laceblade | Wednesday Reading Meme

Doing this meme along with

bcholmes and the folks at shouldbereading.wordpress.com.

• What are you currently reading?
Well, I'm still reading the books I discussed last time although I dropped God's War, it just wasn't doing it for me.
So from last time, that's still The Rescuers, I've Been Trying to Reach You (Glee fic), and The North Remembers (Game of Thrones fic).

Since then, I've added:
Struck by Lightning by Chris Colfer - a companion to the movie of the same name, which he wrote & starred in. So far I like this more than I liked The Land of Stories but there are still a few things that irk me about his writing style. I'm assuming I'll enjoy it best on film, but like I said, I'm liking this book a lot more than his first one, and am generally enjoying it.

Gokinjo Monogatari (Neighborhood Story), a manga series by Ai Yazawa (manga-ka of Paradise Kiss and NANA)
This series has not been released in the US, so I'm reading a version that was translated by fans on my laptop.
Mikako and her neighbor Tsutomu attend an arts school in Tokyo, and have been next-door neighbors since they were children. They've been friends forever but have only recently started to consider whether their feelings for one another might be more-than-friends.
I love everything I've ever read by Yazawa and this is no different. I'm so excited to read more!!

Balance of Power, a ff7 fic written by Frank Vederosa and Jen. It takes place post-game, when Wutai and Junon are vying to fill the power vacuum left by the Shinra Corporation. It focuses on Tifa and Cid. 10+ years ago, when Vederosa was popular, I often looked at this fic and then stopped reading it because the politics were too hard for me to follow.
Now I'm all GIVE ME THE POLITICS!!
The writing is not stellar and there are a lot of cliches. The plot is moving too slowly for me at the moment BUT there is enough here for me to keep going.
I'm trying to figure out how to post my thoughts on the old FF7 fic I'm rereading/reading for the first time. I guess a series of DW posts would be best; it'll likely take me years to get through everything I'd like to get through.
The front page at that link has a 5-paragraph description of the fic's premise, which is unfortunately way more interesting than anything that's happened in the fic.

I read a lot of Vederosa's stuff back in the day, but I can't remember whether I read any of Jen's, so I might look into that if I can find an archive of her fic. (Did she run the Rocket Town archive??) This is the problem with a hella old fandom :[

• What did you recently finish reading?
Those Yuletide recs I already linked to. I've read a few other people's Yuletide recs. I'm reading a bunch of fic.

Plant Your Hope With Good Seeds by

river_soul - ASoIaF fic, AU where Sansa & a chest of gold DO get traded for Jaime Lannister in Clash of Kings, and she meets up with Robb and her mom.

Warm the Lonely Nights by

valiant - set after "Glee, Actually," Sam goes to New York for New Year's Eve to hang out with Kurt ~~and Rachel~~. NC-17.
Part 2. Part 3.
I'd like to draw little hearts around

valiant's fic forever. Her Kurt and her Sam are just perfection, imo.

I did catch up with Buffy Season 9 and Angel and Faith and its spin-offs (Spike: A Dark Place, and Willow: Wonderland).
Buffy Season 9 had been taking a few turns with Buffy trying some new things, but is turning "inward" again with her going "back" to slaying and hanging around Xander and Dawn.
I was annoyed by the two issues focusing on Billy the Vampire Slayer. Even though Billy seems like a cool character & I'm glad he's around, I was grumpy about the Buffy series having the focus shift away from Buffy. BUT. Digging it now.

Angel & Faith had been slightly more boring than it had been in the first few issues, but then PLOT TWIST happened and it's exciting.
ALSO: GILES'S AUNTS ARE LITERALLY THE BEST, I should look for fanfic about them because omg. Best.

I've been incredibly bored by Spike: A Dark Place. At 4 out of 5 issues, not much has happened. Taking a single character away from everyone else and putting them into their own mini-arc is not exciting for me. I like Buffy because of the ensemble. Most of the characters are boring on their own.
idk what they're doing with Spike after this 5-issue mini-arc - is he going to rejoin Buffy, go on to the Angel & Faith title, or what? I'm not sure.

Willow's mini-arc has only had one issue so far, but I feel like that the same as I do about Spike's: boring when she's off on her own, even if she has way more purpose/a plot than Spike did.

• What do you think you’ll read next?
Roger Ebert's The Pot and How to Use It, a rice cooker cookbook, should be waiting for me at the library when I get back home after a week at the parents' house.
Otherwise I'd really like to get through the books I've got in progress right now ^^;