Books I've been reading - comfort edition
Jun. 28th, 2023 10:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnI had to work a bunch in the last couple of months, and then I used some time to put a bunch of books littering the house back on bookshelves, so between those two things I read and reread several very easy-to-read books.
-Honey and Me (Drazin) - rec fromseekingferret who cited lannamichael's excellent post (discusses all aspects of the book, but this is not the kind of book where you really need to worry about spoilers) which got me to read it. It's a middle-grade book about Orthodox Jewish bas mitzvah girls, and is one of those books where plot is not really a thing, there is a bit of character through-line but it's deliciously like all those books I would read as a kid that just... followed kids around through what happened in their lives and what was going on with their families and friends and themselves, without there having to be an elaborate through-plot. I LOVED IT, as someone who has a religion that reasonably permeates a lot of my life (and even more for people who are more orthodox about it than I am) even if it isn't Orthodox Judaism, I felt that the book did a good job of speaking to me and offering up characters who were extremely relatable and understandable through my own lens which is of course very different but has commonalities. Content note: an important minor character dies during the book, which was apparently based on someone in Drazin's life who died under similar circumstances. (I was glad to be spoiled for this, as it does a bit come out of nowhere.) I really want my kids to read this, though it's hard to get them to read anything that isn't SF or fantasy, so we'll see.
-Small Admissions (Poeppel) -- rec from Ask a Manager. Young woman getting over an emotional experience falls into a job working in admissions for a prestigious NYC private school. ...Okay, I have a weakness for prep school books, and even more for prep school admissions books, and this one I really enjoyed. It's frothy and fun, but also does have a sense of compassion for all the characters, many of whom are a bit more complex than one might expect. (And some of whom are exactly as one might expect.) Unsurprisingly, I really liked the parts (mostly found-document-style, told via emails and admissions notes and so on) that dealt with the different students and admissions drama, and how those played out over the course of the book.
I could have done without nearly as much of the drama with the main character's friends -- I was there mostly for the admissions drama -- but I can see how it fit into the book.
-The ABC Murders (Christie) - Poirot gets sent mocking letters by an adversary who turns out to be killing based on the alphabet. I had never read this one and read it now due torachelmanija's Christie read, and for some reason it took me a looooong time to get through. I don't know why, because I enjoyed it.
-Tara Road (Binchy) - Binchy is a great comfort read for me, and I enjoyed this. It's a bit like all her other books -- the too-handsome, untrustworthy boy, the good-hearted girl who has a group of friends who surround her, the characters who come together and understand one another better, the foreshadowing that is explained by the end. Nice and easy reading.
Rereads:
-Uncharted Territory (Willis) -- The explorer team of Finriddy and Carson, on an alien world, becomes a bit destabilized when a visitor "loaner" temporarily joins their team. A fast read (it's more of a novella, maybe even a novelette), but gosh, this one has really not aged well. I mean, I was never really that excited about it to begin with, so there was no extreme emotional response swamping out my ability to see that, mm, the whole playing the indigenous-alien stereotypes and gender stereotypes for laughs is kind of icky rather than funny.
Also, a large part of the book arc depends on a play on words at the climax that I absolutely Did Not get in high school and I did, finally, get it thirty years later, so I guess progress in my reading abilities, yay? (It's a really obvious play on words, I'm just... really slow.)
-The Pandora Principle (Clowes) - Star Trek (TOS). Saavik's childhood on Hellguard becomes relevant when a Romulan attack threatens the Federation... Now this one I have an extreme emotional response to, which means I love it so much that I have no idea if it really holds up or not. I mean, I can see that a) several of the plot McGuffins are rather nonsensical, both scientifically and politically (although the one at the end is a clever punchline and I love it anyway), and b) Spock is a bit of a Gary Stu parent, who even though he angsts about saying the right thing, generally does, in fact, say the right thing. But I don't mind either of those. Spock as a put-upon parent is still greeeeat, and Saavik is awesome. I don't know whether Saavik as a trauma survivor would be something that passes muster (I'd be super interested to know what others think), but I loved it then and I love it now, especially the small everyday triumphs she has to fight so hard for but that she does fight and win. And I also absolutely adore what I couldn't articulate when I first read it: that Spock and Saavik code for a very neurodiverse parent-child pair (huh, I guess there's also Bobby and Obo coding as a differently neurodiverse parent-child pair, that's interesting, and I would be 100% not surprised to find out that Clowes has experience with ND children) who find their own way even when it's not necessarily the neurotypical-culturally-approved way that anyone else (either Earth or Vulcan) would have prescribed for them.
I love this book so much. Every few years or so I look up Carolyn Clowes' name to see whether she's written anything else, because I would buy it in a heartbeat, but she hasn't, and I suppose she must be getting up in years now. But this is certainly a good single book to have written!
(And if you can't tell from the writeup, yeah, content notes for... well, the writing style is upbeat but a lot (a LOT) of dark things happen. Death, some on-screen; violence; extreme physical child abuse and trauma; strongly implied rape (NOT of children) but nothing spelled out.)
-Honey and Me (Drazin) - rec from
seekingferret who cited lannamichael's excellent post (discusses all aspects of the book, but this is not the kind of book where you really need to worry about spoilers) which got me to read it. It's a middle-grade book about Orthodox Jewish bas mitzvah girls, and is one of those books where plot is not really a thing, there is a bit of character through-line but it's deliciously like all those books I would read as a kid that just... followed kids around through what happened in their lives and what was going on with their families and friends and themselves, without there having to be an elaborate through-plot. I LOVED IT, as someone who has a religion that reasonably permeates a lot of my life (and even more for people who are more orthodox about it than I am) even if it isn't Orthodox Judaism, I felt that the book did a good job of speaking to me and offering up characters who were extremely relatable and understandable through my own lens which is of course very different but has commonalities. Content note: an important minor character dies during the book, which was apparently based on someone in Drazin's life who died under similar circumstances. (I was glad to be spoiled for this, as it does a bit come out of nowhere.) I really want my kids to read this, though it's hard to get them to read anything that isn't SF or fantasy, so we'll see.-Small Admissions (Poeppel) -- rec from Ask a Manager. Young woman getting over an emotional experience falls into a job working in admissions for a prestigious NYC private school. ...Okay, I have a weakness for prep school books, and even more for prep school admissions books, and this one I really enjoyed. It's frothy and fun, but also does have a sense of compassion for all the characters, many of whom are a bit more complex than one might expect. (And some of whom are exactly as one might expect.) Unsurprisingly, I really liked the parts (mostly found-document-style, told via emails and admissions notes and so on) that dealt with the different students and admissions drama, and how those played out over the course of the book.
I could have done without nearly as much of the drama with the main character's friends -- I was there mostly for the admissions drama -- but I can see how it fit into the book.
-The ABC Murders (Christie) - Poirot gets sent mocking letters by an adversary who turns out to be killing based on the alphabet. I had never read this one and read it now due to
rachelmanija's Christie read, and for some reason it took me a looooong time to get through. I don't know why, because I enjoyed it.-Tara Road (Binchy) - Binchy is a great comfort read for me, and I enjoyed this. It's a bit like all her other books -- the too-handsome, untrustworthy boy, the good-hearted girl who has a group of friends who surround her, the characters who come together and understand one another better, the foreshadowing that is explained by the end. Nice and easy reading.
Rereads:
-Uncharted Territory (Willis) -- The explorer team of Finriddy and Carson, on an alien world, becomes a bit destabilized when a visitor "loaner" temporarily joins their team. A fast read (it's more of a novella, maybe even a novelette), but gosh, this one has really not aged well. I mean, I was never really that excited about it to begin with, so there was no extreme emotional response swamping out my ability to see that, mm, the whole playing the indigenous-alien stereotypes and gender stereotypes for laughs is kind of icky rather than funny.
Also, a large part of the book arc depends on a play on words at the climax that I absolutely Did Not get in high school and I did, finally, get it thirty years later, so I guess progress in my reading abilities, yay? (It's a really obvious play on words, I'm just... really slow.)
-The Pandora Principle (Clowes) - Star Trek (TOS). Saavik's childhood on Hellguard becomes relevant when a Romulan attack threatens the Federation... Now this one I have an extreme emotional response to, which means I love it so much that I have no idea if it really holds up or not. I mean, I can see that a) several of the plot McGuffins are rather nonsensical, both scientifically and politically (although the one at the end is a clever punchline and I love it anyway), and b) Spock is a bit of a Gary Stu parent, who even though he angsts about saying the right thing, generally does, in fact, say the right thing. But I don't mind either of those. Spock as a put-upon parent is still greeeeat, and Saavik is awesome. I don't know whether Saavik as a trauma survivor would be something that passes muster (I'd be super interested to know what others think), but I loved it then and I love it now, especially the small everyday triumphs she has to fight so hard for but that she does fight and win. And I also absolutely adore what I couldn't articulate when I first read it: that Spock and Saavik code for a very neurodiverse parent-child pair (huh, I guess there's also Bobby and Obo coding as a differently neurodiverse parent-child pair, that's interesting, and I would be 100% not surprised to find out that Clowes has experience with ND children) who find their own way even when it's not necessarily the neurotypical-culturally-approved way that anyone else (either Earth or Vulcan) would have prescribed for them.
I love this book so much. Every few years or so I look up Carolyn Clowes' name to see whether she's written anything else, because I would buy it in a heartbeat, but she hasn't, and I suppose she must be getting up in years now. But this is certainly a good single book to have written!
(And if you can't tell from the writeup, yeah, content notes for... well, the writing style is upbeat but a lot (a LOT) of dark things happen. Death, some on-screen; violence; extreme physical child abuse and trauma; strongly implied rape (NOT of children) but nothing spelled out.)
no subject
Date: 2023-06-29 11:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-01 04:22 am (UTC)I have a suspicion it will be one of those experiences where you become suddenly aware of where many of your narrative kinks came from.
I FEEL SEEN. :P (The revenge thread with Saavik, culminating in her watching Hellguard... basically everything about all the interactions between Spock and Saavik... Saavik's small triumphs... yeah, this was a Formative Book for me :) )
no subject
Date: 2023-06-30 12:54 am (UTC)Googling Carolyn Clowes only gives me one short story: http://www.locusmag.com/index/yr2002/s17.htm#A610.1
Funnily enough, I was rereading Enterprise: The First Adventure lately, and realized I would like to see if any of Vonda McIntyre's non-Trek writings might be of interest to me (I also really like her novelization of Wrath of Khan), and I found a historical AU with a bunch of characters I recognize from salon, like Philippe d'Orleans, Liselotte, Philippe the future Regent, the
Knight ofChevalier de Lorraine, the Duc du Maine, etc. :DOf course, I can barely read English *or* fiction these days, so I'm still on the third page, but it's on my "maybe" list.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-30 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-30 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-30 04:04 am (UTC)Post-apocalyptic biology-driven SF, about a healer with genetically altered snakes whose bites act as injections. Really interesting worldbuilding and very likable characters.
More interesting worldbuilding and likable characters, this time involving people genetically altered to live underwater and surgically altered to survive hyperspace.
This is a collection of short stories and novelettes. I'm mostly reccing it for "Screwtop," a novelette set on a prison planet which I really wish she'd expanded into a full novel.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-01 04:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-02 06:38 pm (UTC)Did not know McIntyre had written something set in the 17th century! *looks it up*
no subject
Date: 2023-07-02 10:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-01 04:23 am (UTC)I found a historical AU with a bunch of characters I recognize from salon, like Philippe d'Orleans, Liselotte, Philippe the future Regent, the Knight of Chevalier de Lorraine, the Duc du Maine, etc. :D
HUH I really like Vonda McIntyre as well, but I did not know this!
no subject
Date: 2023-06-30 11:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-01 04:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-03 01:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-04 10:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-01 09:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-02 04:40 am (UTC)This book basically lives in my head as an AU where the whole Pon Farr thing in ST III does not happen, or possibly ST III is an AU of this book (actually, because this book is also my headcanon for Saavik and Spock, the latter is more the way it actually works in my head) because it would absolutely squick me out to have this book and Spock/Saavik as a romantic pairing in any way (including the ST III thing) in the same universe! (Though as an AU it doesn't bother me :) )
no subject
Date: 2023-07-02 08:28 am (UTC)(The story in question.)
Teen me didn't get the pon farr implication the first time I watched STIII, but that was because Amok Time has a hilarious change in the German dubbed version, which was all I knew. Because when ST was originally broadcast on German TV, it was seen as aimed at children and put in an early afternoon spot accordingly, and because Amok Time was deemed to be not suitable in its orginal form, the dubbed dialogue and some cuts mean Spock gets space flu, falls into a delirium where he has this weird dream about almost marrying back home on Vulcan and killing his bff, meanwhile McCoy rearches and finds a cure, Spock wakes up, is a bit confused but happy to find Kirk alive, the end. When I started to read ST novels and pon farr came up, I was v.v. bewildered because that was not how I remembered the episode. :)
Anyway, later when I got the implication of Saavik helping mindless young Spock through his pon farr, I stranagely could stomach this better than the news of them actually getting married in a novel (which I haven't read) via fannish grapevines, because the situation in ST III was a dire emergency, whereas a romance would have been a conscious choice on their parts. Then I decided the novels were contradictory to each other and I could pick which ones I saw as my headcanon anyway.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-04 10:38 pm (UTC)some cuts mean Spock gets space flu, falls into a delirium where he has this weird dream about almost marrying back home on Vulcan and killing his bff
*blinks* You'd said before that "Amok Time" was different in German, but somehow I came away with the idea that there were just cuts, not that the entire premise of the episode was different! (Though I guess it would have had to have been different, otherwise cuts wouldn't have made any sense...)
because the situation in ST III was a dire emergency
This is true! And I imagine book!Saavik would be like, okay, hm, this is going to be an interesting learning eperience...
when I got the implication of Saavik helping mindless young Spock through his pon farr, I stranagely could stomach this better than the news of them actually getting married in a novel
For sure. Though again, I'm just assuming that that one is an alternate universe (not hard for me to do with the novels as, as you say, they're all contradictory anyway :) ). I haven't read that one, but I've heard about it.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-04 04:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-04 10:44 pm (UTC)I AM SO PLEASED :D
and despite the occasional overuse of italics interrupting my reading flow
Ha! It's true, there are a lot. Though at least it's vaguely in service of the characterization (Spock very rarely uses italics; Saavik uses them all the time), which sometimes books that overuse italics don't do, which drives me even more nuts. (looking at you, Arkady Martine!)
I haven't read Stitch in Time! That's the one written by Garak, right? I've always meant to read that one... maybe this will be my impetus to get it :)
no subject
Date: 2023-07-05 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-06 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-14 03:49 am (UTC)