Recent reading

[luzula]

Uprooted by Naomi Novik
For my fannish book club; it was the first book that all four members of the book club loved. I found it immensely readable, and the descriptions of magic were very enjoyable, both of which I expected, since I was halfway spoiled for the book beforehand. On the issues which divide people: I thought the romance was okay, though I'm generally not a fan of teacher/student romances or M/F romances where the man is older/more powerful. Like, I could've done with or without it, but in any case it's not the heart of the book, only a small subplot. And I did like how they're definitely not joined at the hip at the end. Agnieszka coming into her power is very compelling reading, and that's what I was in it for at the beginning. Then the plot accelerates, and I felt like the book just kept throwing high-body-count plot at me, possibly too much, though it was very page-turney. I liked Agnieszka and Kasia's friendship, but the heart of the book for me was the end, which made me go YESSSSS, entirely predictably, given how I love stories about the relationship between humans and nature.

The Tropic of Serpents by Marie Brennan (#2 in the Memoirs of Lady Trent)
Oh, how delightful! I enjoyed the first book in this series, and the second one even more so. I loved Isabella's adventures and her commitment to the study of dragons and natural history, and the connections she makes to people along the way. I wonder why the alternate world, though? Like, why is it a lightly-disguised 19th century world, instead of the actual 19th century world (with added dragons)?

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

For McCaffrey I'm thinking of the books about Menolly -- the girl-coming-of-age-in-a-man's-world genre. For Bradley, some of her sword-and-sorcery stuff (I didn't actually read Darkover). But yeah, this combo doesn't make enough of a set for the strength of my impression that this was a sub-genre, so I must be forgetting other books. :)

It's the particular brand of coming-of-age, and the particular brand of girl-who-doesn't-fit-in-with-cultural-expectations (doesn't like housework/is clumsy/not conventionally pretty/tomboy/impatient with fussy clothing/plainspoken and not always polite/sensible/has temper/or is insecure about not fitting in... Not all heroines have *all* those traits, but pick some from the bucket.).

Hm, I'm now remembering a random post I saw recently somewhere, about looking back on the books of a certain era and find them Mary Sue-ish, and realizing "at the time I really needed that kind of empowerment story, and now I need something different." I'm probably horribly mangling what the poster actually said. :) But I do feel like there was a big theme in the fantasy novels of that era of feisty-misfit-heroine-who-turns-out-to-be-super-competant/woman-in-a-man's-world.

[luzula]

Ah, okay. Yeah, I guess I see what you mean, although the woman-in-a-man's-world turns out to be less of a thing later on--there are other women wizards, and Agnieszka's magic being different is more of a class thing than a gender thing, IMO. Also the book does have important themes other than a girl (with some of your listed attributes) coming of age and growing into her powerful magic. But yeah, those themes are definitely there, and if that's not what you're into right now, then it is maybe not for you.

[desireearmfeldt]

That's what's odd: I wouldn't have thought I was particularly *not* into those themes at the moment... Well, perhaps I'll get around to actually reading the book one of these days, and I'll see. :)