Current Reads

Can we please talk about I'll Give You the Sun and how much I love it and want everyone to read it right this second? It's so, so good. Like I love John Green but sometimes his stuff feels just a little too much like it's working really hard to make me feel things. This book gets it just right.

I started I'll Give You The Sun a few months ago but didn't have time to really get into it before it was due back at the library (I had 3 or 4 other books out as well that I was taking forever to finish). My niece just read it and LOVED it so I'm going to check it out again.

North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell. I'm really enjoying it. She's obviously very well versed in the subject matter (social and working conditions created by the industrial revolution), and presents a balanced and sympathetic look at both sides of the issue. It's...I hesitate to say overwritten, because it's a 19th century novel, so the style is normal for the time, but it's pretty wordy. Then again, it was published in serial form originally, so that's also understandable.

Recently read Uprooted by Naomi Novik. It was fun and fast, and of all things scratched that itch for Polish-inspired fantasy that playing 100+ hours of playing The Witcher 3 gave me. The protagonist has a very offbeat approach to her problems, and her love for her best friend-- and her homeland-- was realistic and powerful. While I will miss the Temeraire books, I am glad to see that Novik can so deftly pull off such differently styled work.

I just finished The Royal We this morning and I looooooved it. I seriously did not want it to end. So well written and so entertaining!! Well done, Heather and Jessica!

Enjoyed the heck out of Big Little Lies. It felt like a beach read but had some meat to it as well.

Started the final Cazalet book, All Change this weekend. There's one character in particular who I feel really needs a smack on the head because every time it's his POV, I am screaming, "THAT'S NOT THE REASON WHY YOUR FAMILY WOULD OBJECT TO YOU MARRYING THIS GIRL!"

inversed wrote:Can we please talk about I'll Give You the Sun and how much I love it and want everyone to read it right this second? It's so, so good. Like I love John Green but sometimes his stuff feels just a little too much like it's working really hard to make me feel things. This book gets it just right.

I got this one based on your recommendation, I loved it! Much as I wanted to see how it turned out, I didn't want it to end.

Enjoyed the heck out of Big Little Lies. It felt like a beach read but had some meat to it as well.

Grrr, I have been chasing this book for weeks. I can't seem to find it at any library close to me and for some reason, the inter-library transfer system is super slow.

Beside, What Alice Forgot, this is the last Liane Moriarty book I haven't read yet. I finished The Hypnotist's Love Story a week ago and I really loved that one. It was really oddly relatable for a stalker story.

I finished 1Q84 about a week ago and no. Just no. I am a huge Murakami fan and love his magical realism and just the trippy plots and characters, all of which were present in this book, but it just didn't work. And parts of it were downright offensive to me (some gender stuff I couldn't abide), so Murakami will have to work to earn back my goodwill.

Now I'm almost done with A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra and while the writing is quite brilliant, I'm just not that invested in the story.

Ugh. I need a good book to read. This summer has been a wash.

There Goes the Neighbourhood: Australia and the Rise of Asia by Michael Wesley. There's nothing really wrong with it, but I've found myself bored reading it, then I realised it's because it's very entry level. Anyone (at least in Australia) who's paid any attention to the news for the last 20 years will be familiar with the arguments being made in the book. It's a good intro to the political and economic changes in the Asia-Pacific, but probably too basic for anyone studying the region closely.

Started listening to The War of the Worlds audio book. It's enjoyable, very creepy.

There's a radio drama featuring the casts of various Star Treks of that available, too. That was loads of fun.

Awesome. Thanks Algae!

I'm reading The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon. I read some reviews of it when it came out and they weren't the kindest but when I saw it in the library, I thought what the hell. I'm about half way through and while it's not the best read ever - so much info dumping at times - it's good enough that I want to find out what happens. I wouldn't buy it but I'll definitely look for the sequel in the library.

I just finished reading two books: The Good Girl by Mary Kubica that tells the story of a woman's kidnapping through three perspectives. It was a fast read. Some holes, I thought, but ultimately a good read.

And finally I read The Martian, which I enjoyed though I admit to having skimmed portions of the uber-sciency explanations. Man, were those detailed and tough to wade through (for this English major, at least). But I loved the main character so much that I didn't care and ended up really liking it. I hope the movie doesn't ruin it. I was picturing Matt Damon as Mark Watney the whole time, so that works!

Currently reading Time Salvager by Wesley Chu. Pretty solid, interesting take on time travel and future environmentalism. And I just picked up Rules for Werewolves by Kirk Lynn. This looks interesting, in that it's a novel done entirely in dialogue. Normally I'd raise an eyebrow at that, but Lynn is already a renowned playwright, so, if anyone could pull of 'entirely in dialogue'....

Just finished The Woman Who Wasn't There, about a woman who pretended to be a 9/11 survivor and was a leader of the effort to get recognition and help for survivors. Holy crap, what a story. As it turned out, it seemed like it would be relatively straightforward to fact-check her story (and biography), but no one did it for years. She was evidently charismatic and convincing, and I guess you would tend not to assume that someone would make up something so horrific.

A couple of days ago I stumbled across a blog review of a book called Part Wild, a chronicle of one woman's naive, sincere, and ultimately deeply misguided effort to own a wolfdog (in this case a wolf-husky cross named Inyo.) I got it out of the library last night and think it's one of those books I'll have to skip through first to get the overview of the story, then go back and read all the way through.

Obligatory Spoiler For A Story With Animals:

The author is very open about her reasons for choosing a wolfdog, and relentless in her self-assessment after the fact, including her early view that a dog is a "degraded" wolf, a lesser animal than a wolf. As the story continues, dogs join the family and the author end up with a much better understanding of the nature of a dog, and the nature of a wolf, and ways both animals are adapted to live in a particular environment. The story ends up with a deep and compelling appreciation of dogs. The author ends up much sadder and a great deal wiser.

There are research notes provided for each chapter and they make pretty compelling reading as well. Also, she cites a number of interesting studies on dogs, wolves, domestication, and the Belyaev silver fox experiment (she actually visited the Russian facility where the experiment takes place) that will give animal lovers a lot more great reading.

By the end of the first chapter I promised my cats that we would not be getting a wolfdog. I have a feeling a closer read of the whole book is unlikely to change our minds.

Currently reading The Rabbit Back Literature Society, which seems good so far, though I can't entirely see what it's doing just yet. There are odd things going on with some of the books in the town of Rabbit Back's library--like key events being changed in Crime and Punishment, for example. And then there's an implication that your average garden gnomes are anything but. How it will all come together I couldn't guess, but I'm invested in finding out.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through Station Eleven and am LOVING it. It's hard to put down!

Okay, finished Rabbit Back Literature Society and it was a big bucket of MEH. Now onto The Man in the High Castle in preparation for binge-watching the series on Amazon over Thanksgiving. Who says alt realities and Nazis and Thanksgiving don't go together?

I read the e-ARC of the latest Vorkosigan book - I liked it, although it was a bit dry, but I guess that is to be expected from Cordelia's POV. There was one person who expressed surprise that it seemed like

Spoiler:

. If this is the last book I thought it was a nice way of coming full circle.

They made the e-ARC freely available on the Baen website, right?

I've seen some gnashing of teeth over What That Means in terms of release date and awards eligibility.

RiverThames wrote:They made the e-ARC freely available on the Baen website, right?

I've seen some gnashing of teeth over What That Means in terms of release date and awards eligibility.

Yeah, they did.

Act Like It by Lucy Parker was reviewed on Smart Bitches and I thought, oh that sounds like something I'd enjoy reading, and then I left it at that. Then there were more tweets by people saying how much they loved the book and I thought, oh I should really buy that then because I'm in the mood for something that's a fun interesting read, so I did.

TL;DR: I bought a book.

So anyway, I REALLY loved it. I started reading it yesterday morning (big mistake) because my Guides were being enrolled last night and it was a joint ceremony with the Brownies so I had to be at the hall early to get it organised and I honestly did wonder briefly if it would be wrong to cancel because I wanted to keep reading. But as a responsible adult, I put the book down and went to give the kids their badges. And then I came home and stayed up until the wee hours to finish it. (No regrets - kinda)

The main characters are both actors in the same play; Lainey has just broken up with her boyfriend and found out about it through social media, Richard is a talented actor but very grumpy and nobody likes him, and they end up being coerced into a faux relationship because he needs the good publicity and she'll get profits for a charity that's very close to her heart. It's very humourous and even though you know they're going to end up together, it's a lot of fun and interesting to see how they get there. I especially liked Lainey. She was very refreshing the way she tackled things and people and her faux relationship.

It's well worth a read.