Recent reading
Nov. 22nd, 2020 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaWitchmark by C L Polk (2018)
For book club. I enjoyed this in the sense that it was an easy read and I kept reading because I wanted to know what would happen next. But I found the romance very thin--there was never a sense of what each character fell for in the other. And Tristan is supposed to be from some analogue of Faery, but he never acted like he was anything other than human. But it was a good choice for book club, because we definitely had a lot to talk about, re: both the romance and the worldbuilding and plot! (Also, I guess I've read too much military history by now, but officers wearing scarlet uniforms and private soldiers grey ones in a WWI analogue? That's like the officers wearing big targets instructing the enemy to shoot them. Hopefully they were only dress uniforms.)
The Big House by Naomi Mitchison (1950)
Oh, this was lovely. It's a children's book set in post-WWII Scotland, with two children rescuing a Tam Lin-like figure from the fairies. In the course of this they also go back in time, and are confronted by the girl's early 19th century ancestors (the lairds) being terrible to the boy's (who are commoners, and have Rights of Man hidden under their mattress, because it's Mitchison, so of course they do). I was a bit boggled by the bit after they've rescued the Tam Lin figure, because I certainly would not take getting a surprise baby to bring up in my stride as the girl's household does here! But I guess it is a possible solution to having a character out of time like that--and certainly much better IMO than introducing an icky romance between the girl-Janet figure and the adult Tam Lin (side-eyes Fire and Hemlock). And then after this there's a whole subplot left, where they go even further back in time, and the boy ends up in a privileged social position instead, which he is tempted to stay in the past to keep. For a 170-page book, there's certainly a lot going on!
Also, I'd like to recommend a story from the recent femslash exchange: Flowers of the Ivy, byregshoe. I reread Lolly Willowes just in order to beta-read this story, and it's lovely. : )
For book club. I enjoyed this in the sense that it was an easy read and I kept reading because I wanted to know what would happen next. But I found the romance very thin--there was never a sense of what each character fell for in the other. And Tristan is supposed to be from some analogue of Faery, but he never acted like he was anything other than human. But it was a good choice for book club, because we definitely had a lot to talk about, re: both the romance and the worldbuilding and plot! (Also, I guess I've read too much military history by now, but officers wearing scarlet uniforms and private soldiers grey ones in a WWI analogue? That's like the officers wearing big targets instructing the enemy to shoot them. Hopefully they were only dress uniforms.)
The Big House by Naomi Mitchison (1950)
Oh, this was lovely. It's a children's book set in post-WWII Scotland, with two children rescuing a Tam Lin-like figure from the fairies. In the course of this they also go back in time, and are confronted by the girl's early 19th century ancestors (the lairds) being terrible to the boy's (who are commoners, and have Rights of Man hidden under their mattress, because it's Mitchison, so of course they do). I was a bit boggled by the bit after they've rescued the Tam Lin figure, because I certainly would not take getting a surprise baby to bring up in my stride as the girl's household does here! But I guess it is a possible solution to having a character out of time like that--and certainly much better IMO than introducing an icky romance between the girl-Janet figure and the adult Tam Lin (side-eyes Fire and Hemlock). And then after this there's a whole subplot left, where they go even further back in time, and the boy ends up in a privileged social position instead, which he is tempted to stay in the past to keep. For a 170-page book, there's certainly a lot going on!
Also, I'd like to recommend a story from the recent femslash exchange: Flowers of the Ivy, by
regshoe. I reread Lolly Willowes just in order to beta-read this story, and it's lovely. : )
(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-22 11:11 pm (UTC)I should read more Mitchison!
(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-23 10:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-23 05:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-22 11:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-24 09:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-23 06:37 am (UTC)Thank you for the rec :D
(no subject)
Date: 2020-11-24 03:10 pm (UTC)Thank you for the rec :D
Of course! It's a pretty niche fandom, but hopefully it could find a few more readers.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-25 08:05 pm (UTC)I liked Miles and Tristan fine.
But I just couldn't deal with the poor worldbuilding. It's a huge problem when I kept getting distracted by my own questions as to how XYZ worked in that 'verse or how would a largely disabled population be affected by the twist abr the aether.
My other large gripe was Grace. I really, REALLY couldn't roll with her motivations + handwringing for 95% of the story.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-26 02:42 pm (UTC)But, well. *dives into Yuletide instead* Hope you're finding some good reading too!
(no subject)
Date: 2020-12-27 03:06 pm (UTC)My 2020 reading has been all over the place (including a months-long slump). Thankfully, I've got metric tons of fics to enjoy, but that's also meant that I've neglected my TBRs. /o\