laceblade

I swear to God I've written this post twice before, but I keep drafting it in email and then somehow losing it. It's pretty upsetting. It's been a while since I've read some of these, so this might be short. I'm skipping most of hte comics I've read lately.

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin - I actually read this months ago and keep forgetting it due to a fluke in it not showing up in chronological order in my Goodreads list.
I like Nemisin's ideas and her politics. Unfortunately, I can't stand her prose.

/some more X-Men comics/

Half-Off Ragnarok and Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire - As suspected when I read the books narrated by Verity, I enjoy the books narrated by her brother much more. (And I'm anticipating Antimony's books EVEN MORE. WANT. SO BADLY. Also maybe Elspeth's :D) Sadly I really disliked Pocket Apocalypse/the one that took place in Australia. So many cliches, SO MUCH EXPOSITION, people just explaining things to each other in big swaths of dialog. Also unnecessary sentences ending chapters in ways that were just...too dramatic. Did her editor fall asleep? idk? It was disappointing, but I'll be coming back for more.

Court of Fives by Kate Elliott - her first YA novel! This is like Little Women set in Egypt but also The Hunger Games. BUT SO MUCH BETTER THAN HUNGER GAMES. So well-written, imagery that was genuinely creepy, so much agency, THE TWISTS, UGGGHHHH I'm ready for the next two in the trilogy and in the meantime I'm giving this to my youngest niece for Christmas.

Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda - I picked this up because the editor attends my comics club. The first issue is almost 70 pages long. IT'S SO GOOD. The story and the imagery both. The only thing I can compare it to is Ashley Cope's webcomic Unsounded. Really looking forward to more of this in the new year.

City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett - Full disclosure that I received an advance copy of this book through a Goodreads give-away.

City of Stairs was my favorite sf/f book last year, and this follow-up did not disappoint at all. I love Bennett's writing. The dialogue feels real, which is so uncommon in most fantasy.
I was worried about Mulaghesh as the POV character only because I loved Shara from the first book SO MUCH. That said, once we got going, it was very clear that this had to be Mulaghesh's story.

Both this book and its predecessor address what happens to the economies and political structures of societies when gods die and disappear, as well as the psyches of individual people.

Like City of Stairs, I plan to keep, reread, and recommend this book.

Batman: Year 100 by Paul Pope - Sometimes the art was cool, but overall this was kind of terrible? idk? I'd found it in a list of recommended US superhero comics. I wouldn't have put it there myself, :p

Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold - Yeah, I'm the last person on earth to read these books. HOLY SHIT THIS WAS GR9. Already reading Barrayar, which is in the same omnibus edition that I have. Cordelia 4 life.

Winter is Coming by Garry Kasparov - Kasparov is a former chess champion from the USSR who now lives in New York and is a vocal critic of Vladimir Putin. There's a lot of review of the last 25 years or so of history in this book, which I found extremely valuable. The dissolution of the Soviet Union happened too recently to have been covered in any great detail while I was in K-12 school, and despite one of my majors being Political Science, we never studied it there either.
Kasparov has been warning about Putin for over a decade, before he started invading sovereign nations & assassinating his political enemies. Kasparov is frank in covering the failures of recent presidents, covering all of them since Reagan. His thesis is that morality must have a place in global affairs, and that in recent years it hasn't because it's easier to just say, "The Russians need to take care of their own Russian problem." He paints the Cold War as good vs. evil, which in the past would have struck me as a simplistic reduction, but he explains how governments resisting democracy are trying to control the press/other people's voices in order to continue holding their power. Anyway. He tips towards a level of American exceptionalism that makes me uncomfortable, but it's a good, if unsettling, read.
I'm still horrified by the lack of protest over the MH17 flight being shot down by the Russians over Ukraine. What is it going to take?

Vampire Knight, vol. 5 - Uhhh, I finished this right before going out of town for a week & have no memory of it. VAMPIRES COVERED IN BLOOD.

Kitty's Big Trouble - I still like this well enough, but this one I liked less than others. Can't remember too many specifics >__<

Dealing With Dragons - Yes, it's true; I've never read these. Recced to me by were_duck when we were wandering Half-Price Books with wild_irises. I liked this a lot. Would read Cimorene hanging out w/dragons forever. Loved how this fucked with so many tropes. If anything, this book was too short, which is why I'm glad the second one is already in my basket of books checked out from the library.

Unnatural Death - Was this book about lesbians, or did I make that up?

Sister Light, Sister Dark - This is the book that wild_irises recced to me in Half-Price Books after I brought up the fact that I'd never read anything by Jane Yolen. Enclaves of women live separately from other sections of society. Each (well, most) is able to call up their own "dark sister" through mirrors. These dark sisters are then forever bonded to them, although they can only appear where there's darkness - shadows, etc.
Jenna is an heroic figure who might be the fulfillment of a prophecy - but mostly she's trying to do what she feels like she has to.
Yolen mixes the narrative with ballads, songs (with actual music), academic analyses of Jenna's culture.
I'm glad there are more books, and also eager to read more by Yolen. (Feel free to tell me your faves.)

City of Illusions - Continuing my tour of the Hainish cycle. I really did not care for this one. Like, at all. And have struggled to get myself to return to LeGuin since reading it.

Whiteout - Borrowed this at comics club. Via jesse_the_k, I've been reading/watching antarctic_sue for a few years; thus, the concept of isolated bases where a substantial portion of the population leaves annually & supplies are scarce wasn't new to me. The ongoing murder mystery wasn't very interesting to me; however, the relationship between U.S. Marshall Carrie Stetko and Lilly was.
I liked this, & the art, well enough to put volume 2 on hold, anyway.

The Goblin Emperor - LOVE. Written under Sarah Monette's new pseudonym. The airships made me think of Final Fantasy IX.
Basically the protagonist, Maia, has always lived banished with his abusive relative. Despite being the son of the Emperor, his mother has been dead for years after having been cast off, and nobody else really cares about his fate. Until his father, the Emperor, and all his half-brothers in line for the throne ahead of him die when an airship blows up. So Maia has to go to court and learn how to rule. Not only does Maia have no friends at court, he's never had any friends period. He doesn't know how to have friends. Happily, the compassion that his goblin mother taught him to have for others leads him to make choices that better the realm.
I loved that Maia's spirituality was so important to his staying grounded. Time spent meditating was always restorative to him. I think it's rare to read a fantasy series where a character's faith feels authentic. It probably helps that most of the background characters were not down with the religion, so it was a conscious choice made by the protagonist.
Another thing this novel did that I don't think I've ever seen in a fantasy before ( was a spoiler )
I loved the politics, loved how Maia chose to solve problems.
Definite content warning for an abuse survivor, who gets triggered and stuck in flashbacks.
People who have read both: Is this similar to the Doctrine of Labyrinths quartet? I own 3 of the 4 and while one time I almost finished the first one, I could use some motivation to get these read.

Anne of Windy Poplars - Probably my least favorite of these books so far, tbh. Everything feels like a retread of things that have already happened.

Margaret Fuller: A New American Life - Abandoning this on page 180, partly due to time constraints & this being due back at the library before I could finish it, but also because it started losing steam after the beginning. I liked reading about Fuller's childhood a lot. Once she gets older, things sort of read like a who's who of American Transcendentalism, and good Lord, Ralph Waldo Emerson sounds like a brat.

Please Save My Earth, volume 2. This series is SO nineties shoujo manga. AND THAT IS WHY I LOVE IT. I continue to slowly obtain this series through the library's outerlibrary loan system.

King's Dragon - LOVED IT. I was really craving a brick of a fantasy novel, and am so glad that I read this. I've already gushed about Elliott's Spiritwalker trilogy [Cold Magic/etc.], and I feel similarly gush-y about this one. This is the first in a series of seven bricks.
Elliott's fantasy world, which is sort of an alternate Europe with magic, feels real. The gender-equal world was so naturally described that I caught myself being tricked by my own socialized assumptions - assuming that warriors and biscops were only men & getting myself confused, etc. The religion felt SO real to me. Like people's beliefs actually shaped their thoughts and actions throughout the entire novel, and not just when it was convenient to the plot. I should have a disclaimer that at least some of my affection for the religion is probably due to the fact that it's so similar to Catholicism.
I have a lot of love for both protagonists, Liath and Alain. Loved the epic battle at the end.
Has anyone else read these? Just. UGH. LOVE. Very excited to read more. Really don't understand why this book has so many haters on Goodreads.
Definite content warning for domestic violence/abuse, as well as rape.

The Magicians and Mrs. Quent - This book grabbed me from page one, in which the protagonist is described as being one to read while she walks so as not to waste a moment - which is a habit I share. Ivy Lockwell and her two sisters live in a house due to be inherited by their repulsive male cousin upon their mother's death. While their mother hopes one or two of them will marry well to avoid destitution, the girls are pretty happy in the meantime.
Of her sisters & mother, only Ivy is still able to maintain a relationship with their father, who stays in the attic tossing books about magick around after having gone mad a few years ago.

I loved the writing - the author is clever and has a better grasp of language than many other fantasy authors, especially those trying for the Regency era.

I had to give this a three because Beckett relies too much on the sources he's drawing from - Pride & Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and what I think is Dickens, although I'm not 100% sure on Eldyn's plot.
While Beckett's third-person prose is great, approximately 100 pages in the middle of the book are written in the first-person, when the protagonist leaves her family briefly to become a governess for a few months, & then marry her employer - aka the Jane Eyre plot. I don't know why Beckett made this choice, but I think it was a poor one.
This middle section feels like an entirely different book. Not only does the narration change, but the POVs of Mr. Rafferdy & Eldyn are dropped completely.

While Ivy and her two sisters - Lily and Rose - are actually pretty interesting to me, I was really disappointed that Eldyn's sister Sashie is a prop for his entire story. I don't know if Beckett was trying to make a commentary on Charles Dickens's useless female characters, but I'll assume this was not deliberate.

The defects are unfortunate, because the writing is very high quality (Jane Eyre episode excepted), and world-building is very intriguing, and I'm not usually one to give a crap about world-building [because lots of authors focus on it instead of the quality of their writing]. Days (lumenals) and nights (umbrals) are variable, and characters must consult almanacs to know what kind of day it's going to be.

While Ivy is unable to perform magic herself, due to being a woman, her role in the main plot is far from passive.

This book's failings knocked it from a four to a three for me. Still, it was good enough that I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in the trilogy's second installment. The review on Book Smugglers is probably more useful than my own.

The Diviners - Another book for my "abandoned" shelf on Goodreads. I made it to page 72.
I think I just can't stand Bray's writing. The characters don't talk like people, but rather historical caricatures.
It seems like there might be an interesting plot, but I can't force myself to keep going in order to find out what it is.

The Whim of the Dragon - I actually loved the ending, and how things worked together. Glad I read this trilogy, and glad I've already been able to find each installment used at various Half-Price Books.

Bioluminescence: Lisp - Borrowed from someone in comics club (who also drew it!). Short & sweet.
The Ink Dark Moon - Recommended to me by lavendarsleeves because I was complaining about Basho on twitter ^^;;;
And she was right in that I did like this a lot more! I preferred Shikibu's poems to Komachi's, but am glad to have read it regardless. I likely made it through in part because it's so short.

An Artificial Night - Third installment of the October Daye books. I understand why many people say this was the book to really pull them into the series. ( spoilers ) I continue to look forward to reading more. These seem particularly fitting to read during the month of October, ;)

One Piece, volumes 16-18 - Not much happened in these volumes except that the team obtained Chopper, the blue-nosed reindeer. I feel excited when Nami and/or Princess Vivi appear on-screen. I'm also finding this arc as they finally enter Alabasta to be interesting.

Bee and Puppycat, #1-3 - Borrowed from a member of comics club. I liked the whimsical art style, as well as the basis premise (Bee and her puppycat get odd jobs from a "Temp Bot"). I particularly liked #2's use of QR codes to associate music with a number of music boxes opened by the characters. Other than that, though, there wasn't much to grasp on to.

The Pulse, vol. 1: Thin Air - The follow-up to Jessica Jones's story in Alias. I really didn't care for the art style in this volume? But the story was good enough that I didn't mind.

The Pulse, vol. 2: Secret War - I really liked this one. Done by a different artist, which helped, but the "secret" war/SHIELD + Hydra thing is an interesting through-line to me? Also, coming to Marvel comics from the MCU means I'm always surprised when Nick Fury shows up & is white.
Neither my city nor university libraries carry The Pulse, vol. 3, and the city can't obtain it via outerlibrary loan, either. Where do people go to *ahem* US comics?

Spider-Man SP//dr - Seems to be the last installment of a five-part mini-series that's building up to a new event/crossover/series/SOMETHING. I picked it up because it was written by Gerard Way & the premise sounded interesting. If the direct influences of Neon Genesis Evangelion on this weren't clear, Asuka, Rei, Kaworu, and Shinji literally appear as the protag's classmates on one page. Way does cite other influences (Akira, Chrono Trigger[??]) in interviews I've seen, but I find it weird that Evangelion isn't mentioned at all. Maybe it was only an influence for an artist, & not the writer. I'd like to see more of Peni but am not sure what this series is jumping to now.

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Reading Now:
A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voigt, because I was feeling a little melancholy last night and am craving her writing.

X-Men: War Machines - This plot was...something about an international INCIDENT in a fictional Eastern European nation. Our Heroes engaged in fights, & some rote lines were spoken. Yawn.


One Bird - I bought this book a few months ago, during Frugal Muse's going out of business sale.
I read most of Mori's books as a kid. Since I grew up in Green Bay, her fiction was readily available, as she taught nearby at St. Norbert's.

One Bird has some similarities to her more famous Shizuko's Daughter in that it's about a Japanese high school girl coping with an unhappy home life. In One Bird, Megumi finds a role model in Dr. Mizutani, who shows her how to rehabilitate sick birds.

The book spends a lot of time on the impossible choices women had to make due to the unfair societal expectations people had based on gender, even with this being 1975. It's an interesting insight and commentary. I really enjoyed how Megumi's support system eventually allows her to challenge the virtual prison she's been placed in, disallowed from visiting the mother who's left her for the next seven years.

Most of all, though, I appreciate Mori's writing. Her prose is cutting, just as visceral for me now at 28 as it was when I was 10 or so, reading this the first time.


Sweethearts - I really loved reading about Jenna's relationship with her childhood friend, Cameron.

Jenna's transformed herself, but never forgotten him or the impact he had on her when she was still unpopular and had no other friends.

There's a lot of tension when he shows up - she and her mother and shifted upwards in terms of class, she has a boyfriend, & a group of friends.

Cameron & Jenna's relationship felt real to me.
It makes me wonder what it'd be like if people with whom I used to be close to showed back up & I tried to fit them in with my life as it is now.

I guess it's hard to write about this one! Anyway, I've been tracking down Sara Zarr's novels, & loving each one. I particularly enjoy how important class is, is each protagonist's viewpoint and story.


The Housekeeper and the Professor - A housekeeper & single mother comes to keep house for a retired mathemetician suffering from a memory problem: while he can remember everything up until 1975, his current memory only lasts for 80 minutes.

There's a romance for numbers here, as well as the quiet creation of a found-family.

I liked it quite a bit, although I probably won't reread it.


The Lady Elizabeth - It's nice to read this after Weir's other historical fiction novels about Lady Jane Grey & Katherine Grey/Katehrine Plantagenet. Elizabeth learns how to play the game, & *wants* to play the game.

This book covers Elizabeth's life from birth up to Mary I's death.
I don't have much to say about it. Weir's prose is very readable and engrossing, but at the same time not particularly memorable.
Having read this, I'd love to read more about her reign.


Tokyo on Foot - I reserved this because Gerard Way tweeted about it.

A French twenty-something spends six months living in Tokyo because his girlfriend has an internship. While there, he sketches every day with colored pencils. This isn't a normal sketchbook - he shows detailed maps of each neighborhood in Tokyo, prefaced with a picture of that neighborhood's koban (police box).
Sometimes, he sketches the labels that come on expensive fruit, or copies of receipts from cafes, tickets that get left when he parks his bike somewhere he shouldn't, the contents of a cup noodle meal, etc.

This made me remember a lot of little details from my own trips to Japan, especially the "thousands" of potted plants that appear outside many people's houses/store fronts.

A couple of comments made me uncomfortable - overtones of transphobia, and also a couple comments about fat people (showing a group of high school girls & then saying "There's always one fat one") left me cold, preventing this from receiving a higher rating. He has some other observations of people that feel a little mean-spirited, too, :/


The Dubious Hills - Also purchased when Frugal Muse was going out of business.
This is a beautiful fantasy novel, one in which people consume many pots of tea, plan for childcare, prepare food, & herd cats. It contains the type of mundane details that I wish more speculative fiction would include.

The premise is that wizards eliminated war by parceling knowledge among the members of a community so that they have to rely on one another to navigate through life. One person teaches, one person experiences pain, one person knows plants, etc. Then, the wolves come.

In her review, Jo Walton said this book expands the possibility of what fantasy can be. It really does.


The Silkworm - As with The Cuckoo's Calling, I find the Cormoran Strike novels less condemning than The Casual Vacancy (essentially an evisceration of the white middle class), but still focused on issues of class, wealth, inequality, & human nature.

Rowling's prose is masterful, the vocabulary in particular.
I love the protagonist's reflections on fame. (His estranged father is a rockstar.)

Strike is a veteran, & had part of his leg blown off in Afghanistan. His disability is something that never goes away, is never forgotten by the author. It affects his ability to perform his job, how he travels, how other people perceive him.

I find the Strike novels almost as difficult to put down as the Harry Potter books.
While I rarely by hardcover books brand new as soon as they come out, I did with this one & I don't regret it. I can't wait for the next one.

Heidi - As a child, I imprinted on the movie version of Heidi, which had Jason Robards & cast Jane Seymour as Fraulein Rottenmeier. This probably had a lot to do with the fact that I devoutly watched Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, every week (yeah, I know).
Heidi is a book about miserable people whose mental & physical woes are cured by the fresh air & impressive views of the Alps. Or possibly, faith in God.
There's a weird trick with this one. Despite the fact that I really don't believe in, "God has a plan, so everything will work out, you just need to trust him" & also tend to abhor the "person is paralyzed and then magically cured!!", it works for me in this book because the "cure" works first for people who are sad & visit the mountain. They eat good food, they get stronger by being outside. And after Heidi comes back from Frankfurt & becomes a little more "learned," people become less crabby/fearful both because they reconcile their relationships with God & also because they meet one another through Heidi, & are able to help solve one another's problems.
Peter's grandmother can never sleep at night because their house is rattling, & she's afraid it'll cave in. Heidi's irritable grandfather comes & patches it all up before the winter, & so Grandmother is able to sleep & grow a little stronger.
Also, Heidi's able to pull strings with her rich friends in Frankfurt to supply the Grandmother with soft bread she can eat (rather than the cheaper brown bread she can't really handle), & also transport the bed she herself slept on in Germany so that the Grandmother's head can be elevated at night.
It all works out, like some kind of feminist utopia. The book was written in 1880, so ymmv. I really liked it.

ATLA FCBD offering - I was so excited to read this because Faith Erin Hicks did the art!! GO FAITH!!! An excellent story for Free Comic Book Day, & we got to see Suki be a badass.

Journey Into Mystery featuring Lady Sif, volume 1: Stronger Than Monsters - borrowed from garrideb through our comics club. Sif is kind of like a lady-version of Thor. No prior knowledge of Asgard/Thor stuff is needed, which is good, because I've never seen his movies & am only aware of him as he appears in the Avengers movie. This was pretty decent! I put volume 2 on hold at the library, although I think the story was canceled after just two volumes.
It'll be interesting the next time I reread my beloved Runaways, as I've now read other stuff by most of the authors!

Sea Change - Continuing in my quest to read books from the 2013 Tiptree Award Shortlist. I'm going to be lazy & crib the Tiptree Award's description:

This debut novel tells a dark, fairy tale-like story of a young girl and her best friend, Octavius, who is an eloquent, intelligent kraken. When Octavius is captured, Lilly sets out to rescue him, bargaining with a greedy circus master, a witch, and a pair of gay bandits. She is transformed by her quest, giving up everything she has known, including her gender, to save her friend.

And it does pretty much that! An okay read, but this writing style didn't really grab me.

Angel & Faith, s10 #2 - Still okay-ish?! I'm feeling Faith's plot more than Angel's at the moment. I hope they team up again.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - This was a reread, although I didn't remember much of my first read except that I liked it, lol. AND I STILL LIKE IT. The gods, Yeine, political intrigue up the wazoo, this is just great. I know some people have griped about the writing, in how the narrator is flashing forward and back sometimes, but it really works for me as an honest first-person perspective, and that's how I feel when I'm reading it - not at all like I'm uncomfortable in the hands of an inexperienced writer.
I reread it so that I can read the rest of the trilogy. N.K. Jemisin is one of the Guests of Honor at this year's WisCon, which is why I'm try to hustle through some of her books before Memorial Day weekend. I'm really looking forward to the next one, especially because it gets away from the uber-privileged people of the first book. I'm eager to see what this world looks like from someone else's perspective.
I was stopped by two strangers - one on the bus & one on the street - who told me how much they love this book.

Finished Reading
Kaze Hikaru, volume 13 - Still very much enjoying this series, although it does bug me how much Miki's weight is used for comic relief.

Kitty and the Silver Bullet (#4) - I liked this volume. It wraps up a lot of loose ends that have been hanging around since the first book, but it's all pretty intense. I really like where everyone ends up at the end of this volume, and I'm excited to see how things evolve.

Inheritance by Malinda Lo - This is the sequel to Adaptation. Like the first book, it's very fast-paced and hard to put down, which was good for me since I needed to read it in a day in order to get it back to the library!
I love the way this ends up bucking typical-YA-love-triangles. It seems like the series is done, but I would read more.
A lot of people on Goodreads were complaining about the protagonist's bisexuality, which is a pretty stupid complaint.
I loved these because the characters felt like people, which is a thing that is sort of rare in SF-for-adults, IMO.
These are my favorite books by Malinda Lo so far.
I did freak out a little about the kids giving no more than verbal assent to have their entire DNA sequenced at an academic research institution - it would take a written consent form with lots of warnings about future insurability!!

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - I'm traveling to Harry Potter World in Florida mid-month with three of my high school friends, so I'm trying to see whether I can get through the series before then! Going back to work is slowing me down for sure, ^^;;
Still surprised by how quickly the first book goes by - it's pretty much a constant, "Wow, we're at the troll ALREADY?!"/etc.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - I used to dislike this book when I was younger, but I don't really remember why. Reading it now, it's easy to see why I liked Ginny quite a bit, even before she became a more prominent character in the later books.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - Easily my favorite of the first three books. Not only is the Sirius Black plot frightening & interesting, I love the Marauders back story. My iPhone case is the Marauders' map!
I like the kids starting to be sarcastic with one another in this book, as well as talking back to their teachers a little bit. I always wish Lupin would have been a little closer with Harry in later books, like Sirius.
Rowling's use of adverbs began to bug me in this book, though. I get annoyed & disappointed by her using descriptors like "piggy eyes" and "piggy face" to describe fat people. Hopefully I can get through the rest without going nuts!

Currently Reading
Nothing, as I went to draft this post immediately after finishing POA!
Previously, my favorite book has always been Order of the Phoenix. We'll see if that holds true this time.

OTHER
Although I've been on the periphery of HP "fandom" (almost everyone I know loves these books; I'm speaking specifically of fandom in the "creation of fanworks" sense) for years, I've never really read much fanfic.
If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. (Epic-length stuff appreciated!) Even the stuff where you're like, "Oh, everybody's read THAT."
I have the suspicion I've asked this question before, so I'll be searching my own tag, too, ^^;;

FINISHED READING
Cold Fire - This was a very engrossing follow-up to the first book, Cold Magic. It's a bit of a brick, but I was never bored, and every single chapter ended on a cliffhanger. These books are a delight for me - revolutionaries and political intrigue, deceit and betrayal, Cat and Bee's fierce friendship and banter. I liked Rory a lot more this volume. I basically loved everything about it. I have Cold Steel on hold at the library, and I think this trilogy is going on my list of favorites. I know I'll be rereading them.

Kaze Hikaru, volumes 3-5 - The more I read in this series, the more I like it. Sei's love for Okita Souji is compelling. At some point, Sei's woman confidant asks Sei if she wouldn't be happy marrying Souji and bearing his children. Sei replies that no, she would prefer to show her love by protecting Souji as a remember of the Shinsengumi. <3 <3 <3!! Sei repeatedly tells those who know the secret of her sex, "I'm not a girl! I am bushi!" It's nice getting to know Kondo and Hijikata better, too.

IRB Member Handbook - I'm not an IRB member, but this book is still relevant to my job training. It's a nice distillation of why IRBs exist and best practices. Probably a little dry for those not required to read it for work, ^^


READING NOW
The Lucy Variations, which I think owlectomy blogged about. It's about being a teenager & figuring out who you are. Lucy comes from a hella rich family who's played piano internationally, until her family's tendency to place fame/piano over everything else prompts her to quit.
I like the book okay, & it's going quickly.
And I think I'll probably dig out my Mozart & Chopin music and bring it home with me this weekend, when I visit the family piano at my sister's.

• What are you currently reading?
Nothing! b/c I finished what I was reading last night ^^;

• What did you recently finish reading?
The Summer Prince - The last act was the strongest, but I still didn't like this as much as a lot of other people seem to.

Killjoys #2

Hawkeye #12

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search, part 2 - Another great installment in this series. I hope Gene Luen Yang writes ATLA comics forever.

Shugo Chara! vols. 7-9 - Let's see, I really liked the revelations in volume 7 & I think I now like this series more than I did previously.
This is a rare instance of me liking the premise more than the actual plot or characters.
Basically, the protagonist, Amu, feels like the persona she presents for other people doesn't represent her true self. Her true self DOES manifest in chibi "guardian characters" who hatch from eggs. This idea seems not fully fleshed out - like, the "true self" guardian characters are all really 1D in terms of just one personality trait.
STILL, Amu has 4 guardian characters (most people who have guardian characters only have one), so she's still pretty multi-faceted.
Like Persona 4, this sort of normalizes the idea of people having multiple personas. The ones you present for different groups of people, and the ache of feeling like nobody knows (or could ever like) the "real" you.
I still want Amu's wardrobe.
Manga-ka really like their personifications of cats, don't they?


• What do you think you’ll read next?
More from the pile of manga I've got checked out from the library O:

Doing this meme along with wild_irises and 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 ^^;

Panel Title: A Princess With a Sword Is Still a Princess: Modern Adaptations of Fairy Tales
Description: From Countess D'Aulnoy to Teri Windling, many writers are fascinated with the fairy tale. These tales have been used in a variety of works, including television shows, short stories, and novels. What speaks to us in the fairy tale princess? Do girls really want to be princesses? Can we redeem the concept of princess by making her more active? What do fairy tales tell girls? What do fairy tales tell boys? What do they tell adults? And why do we care? Come discuss the issues of gender in fairy tales both traditional and modern, the limitations and problems of fairy tales, and why they are so popular today.
Friday, 10:30-11:45pm
Twitter Hash-Tag: #ModernPrincess
Panelists: Kerey Luis (moderator), Lisa Baluersouth, Emily Jiang, Genevieve A. Lopez, Na'amen Gobert Tilahun

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This post is intended to be transcript-y!

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KL: We'll be discussing gender in modern adaptations of modern fairy/folktales. Favorites?

EJ: Long-lived love of fairy tales since going to the library.

Grimms, Hans Christian Andersen, loves YA. Excited about recent retellings. Donna Jo Napoli. Anything Disney.

LB: Favorite adaptation is Deathless by Cat Valente. Likes Mercedes Lackey retellings. Will read anything.

GL: Grew up reading fairy tales at same as watching Disney Renaissance films. Have been vocal critic of Disney adaptations, prefers to tend toward darker retellings herself. Disney has a puritanical swing in their re-adaptations. Generally, they’re beautiful but there is lots at play in reinforcing gender/racial tropes that needs to be looked at if
consuming them and passing them to children.

NGT: Instead of reading fairy tales, read all mythology books ever. Greek/Roman, Egyptian, etc. etc. Also in love with Disney. Can sing all of the songs. Sings Part of Your World at work. Also a vocal critic of Disney movies. Likes to watch them, likes to tear them apart. (The Disney film) Princess and the Frog fills him with rage. Favorite adaptation is a YA novel by Sarah Beth Durst – Out of the Wild. POV of girl whose mother is Rapunzel. All fairy tale characters live in New England. Fairy tales take over a small city. Friends/enemies co-opted into the fairy tales.

KL: Unsure what favorite modern adaptation is. Maybe Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue. Teaching a class on fairy tales soon, fascinated with what people will have to say. Class is intensive, only 6 weeks long. Each week, also a film. Ending with Princess and the Frog,
hoping her students will tear it apart. Will put ?s to the panelists and then maybe halfway through, open up to questions from audience. What kind of changes do you see in gender roles in adaptations? Do yo use changes at all?

( >Rest of the panel is under this cut. )

[At this point, this audience member said he had "a few things to talk about," my laptop died, and realized how exhausted I was, so I got up and left.



I found myself wishing that this panel would talk about anime/manga, but on Sunday, there will be an entire panel called Fairy Tales in Shoujo Anime and Manga. I'm on it!
It is my ultimate dream that in the future, anime/manga get talked about whenever applicable, without having their own separate/special panels!
ALSO-ALSO, I feel like there's a lot of YA lit that could have been discussed? Shannon Hale's Princess Academy comes to mind. Mostly, though, I was incoherent by the time I sat down at this panel, and thus my thoughts are minimal.