RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

[quillpunk]

It's Wednesday!

What are you reading? 👀

Comments

[quillpunk]

Should the Sky Fall by Amithia Raine, an m/m paranormal possession/amnesia romance, Peter Cabot Gets Lost by Cat Sebastian, a historical m/m romance novel, and I really should finish You're a Mean One, Matthew Prince for time is rapidly running out...

[ilyena_sylph]

I just tore through Sword of Shannara for the many, manyeth time, and have gone on to Elfstones, except I got distracted by an AU I wanted to work on and jumped from it to Hiss Me Deadly while I wrote.

[quillpunk]

Alas, distracted is a deadly peril when it comes to reading :( Hope you're having fun though! :D

[althea_valara]

I'm slowly reading Starter Villain by John Scalzi. I think I am on chapter 6? It's rare I read books these days--I get most of my entertainment through video games--but I used to be a voracious reader when I was younger, and I'd like to return to occasionally reading a book. Fingers crossed I manage to finish this one!

[x003]

Ooh--I have that on my list, too! Is it any good so far?

[althea_valara]

John Scalzi is one of my go-to authors; I've liked everything I've ever read by him! I'm still very early in the book, but it's already interesting, plus it has cats. I love cats.

[vriddy]

Oooh this one is on my list, too! Glad you're enjoying it so far :D

[x003]

I'm reading The Haunting of Hill House, which I'm about 25% of the way through and is already delightfully discomfiting, and I just started Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk, which already has a pretty good setting of historical urban fantasy, which I'm enjoying too!

[quillpunk]

Delightfully discomfiting sounds like a fun time :D Good luck with both!

[jellyfishlover]

I've finished the first volume of Adachi and Shimamura yesterday! I've been stretching the last two chapters, because now I'm just left with waiting for the next volume to come in the mail...

It's been really amusing to see more things from Adachi's POV, since Shimamura typically defaults to "sure, yeah, this might as well be happening." and then it's switches to Adachi who's almost 4d chess-ing any given situation in the most inscrutable and inaccurate way possible.

[quillpunk]

Oh, that sounds like a very fun dynamic! Hope the next book finds its way to you quickly :D

[jellyfishlover]

It is! and thank you, the next book has arrived between then and now, so I've been enjoying it! :D

[quillpunk]

That's great! :D

[olivermoss]

I need to pick a book and go with it. I am still in the middle of Lathe of Heaven, but that's been on audiobook so I haven't had a chance to get far. For a text-based book, do I dig into something crunchy, or do I try some werewolf m/m?

[quillpunk]

I'm afraid I like both crunchy reads and m/m (sometimes they're both 👀) books and so can offer no substantial assistance *wince*

Also, if you don't mind me asking, what books are you talking about? (werewolf m/m? yes, please, LOL)

[olivermoss]

I'd just picked up The Shadow Of The Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón so I want to tackle that, but also I want to get back to Dreams and Shadows by Cargill and finish it before there is too much of a gap in reading it. But, I also have Wolves of Black Pine that I want to check out.

The first two aren't super crunchy, but also I just want to read something indulgent.

[quamquam20]

I've been lingering on His Secret Illuminations by Scarlett Gale, which is a m/f medieval fantasy romance. It's really good so far, but I think I'm just not in a reading mood at the moment.

[quillpunk]

Sometimes the mood just doesn't cooperate for reading, even if you enjoy the book :( I hope it improves!

[peaceful_sands]

Just this minute finished listening to 'Just Between Us' by Adele Parks in audio form - when I got to the very end it turned out it was the second of two parts, although it's actually one that you can read without the first without being too confused - typical of our library to only buy something part way through a series. A couple of days ago I finished the vol 4 of FAKE.

Currently I'm still picking my way through 'Cloud Runner', but also reading 'Utopia' by Marie-Helene Lebeault, 'The Immortal Games' by Annaliese Avery, 'Bring Me Back' by BA Paris and have downloaded vol 5 of FAKE (so far the series has been free on Kindle Unlimited). Next up in audio is 'The Left-Handed Booksellers of London'. I also picked up 'Regretting You' on Kindle - the thing is I read this early in 2023, but I don't remember it, but as I'm reading it, it's all really familiar and I kind of know what's going to happen a page or two ahead but still can't remember how it ends *sigh*

[quillpunk]

You've got a lot things on your plate! Good luck, and I hope you have fun! :D

[peaked]

I finished Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield… Still thinking about it. I really liked the ending.

Still listening to Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison. I'm hoping to finish in the next two weeks (I listen when I walk, and the weather is not appearing walk-friendly lately). Still a lot of fun!

I think I'm going to start Fire and Blood by George R. R. Martin, but only read about the Targaryens I'm interested in. (I want to read what's applicable for House of the Dragon so I'm prepared for season 2!)

[quillpunk]

Glad you liked the ending of Our Wives Under the Sea! The weather has not been walk-friendly here either lately :( Hopefully it'll improve soon! And good luck with Fire and Blood, I can certainly understand wanting to gear up and prepare for the new season :D Hope you have with it!

[peaked]

I'm still thinking about that ending for Our Wives!

[quillpunk]

:D

[vriddy]

Slowly making my way through The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz. It goes slightly more into the worldbuilding details than I usually enjoy (although I can see how many people would love those!), but there are a lot of very cool concepts I haven't come across before, and interesting characters as well as a plot I'm curious about, so I'm enjoying it :)

[quillpunk]

Oooh, yeah I heard about that book, it seems very cool :D Good luck with your read!

[svgurl]

I am reading "What You Are Looking for is in the Library" by Michiko Aoyama (this is the English translation; it was originally written in Japanese). It's a little different than I thought it would be because I was under the impression it would be more centered in the library than it actually is but still mostly an easy, enjoyable read.

[quillpunk]

It's always nice when a book is still enjoyable even if it turns out differently than what one expected :D Good luck! (And that is a very good title.)

[white_aster]

I am STILL reading Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by Annalee Newitz. It is very good, and I'd be reading it faster if I hadn't fallen utterly in love with the Fallout TV series this past week. I've mainlined the whole thing twice and am itching to do it again. Oh, and there was family emergency and sad family duties last weekend. None of this conducive to reading.

I have not picked up Children of Time again. I need to give it one more ol' college try and if I'm still not enjoying myself, I'll set it down for now.

[quillpunk]

Having only seen the first episode of the Fallout show, it looks very cool, certainly an easy thing to get distracted by :D And ahhh, I haven't made progress on Children of Time in a long while either, lol, it's a very difficult read for me to stick with somehow? I just can't read a lot of it a time. I hope your next try goes well (however it pans out) and you have fun! :D

[white_aster]

I am...on my third watch-through of Fallout. ^_^;; I like it so much, and it's so packed with both background and detail that I keep finding new things each time I watch it.

On the other hand...I've had to DNF Children of Time. I did give it another go, and maybe if I'd had more time on my loan I would have pressed on, but it just...it's not a character-driven book, and I really need that to pull me through that long of a book. I can see where the author's going, the setting and grand plan kind of worldbuilding going on, but I got in about 17% and still hadn't seen anyone I liked or could really connect with, and given how long it is and given that many people said they ended up not liking the human characters, I just gave up.

[quillpunk]

I'm glad you're enjoying it! Sadly there's a bit too much gore for me to be able to watch it with full attention, but as a person who's never played any Fallout games, it still seems super interesting :D

I'm about... 50% through Children of Time. All the characters I get like, even a little bit attached to end up dying :( The human characters I've liked so far are the mutineers, and they... didn't have the best end.

Like, the science is really cool and I enjoy the progression of the spiders society (although are the males *always* going to be treated that way???) but the human main characters aren't very relatable to me; they're written in a way that I just don't really connect with, and even though I see the Captain's side in wanting to seed multiple planets (more eggs in more baskets) I don't understand the persistent obsession with Karn's (I don't actually remember anybody's name, I'm just guessing wildly lol) world. Like, it's demonstrably a horrible idea? On every level? Just leave it alone?

Like if anything, the existence of that planet means that there might be a A Whole Lot More planets out there habitable by humans, and personally I'm like... there's more fish in the sea, and the sea is beautiful, let's go on an adventure! But the dude in charge is just obsessed with this one planet, and so that's what they're gonna do, I guess :(

I still wanna try finishing it, but it is going to Take A While™ because I'm just not able to sink into the writing like I can with other stuff.

[white_aster]

Heh, yeah, the gore just does not let up, so I can see that. It's also a story that I've described to others as "they're trying to shock everyone who watches...no one'll be shocked all the time, but they're definitely trying to include things that will likely make any watcher flinch at least once." :P There's some stuff later on that is like, "wow, yeah, I was not expecting that in a TV show!"

Yeah, I'm getting a lot of the same feels from CoT, and without anything to pull me in, I feel like I'm just going to get more bored as I go along. So...off to something else. (Because Fallout, I switched to Brian Clegg's Armageddon Science. :P)

[quillpunk]

Oooh, Armageddon Science seems interesting :D