is this thing on?
Feb. 25th, 2023 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elsaneHard to believe it's already almost March, and that it's taken me about this long to claw my way back to something more resembling my usual attitude toward work. Burnout is a bitch.
I have been trying to get more in the habit of reading books again, as opposed to, say, falling into terrible time- and attention-sucking websites -- with some success. Some booklogging below the fold.
The Piper on the Mountain, Ellis Peters
I picked this up because the idea of a Peters take on a cold War spy story was fascinating to me. Peters is reliable for a fun read, though her tendency to narrate via "ah, this is how things are" -- especially, "ah, this is how men and women are" -- is much more successful for me when it comes in Cadfael's voice -- in her modern books I cannot as easily read it as in character, and I find it more obtrusive. Still, this was fun. It turns out to be more or less a love letter to the Slovakian mountains, and it definitely made me want to go there for a long hiking vacation.
A Marvellous Light and A Restless Truth, Freya Marske
The prose is beautiful -- Marske has a real gift for simile -- and the characters are very well drawn, rounded, and sympathetic. I loved the threatening stinger at the end of the second book, and I am looking forward to the third. I find that I am not fully habituated to the conventions and priorities of romance as a genre, though, the ratio of romance plot to both character and action plot is a bit lopsided for my personal taste (and the prospect of having yet a third couple in the last book is exhausting to me). There's still a lot of room for development in the main characters and the two romances we've got already! and lots of unresolved plot! And I want more about Miss Morrissey and her sister!
Funeral of Figaro, Ellis Peters
Ellis Peters does a case in a production of Marriage of Figaro! Obviously, I picked it up.
Only, a lot of the setup revolves around a profoundly dated and unconvincing bit of men-and-women business, which I only got myself through by saying, well, let us say it's thematic (I love opera, but frequently in despite of its gender politics). This is, it turns out, an extremely early Ellis Peters, and it shows. There are some characters I enjoyed -- in particular, the very poised Gisela, mezzo soprano and one-time refugee -- and it's fascinating to see how long the shadow of WWII looms, but overall: eh.
We Ride Upon Sticks, Quan Barry
I enjoyed this! I am not in general particularly interested in teenagers and teenager-hood, so it was occasionally a bit of a tough sell, but it is such a clever book. I'm amazed at how sharply and hilariously observed it is, and how wide a range of characters Barry brings to life. I loved the narrative voice, but did end up feeling like it needed a more plot-heavy story to really take off.
Lavender House, by Lev AC Rosen
This one is a murder mystery, set in 1950s San Francisco; the detective protagonist is a cop who has just been uncloseted, and is thus rather brutally out of a job. In a lot of ways this book is about exploring the awful choice queer people in this time and place find themselves making between the quiet violence of the closet and the often terrible consequences of a more open lifestyle, and the ways to still negotiate joy within an unforgiving world. That part of the book, I found very effective, and I liked the characters. The mystery plot finds itself mostly in service to this side of the story, which ends up making it somewhat slim and predictable as a mystery. But I found it worth reading for the sympathetic and vivid (and also sobering) realization of its characters and their time.
I have been trying to get more in the habit of reading books again, as opposed to, say, falling into terrible time- and attention-sucking websites -- with some success. Some booklogging below the fold.
The Piper on the Mountain, Ellis Peters
I picked this up because the idea of a Peters take on a cold War spy story was fascinating to me. Peters is reliable for a fun read, though her tendency to narrate via "ah, this is how things are" -- especially, "ah, this is how men and women are" -- is much more successful for me when it comes in Cadfael's voice -- in her modern books I cannot as easily read it as in character, and I find it more obtrusive. Still, this was fun. It turns out to be more or less a love letter to the Slovakian mountains, and it definitely made me want to go there for a long hiking vacation.
A Marvellous Light and A Restless Truth, Freya Marske
The prose is beautiful -- Marske has a real gift for simile -- and the characters are very well drawn, rounded, and sympathetic. I loved the threatening stinger at the end of the second book, and I am looking forward to the third. I find that I am not fully habituated to the conventions and priorities of romance as a genre, though, the ratio of romance plot to both character and action plot is a bit lopsided for my personal taste (and the prospect of having yet a third couple in the last book is exhausting to me). There's still a lot of room for development in the main characters and the two romances we've got already! and lots of unresolved plot! And I want more about Miss Morrissey and her sister!
Funeral of Figaro, Ellis Peters
Ellis Peters does a case in a production of Marriage of Figaro! Obviously, I picked it up.
Only, a lot of the setup revolves around a profoundly dated and unconvincing bit of men-and-women business, which I only got myself through by saying, well, let us say it's thematic (I love opera, but frequently in despite of its gender politics). This is, it turns out, an extremely early Ellis Peters, and it shows. There are some characters I enjoyed -- in particular, the very poised Gisela, mezzo soprano and one-time refugee -- and it's fascinating to see how long the shadow of WWII looms, but overall: eh.
We Ride Upon Sticks, Quan Barry
I enjoyed this! I am not in general particularly interested in teenagers and teenager-hood, so it was occasionally a bit of a tough sell, but it is such a clever book. I'm amazed at how sharply and hilariously observed it is, and how wide a range of characters Barry brings to life. I loved the narrative voice, but did end up feeling like it needed a more plot-heavy story to really take off.
Lavender House, by Lev AC Rosen
This one is a murder mystery, set in 1950s San Francisco; the detective protagonist is a cop who has just been uncloseted, and is thus rather brutally out of a job. In a lot of ways this book is about exploring the awful choice queer people in this time and place find themselves making between the quiet violence of the closet and the often terrible consequences of a more open lifestyle, and the ways to still negotiate joy within an unforgiving world. That part of the book, I found very effective, and I liked the characters. The mystery plot finds itself mostly in service to this side of the story, which ends up making it somewhat slim and predictable as a mystery. But I found it worth reading for the sympathetic and vivid (and also sobering) realization of its characters and their time.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-02-28 05:53 am (UTC)But book-blogging is great. Lavender House and The Piper on the Mountain both sound especially interesting, I am marking them down to check out.