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Post  VodouDoll Thu Apr 18, 2013 11:18 pm

I just finished The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma. My cousin who works for a huge indie bookstore recommended it to me. I'm not exactly sure how to explain what it's about, except that there's an unreliable narrator who wants to be a novelist but hasn't published anything yet, his vastly more talented wealthy best friend, and a woman his friend knows from boarding school who's now a theater actress in New York and engaged to a minor royal. Their story gets told three different ways, with different sets of names but the same themes and symbols and plot elements showing up over and over. I think the last chapter gives the clues you need to piece the story together, what was real and what was fiction (well, it's all fiction because it's a novel, after all, but there are stories within stories within stories and some are true in the novel's world and some aren't). It was a lot of fun. Only about 250 pages, so a fast read too.

I have a hundred pages left of Crime and Punishment, which I put down two months ago and have just picked back up. I don't know why I left it for so long; it's actually a really great book and I'm enjoying it a lot. And I've just started One Hundred Years of Solitude for next month's book club meeting. I knew absolutely nothing about it going in, but it's growing on me.

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Post  whatthedeuce Thu Apr 18, 2013 11:33 pm

I saw that mentioned in the sidebar of Goodreads and didn't know what to make of it, but I think I may give it a try!

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Post  Raksha Thu Apr 18, 2013 11:48 pm

Today I read Medea the Sorceress by Diane Wakoski. It's a sort of novel of poetry, interspersed with short letters written to friends. I don't know what to make of it. I liked it, though. Enough to want to re-read it in a few months, after I've let the ideas and themes percolate in my brain a bit, and hopefully be able to describe it better then.
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Post  inversed Fri Apr 19, 2013 3:40 pm

I have been reading Scott Lynch's Red Seas Under Red Skies foreverrrrr and after the fourth "return or renew" notice from the library I figure it's probably time to just return it. I want to know what happens, just not enough to actually pick the book up and read it, apparently. Unfortunately, the internet has failed to provide me with a synopsis of the book so I can know how it ends. Can anyone here help a girl out? Locke and Jean were just told they have to go be pirates.

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Post  Me Talk Pretty Fri Apr 19, 2013 4:34 pm

inversed, I just started reading Red Seas Under Red Skies the other day. I have already renewed it once, so I'm hoping to just plow through it this weekend and get it back to the library. If no one else is able to fill you in on the ending, I'll let you know when I finish. Is there a particular reason why you are having trouble finishing it? Is it not very good?

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Post  inversed Sun Apr 21, 2013 9:04 pm

Thanks, Me Talk Pretty! It's not that it's not good, I just think it's not what I want to be reading right now. I took a break from it to read A Dance with Dragons, so I think I need a break from the complex fantasy right now. The twists and turns were just annoying me instead of intriguing me, but I think I would definitely enjoy it if I was reading it at a different time. But it's a library book and I need to return it!

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Post  whatthedeuce Mon Apr 22, 2013 1:47 am

Going Clear has me thinking that Scientology can be helpful, but goddamn, the disconnection stuff and the abuses with the higher-ups is just plain crazy. I'm floored that so many of the highest execs have fled from the once secret Gold Base and then also been found and punished pretty much like prisoners. It honestly creeps me out knowing that there were people held captive in a building that is so close to my home. It's so unnerving and disturbing.

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Post  Rhilin Wed Apr 24, 2013 3:19 pm

The Hairpin actually published a great series of articles by someone who grew up in Scientology, until her mother fled the organization. The last part is here, and there are links to the series at the start.

I just finished Sara Rees Brennan's Unspoken, and I sort of wish I'd waited to do so closer to September, when the next book comes out. It's not even really a cliffhanger ending, but I want to spend more time in this world! Basically every character is this book is amazing, in their way.

Now I need to choose between starting up some retro pulp novels (The Girls in 3B or Gaudy Night, I know Dorothy Sayers isn't really pulp but she's retro and I love Harriet Vane, be quiet) or mind-expanding non-fiction (Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google, Merchants of Doubt, or A Country is Not A Company).

I will probably go for the retro pulp, because non-fiction is just depressing.

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Post  inversed Wed Apr 24, 2013 3:43 pm

I'm reading Out of the Easy, which was recommended highly by a reviewer at Forever Young Adult, and I am not that impressed. The writing feels oddly juvenile for a story about the daughter of a brothel worker caught up in a murder mystery in 1950s New Orleans. The exposition is clumsy too, a pet peeve of mine. But I like the protagonist and it's certainly not a challenging read so I'm sure I will finish it.

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Post  whatthedeuce Wed Apr 24, 2013 4:43 pm

I'm gonna read that right after I finish The FitzOsbornes At War. I keep hearing good things about it, but my enthusiasm is tempered now that I've read your take on it, inversed. At least it's an easy read!

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Post  mokey75 Wed Apr 24, 2013 5:22 pm

I just finished Rob Lowe's autobiography. I think the best part of it was reading it in Chris Traeger's voice. Otherwise, meh. I like you and all, Rob Lowe, but I don't think anyone will ever like you as much as you like you.
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Post  whatthedeuce Wed Apr 24, 2013 5:36 pm

I think I have that on my reading list even though I've never cared much for Rob Lowe.

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Post  katesti Wed Apr 24, 2013 11:49 pm

I liked Out of the Easy a LOT, so read it and see what you think, whatthedeuce.

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Post  whatthedeuce Thu Apr 25, 2013 12:00 am

I already have it from the library, katesti, and it looks short ebough that I fully intend to finish it and see whether or not I love it.

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Post  Tabby Fri Apr 26, 2013 1:59 pm

I just finished Code Name Verity last night (yeah, I'm late to the party). It was so, so good. Like many of you, I wasn't immediately grabbed by the story, but then I started trying to figure out everything that was really going on, and I could hardly put the book down.

I'm also reading Blood Sisters about seven women who played a part in the Wars of the Roses.
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Post  inversed Sat Apr 27, 2013 3:54 pm

I finished Out of the Easy and ended up really liking it. Either the writing got smoother or I just got used to it, but it was very engaging.

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Post  Me Talk Pretty Sat Apr 27, 2013 7:25 pm

I finally finished Red Seas Under Red Skies. It took me a lot longer to finish than I originally thought it would.

inversed, you said you left off at the point where Locke and Jean were just told they have to be pirates, so I will start from there.

Spoiler:

Okay, so there is a lot more that goes on, but things get a bit convoluted and there is a bunch of double crossing going on, so I am just going to skip to the main points of the very end of the story:

Spoiler:

I definitely enjoyed The Lies of Locke Lamora more than this one. I wish it had been shorter. There was a lot of setup and the plot seemed to slow way down during the middle of the book. Luckily, things picked up again towards the end, so to me, it was at least a satisfying conclusion. I plan on reading the rest of the novels in this series whenever they are published.


Last edited by Me Talk Pretty on Sun Apr 28, 2013 1:03 am; edited 1 time in total

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Post  whatthedeuce Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:28 pm

inversed, I'm so glad that the book eventually picked up for you!

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Post  inversed Sun Apr 28, 2013 4:44 pm

Thanks for the synopsis Me Talk Pretty, I appreciate it. It sounds like there will be a third book so I'm glad I will at least be prepared for it!

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Post  mayram Tue Apr 30, 2013 1:37 pm

Heading to the library over lunch, just reading back in this thread for inspiration. :)

SarahJanet wrote:
katesti wrote:GAYLE FORMAN GAYLE FORMAN GAYLE FORMAN. I need to discuss Just One Day with someone, like, right now.

I didn't like it as much as a lot of people seemed to, but GOD it made me want to go back to Paris.

I loved this book up until the very end, then the last part kinda lost me.
Spoiler:

But I related to the earlier parts of the story SO HARD. That whole theme of always having friends/roommates, etc who are more outgoing than you are and relate to new people better, gah. Very painfully realistic.
Spoiler:

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Post  whatthedeuce Wed May 01, 2013 1:31 am

I'm 130 pages into Out of the Easy, and while most of the dialogue is pretty terrible and Willie strikes me as a very irksome cliche, I like how quickly the plot is moving.

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Post  Raksha Wed May 01, 2013 1:42 am

Today I finished Zoo City by Lauren Beukes, which was excellent. It's about a woman named Zinzi who lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, who has a Sloth and can find lost things. In this world, criminals or people who have extreme guilt for bad things they've done (Zinzi is a former drug addict who accidentally got her brother killed) suddenly have an animal show up that's spiritually bound to them and they develop some kind of special power. These people are nicknamed Zoos and Zoo City refers to the slum area that many of them end up in. Since Zinzi is still trying to pay off her old drug debts, she takes a missing person case, that somehow gets mixed up with the serial murder of some residents of Zoo City.

So good! Great world building, great characters, and really unique and interesting. I liked how the author incorporated other texts into the narrative, like a fake IMDB page for a documentary about the first known Zoo case or an abstract for an academic article about how psychologists should best treat Zoo patients. It really makes the world building interesting and fun without resorting to a huge info dump. I'm going to track down Beukes Moxyland next, because I really like her as a writer.
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Post  whatthedeuce Wed May 01, 2013 1:44 am

That sounds exactly like something I would want to delve into so thanks for that super enthusiastic rec, Raksha!

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Post  QueenSix Thu May 02, 2013 7:52 pm

I read Maureen Johnson's latest The Madness Underneath. It's a sequel to The Name of the Star and it's very good. I was sorry when it ended to be honest. She does a nice mix of the paranormal and a reality to the characters and their reactions too. Of course, it ended on a cliffhanger, which is complete balls, because I hate waiting for closure. But as she's not George R.R. Martin and there's an excellent chance of it being out in the next couple of years, I'll cope.

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Post  The Glen Thu May 02, 2013 8:41 pm

Since it's been sitting waiting for me for about ten months, I've started on Les Misérables. So far I've got to the chapter that describes the Bishop of Digne's house. I can't wait until I get to the description of the tunnel systems of Paris.

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