Wednesday Reading Meme
Oct. 11th, 2017 08:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
I can no longer recall why I added Sarah Pennypacker’s Summer of the Gypsy Moths to my reading list - possibly the cover appealed to me? - but in any case I quite liked it, so good on you, past self. After Stella’s aunt Louise unexpectedly dies, Stella and her sullen foster sister Angel - united in nothing but their dread of going back into foster care - decide to hide the body and try their hand at running Louise’s tiny seaside resort for the summer.
Unexpected friendships formed in adversity! Summers by the sea! (I am not sure if that is an actual genre but it should be.) Gardening! Stella’s weird and slightly sad (but also sweet) obsession with cleaning and organizing, as if knowing how to make a bed so tight you can bounce a nickel off the sheets will keep the chaos of the world at bay.
I also read Emily Arsenault’s The Leaf Reader, which I did not like quite as much as her earlier book The Broken Teaglass - but then few books are as specifically designed to appeal to my interest as The Broken Teaglass. However, I do think The Leaf Reader suffers slightly from the fact that some of the secondary characters are not as well developed as they need to be - if it’s going to be shocking when a character does something out of character, they need to have an in-character from which to deviate, you know?
Also after Twin Peaks, and so forth, if your big mystery is going to revolve around the Golden Children of the town not actually being so golden after all - well, that’s not really shocking anymore, you know? That’s a twist that’s been done. It would be more shocking if the sweet nerdy marching band geeks turned out to be Secretly Murderers: I don’t think I’ve seen that one yet.
What I’m Reading Now
I am ALMOST DONE with my latest Billabong book, Jim and Wally, which starts out with Jim & Wally on the Western front… where they promptly get gassed, and sent back to England to recover, and then they join up with Norah & her father and spend the rest of the book on holiday in Ireland. (Technically they are recuperating, but still.) This is probably the oddest World War I book I have ever read, on account of there being about ten minutes of war in it.
But I’ve noticed this about war books. Books that were actually written during the war often push the war quite to the background: it’s going on and there are occasional references to rationing and young Jimmy at the front, but for the most part life goes on. Historical fiction, though: all war. All the time. Presumably because the war is safely over and therefore becomes an interesting historical adventure, rather than a nasty reality readers want to escape?
What I Plan to Read Next
Still waiting for the library to get Fire and Hemlock to me. The library has only one copy in its entire citywide system and I am AGHAST at this lack of respect for Diana Wynne Jones’ legacy.
On a more practical note, I’m second on the hold queue, so I may need to put this challenge off till November and do the next challenge for October: “a book nominated for an award in 2017.” I’ve still got two Newbery Honor books left to read!
I can no longer recall why I added Sarah Pennypacker’s Summer of the Gypsy Moths to my reading list - possibly the cover appealed to me? - but in any case I quite liked it, so good on you, past self. After Stella’s aunt Louise unexpectedly dies, Stella and her sullen foster sister Angel - united in nothing but their dread of going back into foster care - decide to hide the body and try their hand at running Louise’s tiny seaside resort for the summer.
Unexpected friendships formed in adversity! Summers by the sea! (I am not sure if that is an actual genre but it should be.) Gardening! Stella’s weird and slightly sad (but also sweet) obsession with cleaning and organizing, as if knowing how to make a bed so tight you can bounce a nickel off the sheets will keep the chaos of the world at bay.
I also read Emily Arsenault’s The Leaf Reader, which I did not like quite as much as her earlier book The Broken Teaglass - but then few books are as specifically designed to appeal to my interest as The Broken Teaglass. However, I do think The Leaf Reader suffers slightly from the fact that some of the secondary characters are not as well developed as they need to be - if it’s going to be shocking when a character does something out of character, they need to have an in-character from which to deviate, you know?
Also after Twin Peaks, and so forth, if your big mystery is going to revolve around the Golden Children of the town not actually being so golden after all - well, that’s not really shocking anymore, you know? That’s a twist that’s been done. It would be more shocking if the sweet nerdy marching band geeks turned out to be Secretly Murderers: I don’t think I’ve seen that one yet.
What I’m Reading Now
I am ALMOST DONE with my latest Billabong book, Jim and Wally, which starts out with Jim & Wally on the Western front… where they promptly get gassed, and sent back to England to recover, and then they join up with Norah & her father and spend the rest of the book on holiday in Ireland. (Technically they are recuperating, but still.) This is probably the oddest World War I book I have ever read, on account of there being about ten minutes of war in it.
But I’ve noticed this about war books. Books that were actually written during the war often push the war quite to the background: it’s going on and there are occasional references to rationing and young Jimmy at the front, but for the most part life goes on. Historical fiction, though: all war. All the time. Presumably because the war is safely over and therefore becomes an interesting historical adventure, rather than a nasty reality readers want to escape?
What I Plan to Read Next
Still waiting for the library to get Fire and Hemlock to me. The library has only one copy in its entire citywide system and I am AGHAST at this lack of respect for Diana Wynne Jones’ legacy.
On a more practical note, I’m second on the hold queue, so I may need to put this challenge off till November and do the next challenge for October: “a book nominated for an award in 2017.” I’ve still got two Newbery Honor books left to read!
no subject
Date: 2017-10-11 01:53 pm (UTC)if it’s going to be shocking when a character does something out of character, they need to have an in-character from which to deviate, you know -- definitely.
Mystery stories are hampered by the fact that any truths you give at the beginning of the story are bound to be suspect. Does this person look like the perpetrator? THEN HE PROBABLY ISN'T. Does this person look like an angel of sweetness? THEN SHE PROBABLY ISN'T. A good story can subvert the initial setup with something other than a straight reversal--the villainous-seeming guy doesn't have to be secretly running an animal rehabilitation clinic, but maybe he can have chronic pain that accounts for his bad temper, and maybe the angel of sweetness isn't actually an ax murderer or a prostitute, but maybe she's always super-sweet because she has abandonment issues or whatever.
Of course you can end up with multiple levels of flips, like the poison-drinking scene in The Princess Bride, too...
no subject
Date: 2017-10-12 10:10 pm (UTC)It's a pretty tall order to demand from an author, really. Writing a good mystery must be pretty hard.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-12 01:52 am (UTC)What is this?
no subject
Date: 2017-10-12 10:06 pm (UTC)One of my Australian friends and I have been running a transpacific book exchange, so I've been getting my Billabong fix through the mail.