Wednesday Reading Meme
Jun. 2nd, 2021 08:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Sarah Rees Brennan’s Fence: Striking Distance is an absolute delight that frequently had me laughing and/or shrieking out loud. I went into this book wanting to smack Aiden and by the end of the book… well, okay, I still wanted to smack Aiden, but in a kind and loving way.
I loved Brennan’s characterization of Aiden and Harvard, and I thought Nicholas was pretty good (LOVED the way that his attention just slides of Aiden whenever Aiden talks; I always enjoy a character who is just not charmed by the Most Charming character), but I had some doubts about her characterization of Seiji. She presents him as just Not Getting social cues, whereas in the graphic novels I much more had the impression that he could have gotten social cues if he gave a damn, which he doesn’t.
I also loved Nancy Farmer’s A Girl Named Disaster, although I felt it very slightly fell off at the end, which seems to be almost unavoidable in the wilderness adventure genre; inevitably the character must return to civilization and I always feel like, “But do they HAVE to?” And, well, Nhamo was on the verge of starvation, so clearly she did.
The wilderness adventure parts are great, though, and they make up the bulk of the book. And it’s by no means a bad ending! Just not as exciting as Nhamo in the wilderness talking to a maybe-ghost (or maybe-dream) about how to repair her boat.
What I’m Reading Now
asakiyume! I bet Nancy Farmer’s The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm was the book you were thinking of last week with the walled village where people dress in traditional style, because that is ABSOLUTELY something that happens in this book! Outside is a futuristic city with flying buses and an old dump that has become a plastic mine; within the walls, a traditional village where people tell riddles to pass the time.
I’ve also been galloping through Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, you know, for a little light reading (but also research for the amount of trauma that I keep dumping on the heads of the poor benighted characters in my books, who really deserved better from life).
What I Plan to Read Next
I would like to read Fence: Disarmed, but ALAS, the library doesn’t have it yet, so I will have to make do with Sarah Rees Brennan’s earlier novel In Other Lands for now. I’ve meant to read it for ages anyway.
Aiden halted by the first cute boy he saw. “What are you doing tonight?”
The boy seemed staggered. Harvard didn’t blame him. Aiden sounded rather as though he was demanding the boy’s money or his life.
“Being… heterosexual?” the boy answered at last.
Aiden stood there being gorgeous at him. A stunned and dazzled expression grew on the boy’s face, as though he’d accidentally looked directly into the sun or encountered a pinup model.
“Or maybe…not?” said the boy, a long pause between the words.
Sarah Rees Brennan’s Fence: Striking Distance is an absolute delight that frequently had me laughing and/or shrieking out loud. I went into this book wanting to smack Aiden and by the end of the book… well, okay, I still wanted to smack Aiden, but in a kind and loving way.
I loved Brennan’s characterization of Aiden and Harvard, and I thought Nicholas was pretty good (LOVED the way that his attention just slides of Aiden whenever Aiden talks; I always enjoy a character who is just not charmed by the Most Charming character), but I had some doubts about her characterization of Seiji. She presents him as just Not Getting social cues, whereas in the graphic novels I much more had the impression that he could have gotten social cues if he gave a damn, which he doesn’t.
I also loved Nancy Farmer’s A Girl Named Disaster, although I felt it very slightly fell off at the end, which seems to be almost unavoidable in the wilderness adventure genre; inevitably the character must return to civilization and I always feel like, “But do they HAVE to?” And, well, Nhamo was on the verge of starvation, so clearly she did.
The wilderness adventure parts are great, though, and they make up the bulk of the book. And it’s by no means a bad ending! Just not as exciting as Nhamo in the wilderness talking to a maybe-ghost (or maybe-dream) about how to repair her boat.
What I’m Reading Now
asakiyume! I bet Nancy Farmer’s The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm was the book you were thinking of last week with the walled village where people dress in traditional style, because that is ABSOLUTELY something that happens in this book! Outside is a futuristic city with flying buses and an old dump that has become a plastic mine; within the walls, a traditional village where people tell riddles to pass the time. I’ve also been galloping through Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, you know, for a little light reading (but also research for the amount of trauma that I keep dumping on the heads of the poor benighted characters in my books, who really deserved better from life).
What I Plan to Read Next
I would like to read Fence: Disarmed, but ALAS, the library doesn’t have it yet, so I will have to make do with Sarah Rees Brennan’s earlier novel In Other Lands for now. I’ve meant to read it for ages anyway.
no subject
Date: 2021-06-04 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-04 11:03 am (UTC)