Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

I feel like I should get a special Wednesday Reading Meme icon to set it apart from my other book posts. Must contemplate this idea.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Ally Carter’s I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You. Yes! At last I am reading the Gallagher Girls series! I don’t know why is has taken me this long, this book was published back when I was in high school, but I suppose I was doing something silly like “studying calculus” rather than reading it.

My general feeling about this book is “too much boyfriend, not enough international espionage.” But I did find the characters and the atmosphere of Gallagher Academy charming, and I’ve heard that the series really takes off in the later books, so I will keep reading.

What I’m Reading Now

The Dark Is Rising. It’s not as much to my taste as Over Sea, Under Stone, and so it is rather slower going. There’s something fundamentally unsatisfying about a story where the protagonist fights the Dark by just sort of knowing what to do when the proper time comes, without having to put any effort into learning. There’s no sense of danger.

Also, Will Stanton just erased his big brother’s memory, because after his big brother saw Will use magic, he started looking at Will funny and Will didn’t like it. What, Will isn’t even going to pretend he did it for the greater good? And all the other Old Ones are perfectly fine with this?

I’m also working on a book about Effie Gray, who married the art critic John Ruskin and then, after divorcing Ruskin for non-consummation, married Ruskin’s pre-Raphaelite protege John Everett Millais. The style is a little chatty, but so far I’ve been enjoying it.

What I Plan to Read Next

The second Gallagher Girls book, Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy, and also Susan Cooper’s Greenwitch. This is the lovely thing about series, they make it so much simpler to know what to read next.

Comments

[ladyherenya]

Series only make it simpler to know what to read next if the next book has already been published...

It's a few years since I read the earlier Gallagher Girls books but I really liked their focus on friendship. And there's definitely more international espionage as the series progresses. I'll be interested to hear what you think of them. I thought they were a lot of fun.

[ghosted.livejournal.com]

I feel you on your problems with The Dark is Rising. I think it's really atmospheric and automatically love it because Christmas, but yeah Will's lack of agency or whatever you want to call it was a sticking point for a number of the critics I ended up reading for my dissertation. Greenwitch is possibly my favourite, though!!