RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

[silversea]

Happy Wednesday (it's still Wednesday here)! What are you reading?

Comments

[silversea]

I'm currently reading Ten Thousand Stitches by Olivia Atwater, and it's fairly cute so far. Kinda Cinderella-ish, what with Lord Blackthorn filling the fairy godmother (godfather?) role, except I'm sensing a romance brewing between Effie and him! Very excited to see where this will go.

[spaciireth]

I love Olivia Atwater's books! My favourite of the ones I've read is Half a Soul, but I enjoyed Ten Thousand Stitches too.

[silversea]

I also like Half a Soul more than Ten Thousand Stitches, but I thought it was good as well. Really enjoyed the servants' anger slowly come to action and then unionizing against the Culvers! However, I wish Blackthorn had more development in this. I really like the idea of him being the fairy godfather trying to help Effie win over Benedict, only to fall in love with her, but alas we didn't really get much of that perspective. It's a very Effie-centric book focusing more on the mistreatment of servants, but the romance suffered a bit as a result.

Not sure when I'll read Longshadow, but I heard it's different from the other two books and I'm looking forward to it.

[spaciireth]

Completely agree, I think the romance was honestly the weakest bit, but I loved the servants taking action! It took me a while to realise he was the love interest because he came across as more of a dotty old uncle kind of character.

[cornerofmadness]

Zombie Day Care, some indie book I got at the WV book festival. It's...meh so far

[vamp_ress]

I'm suffering through the last 100 pages of "Greenland" bei David Santos Donaldson, a book that infuriates me on so many levels - the most surface level one being that I hate all the characters.

[vriddy]

Just finished Skye falling by Mia McKenzie and I laughed so, so much. Can't recommended it enough. Tales of family, queerness, race, and community with a stunningly hilarious narrator.

I might do a reread of Witch King next. My library has the sequel on order and I'm excited!

[spaciireth]

I'm reading a cute witchy romantasy called Witch You Weren't Here by Emma Jackson, about a witch who gets stuck with her teenage crush a decade after he broke her heart, during a storm, while her magic is already acting up. It's just the palate cleanser I needed! Where I most recently left off, the main character, Kay, has cornered Harry in an aeroplane bathroom to confront him about using his magic to help her out when she hasn't asked for it. I'm pretty sure she hasn't yet considered the implications of them both emerging from the bathroom and that's going to occur to her any moment now! 😂

[falkner]

I continue struggling through Fourth Wing. At this point it feels like DNFing it would be akin to admitting defeat, which I refuse to do.

[elizalavelle]

I just finished The God of the Woods by Liz Moore yesterday and really liked it. I've just picked up The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey and the first chapters have me intregued.

[xwyndx]

Seven of Infinities, by Aliette de Bodard. It's a cifi novella featuring thiefs, murder, social criticism, spaceships, saphic women... I'm loving it so far.

[petrea_mitchell]

Finished Lost Histories of the New Madrid Earthquakes. The main takeaway is that the middle Mississippi used to be a bustling trade center until the earthquakes turned what's now eastern Missouri into one big swamp. I want to visit that part of the US for other reasons someday; now I know how to look for landscape features caused by the earthquakes.

2. Returned to the Dragaera series with Iorich. A particularly good entry, and one that got me to thinking about how much Brust has improved his craft over the course of the series (which you'd hope would happen, this one being published almost 30 years after the first book). But also, when I got to the "Deleted Scenes" section, about how he is still not quite as funny as he thinks he is.

3. Tiassa, another Dragaera book. A mixed bag, with several sections told in different styles, some of which I liked a lot and some I liked less.

4. The Psychology of Time Travel, which I loved. A very spooky book in places, maybe not a good idea to pick up when I was alone in the house, but I got around that by finishing it in under 24 hours. Definitely need to read more of Kate Mascarenhas's work. It also got me interested in checking out The Box of Delights, which is heavily referenced in it.

5. Now reading Why the Hindenburg Had a Smoking Lounge: Essays in Unintended Consequences, a real doorstopper but highly readable so far. Some of the essays go back to the 1990s and feel positively quaint now (remember the debate about whether Y2K would be a small disaster or a civilization-ending disaster?). Also interesting to see the wide variety of publications the essays first appeared in. (Is there anyone else who remembers George magazine, but hasn't thought about it in at least a decade?)