meitachi | books read: 2020 sept-oct

I, uh, read a lot in September and October because the pandemic continues and I was looking for ways to escape from work and current events. Now let's see if I remember what I thought about them, or if my opinions changed with time.

Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge - I think this was my favorite of hers that I've read! The protagonist was just absolutely endearing, monstrous little girl she was and all, insisting she was the good girl while hating her little sister. But part of what I loved is that she does eventually develop a reliance on and better relationship with said sister. Just atmospheric and evocative descriptions I really enjoyed, plus wonderful female characters and relationships.

Chosen Spirits by Samit Basu - A modern India near-future fantasy with some biting social commentary about the way we consume social media and digitize the narratives of our lives. Very interesting and different from what I've read before, and while it was not particularly deep, I enjoyed it for being a change of pace. It's nice to have fantasy set in non-Western cultures that isn't all ~exotic or focused only on mythologizing the past. The MC's relationship with her ex was interesting, as was her relationship with her parents and younger brother; familiar beats but not quite stale archetypes. I liked the ending; quite feminist without feeling like the entire novel was a treatise.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo - A novella that I quite liked. Some reviews complained that they would've preferred a longer story and more fleshed out characters and conflicts, but I think the length worked for me because it's meant to be quite fairy tale-like. You don't get the details, you get the sketch of the important bits of a story worth telling -- and if you get an interesting character or two, you're lucky. (We have a nonbinary MC and a little f/f, I wouldn't rec it on that alone but I really enjoyed having non-traditional characters filling these roles.) I liked the way the story was told, but I will say I didn't understand the naming conventions at all -- some were clearly Asian (Chinese) words translated into English, some were left in Chinese, some seemed Korean? Anyway, I think there's a sequel but I'm not sure I need it.

Docile by K.M. Szpara - lol this book and its marketing took itself way too seriously. It is a classic iddy m/m slavefic except they tried to insert logic and structure into the worldbuilding, with real world consequences to breaking in slaves and the slow mental and emotional recovery after being freed. All that's done is removed the iddy hotness of power differentials and replaced it with with some kind of finger-wagging shaming of enjoying the premise. Yet the world-building continues to make zero sense if you think about it too hard. It was fine (quick read, nothing really boundary-pushing if you've read any NC-17 fandom stuff), but not particularly good because the premise is just inherently "problematic" and you can't really fix that except to make it not enjoyable. Am I rooting for the main couple by the end? Am I supposed to? God knows.

The Wallflower Wager by Tessa Dare - An absolutely charming regency romance where I think I genuinely loved the hero and heroine throughout the entire story! No one hid their quirks or secret pasts for dramatic misunderstandings; they just...figured out how to overcome their obstacles while still being cute and funny and attracted to each other, with a menagerie of animal characters who thankfully didn't take over the story. The cameos from the previous books in the series were appreciated but also didn't take over.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong - A birthday gift and had been on my to-read list for a while. I was iffy at the beginning, especially when it was still about his mother in Vietnam. Haven't I read so many of these stories already? But once we hit the protagonists' life in the U.S., his first love/romance, the very real and current racism and opioid crises... It was very moving, and I'm glad I read it. Beautiful prose, too.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk - Translated from Polish! In a way, a fairy tale but set in the modern day -- albeit in a tiny snowy village bordering Poland and the Czech Republic -- from the POV a very grumpy old woman and I...don't blame her. It was different from many things I've read and I don't know that I loved it, but I enjoyed reading about this town and people set in such a different place on earth from me. This is how you pandemic-travel.

Emerald Blaze by Ilona Andrews - I barely remember what happened in the book before this, but every book does a pretty good job recapping the necessary info. Love this family, these characters, and their ridiculousness. I continue to enjoy Alessandro a lot! I also think I enjoy Catalina more than Nevada but it could just be that she's given more relatable insecurities and anxieties. Action packed, imaginative, and always a fun escape.

Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie - A romance and relationship-focused murder mystery where we all know the prime suspect couldn't have done it (otherwise, why this book and premise), so the story is about proving who else did it. So many mysteriously arriving distant relatives...

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin - Apparently a children's classic that I missed growing up! Very dated in its descriptions of different races, but generally quite pro immigrant with a deliberately diverse cast of characters, all varying degrees of likeable. The mystery solution as well as the ending/future look are patently ridiculous, but it's a children's book and fit well enough. I still enjoyed it a lot!

Stranger Planet by Nathan Pyle - A sequel to "Strange Planet" and always charming and hilarious. I enjoy these aliens as much as they enjoy our inexplicable human customs.

Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh - Seven years after "Hyperbole and a Half", my goodness, and she certainly went through a staggering amount. I am glad she is in a better place now, and greatly enjoyed this book. Funny, bizarre, moving -- another reminder of the strange human condition and the people we share the world with.

The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne - A Gutenberg book! Didn't realize Milne had written mysteries, I always enjoy a country house murder. Especially when they involve secret passages, as they must. The differentiating factor here is the amateur Sherlock and his tagalong Watson are charming together and adorably slashy.

Glory (WIP) by Long Qi - A cnovel that is, I believe, finished in Chinese but the translations are...well, not quite halfway? Why did I start this? Ack. But it is a great gaming novel based off LoL and somehow I now know more about this game than I ever cared to, but the MC is hilarious and cluelessly naive about his feelings (and the ML's interest in him), but is just so fun to root for. The author does a great job on building an interesting cast of characters too, from their team to the teams they compete against. You get to know and care a little about them all!

Fangs by Sarah Andersen - A very sweet graphic novel/compilation of comics about a vampire dating a werewolf. Mm, bloody. Beautifully bound book!

My Underachieving Seatmate Doesn't Need Any Comforting by Long Qi - Another cnovel and I didn't notice until I finished that it's by the same author as "Glory". I guess I like her character dynamics! The MC in this one is frequently described as too young/short/pretty for my tastes, but the dynamic between him and his love interest were cute. They're so dumb, but they got a fair bit of story being together after the realization too, so that's nice! Plus a mystery/traumatic past with families to reveal as well. It got soap opera-y but not unbearably so.

Miss Manners' Guide to Domestic Tranquility by Judith Martin - Look, I really do just enjoy her sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes sincere advice on etiquette. And sometimes it's not about etiquette at all, and Miss Manners makes no bones about letting you know. As always, a lot of her advice is quite sensible, and there's plenty I don't agree with either, but always entertaining. She has a new book about the era of fake etiquette that I'll get from the library in due time.

Severance by Ling Ma - Published in 2012 and uncannily prescient about a pandemic sweeping the nation that originated in China! Yet it never felt too eerie to me as it felt like a combined story about capitalism and immigrants as much as it was about the (zombie) apocalypse. I think what I really got out of it was, damn, throw men in the trash. (That wasn't even her point!) Also in some ways a tribute to living in NYC in your 20s, which is nostalgic to a lot of people who either did it or dreamed of it. I've only ever grown up in tiny towns and suburbs 'til I hit Houston, so it's not a piece of nostalgia that particularly works for me.

The Mislaid Magician, or Ten Years Later by Caroline Stevermer and Patricia C. Wrede - Read on the Blisswood no-internet retreat, a delightful epistolary novel with magic and trains and magicians turning into dogs. And ley lines, so many ley lines. And a bevy of kids! But primarily about the lovely friendship between Kate and Cecilia.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith - Apparently a classic? Very charming narrative voice that actually felt like she was writing in a diary, especially with being interrupted while writing and coming back after many events to recount things from the beginning. What a strange castle. What a strange father, whom I never really forgave for his negligence and self-absorption, regardless of his so-called genius. I did very much like Cassandra, her sister, and her stepmother, though. And enjoyed Stephen and her brother... Not that into the romance but I'll tell myself it was a first love and she'll grow out of it. (I know that is the very thing she is passionately arguing against but, still, 17! Maybe in the future she will reconnect with Hollywood star!Stephen.)

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected on Water by Zen Cho - Another novella! I do prefer Zen Cho's shorter stories and this was very fun! I liked the band of thieves and the casual way non-gender-conforming characters and non-hetero relationship were interspersed throughout without anything being a lecture or a big deal. It seemed to fit the practicalities of the world these characters inhabited. I think the story structure is probably not as tightly constructed as Nghi Vo's novella, but I had fun nonetheless.

A Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh - A classic Golden Age mystery author, and this one happened to be available from the library. It was fine! The character I disliked at the beginning did end up dead and I didn't feel bad about it, but I'm not sure I was supposed to since the bulk of the story is figuring out the remaining characters' motives and opportunities for murder. Entertaining, but I think I prefer Agatha Christie for characters, setting, and prose.

Loving Sports When They Don't Love You Back by Jessica Luther and Kavitha A. Davidson - GOD, this book was made for me. I wish I had someone to talk about it with! I can somewhat with Kevin, but he's very much the white dude demographic who doesn't know what it's like to be an Asian, female fan (or an LGBT fan, or a fan of women's sports constantly denigrated, or more). And most of my other close friends don't care about sports at all, except J. I just have so much internal angst about how terrible sports are - CTE, fighting, racism, sexism, lack of representation on the field or in the media, billionaire owners, unpaid college athletes, public arenas paid by taxpayers in gentrifying areas, the socioeconomic damage of the Olympics, the way sports are always political. The book touches on a breadth of subjects and doesn't shy away from the fact that things are complicated and difficult and there's no one size fits all solution for those problems or for the fans wrestling with them. Unfortunately messy, is reality. I really loved this book. It helps to just feel seen.

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I will probably the sequel too, even if I don't think it's necessary because I'm interested in what it will tackle!

but alas, no family fortune to inherit -- ah, but there might be a surprise secret family inheritance out there! (Just would require a lot of people to die first, unfortunately, like those romances where some third son or distant cousin inherits a title due to many people in line before him dying.)

books read: 2020 sept-oct

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