & how gross it is. But I really liked seeing people enthuse about music & reading about how they could choose to enthuse and through what lenses.
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Date: 2017-03-20 06:23 pm (UTC)