[media] Wednesday Reading
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I can't believe how few Wednesdays we have left in 2015. It's been a pretty terrible year for me and mine, but at least it is almost over. (Not that there's any guarantee 2016 will be better. We all had hope 2015 would be better than 2014, and that was very much not the case. And 2014 better than 2013, 2013 than 2012 -- 2012 really started the spiral of terrible things.)
But 2015 has been filled with excellent reading, so there's that.
What I've Read
DAUGHTERS UNTO DEVILS by Amy Lukavics: Oh, this was wonderful. I ended up reading it in one sitting, late into the night, and the creepiness of it was a joy. It's rare that any horror stories make me tense, make my skin crawl, but this definitely had its moments. Funny enough, I didn't read about the comparison most people make until after I'd finished the book. If I'd known that sooner, I would have read it the second it came out. People often describe it as Little House on the Prairie meets horror, and that's a pretty good combination for me. I definitely got Little House vibes off of it while reading (though it lacks the charming attention to detail and descriptions of food that are part of the foundation of my love of Little House, despite some of the terrible things it has to say about Native Americans), and the horror was a nice addition. My biggest complaint is that I want more; the story is rushed by the ending, and I thought Lukavics could have delved deeper into the horror and the resolution. Can't wait to read her next book, though.
THUNDERHEAD by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child: This was a reread for me. I love the Agent Pendergast series that starts with RELIC (which is, amazingly, both a book and a movie that I love, even though the stories are very different). While THUNDERHEAD doesn't include Pendergast himself, it does fall into the timeline of the series and has at least one character who appeared in earlier books. I'm always leery about reading a book by white guys that focuses a lot on Native Americans, especially as the villains, but this is fairly nuanced for its time, and has some great creepy moments that have little to do with any human threat and everything to do with being a small group of people alone in an inhospitable wilderness. Nora Kelly is a joy and a delight forever, too, as she leads a tiny archaeological crew deep into the USA southwest in search of a long lost Anasazi city.
THE HAPPINESS PROJECT by Gretchen Rubin: Finished this book for the second time just in 2015. As I said before, I generally like Rubin's writing, but there are so many times I end up rolling my eyes because her perspective is -- well, she's a rich straight white woman, so. There are many things she says in her writing which she doesn't mean as harm, but they come across as harmful. I find the rest of her writing soothing (as well as her podcast with her sister, which makes me want to do more creative projects with my sisters), and I hope to make myself happier in 2016, even if everything goes wrong like it has the past few years.
What I'm Reading
LISEY’S STORY by Stephen King: Still working my way through this one, though this past week didn't involve a lot of reading time. (The holidays are coming, plus I have a couple short writing projects I'm trying to get done before the end of the year.)
HAPPIER AT HOME by Gretchen Rubin: As a part of my Rubin reread this year, I'm about halfway through HAPPIER AT HOME now. I still prefer THE HAPPINESS PROJECT, but it is interesting to see what has changed (and what hasn't) between the two.
What I'll Read Next
No idea. I hit my reading target for 2015 (100 books finished), and I've been reorganizing my books, which always makes me want to reread things I love. I may let myself stick with rereading for the rest of the year, and then start my 2016 target. (Which will be 100 books, with a goal that at least 50 of them will be books from my To Be Read bookcases. Yes, plural bookcases. According to LibraryThing, where I track it, I have almost 700 books marked To Read. That's a terrible number.) (My other goal is to get a library card and make better use of it. The local library here is small, but that doesn't mean I can't have a lot of fun with it.)
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth.org with
comments. Read the original post there. Comment here or there using OpenID.
I can't believe how few Wednesdays we have left in 2015. It's been a pretty terrible year for me and mine, but at least it is almost over. (Not that there's any guarantee 2016 will be better. We all had hope 2015 would be better than 2014, and that was very much not the case. And 2014 better than 2013, 2013 than 2012 -- 2012 really started the spiral of terrible things.)
But 2015 has been filled with excellent reading, so there's that.
What I've Read
DAUGHTERS UNTO DEVILS by Amy Lukavics: Oh, this was wonderful. I ended up reading it in one sitting, late into the night, and the creepiness of it was a joy. It's rare that any horror stories make me tense, make my skin crawl, but this definitely had its moments. Funny enough, I didn't read about the comparison most people make until after I'd finished the book. If I'd known that sooner, I would have read it the second it came out. People often describe it as Little House on the Prairie meets horror, and that's a pretty good combination for me. I definitely got Little House vibes off of it while reading (though it lacks the charming attention to detail and descriptions of food that are part of the foundation of my love of Little House, despite some of the terrible things it has to say about Native Americans), and the horror was a nice addition. My biggest complaint is that I want more; the story is rushed by the ending, and I thought Lukavics could have delved deeper into the horror and the resolution. Can't wait to read her next book, though.
THUNDERHEAD by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child: This was a reread for me. I love the Agent Pendergast series that starts with RELIC (which is, amazingly, both a book and a movie that I love, even though the stories are very different). While THUNDERHEAD doesn't include Pendergast himself, it does fall into the timeline of the series and has at least one character who appeared in earlier books. I'm always leery about reading a book by white guys that focuses a lot on Native Americans, especially as the villains, but this is fairly nuanced for its time, and has some great creepy moments that have little to do with any human threat and everything to do with being a small group of people alone in an inhospitable wilderness. Nora Kelly is a joy and a delight forever, too, as she leads a tiny archaeological crew deep into the USA southwest in search of a long lost Anasazi city.
THE HAPPINESS PROJECT by Gretchen Rubin: Finished this book for the second time just in 2015. As I said before, I generally like Rubin's writing, but there are so many times I end up rolling my eyes because her perspective is -- well, she's a rich straight white woman, so. There are many things she says in her writing which she doesn't mean as harm, but they come across as harmful. I find the rest of her writing soothing (as well as her podcast with her sister, which makes me want to do more creative projects with my sisters), and I hope to make myself happier in 2016, even if everything goes wrong like it has the past few years.
What I'm Reading
LISEY’S STORY by Stephen King: Still working my way through this one, though this past week didn't involve a lot of reading time. (The holidays are coming, plus I have a couple short writing projects I'm trying to get done before the end of the year.)
HAPPIER AT HOME by Gretchen Rubin: As a part of my Rubin reread this year, I'm about halfway through HAPPIER AT HOME now. I still prefer THE HAPPINESS PROJECT, but it is interesting to see what has changed (and what hasn't) between the two.
What I'll Read Next
No idea. I hit my reading target for 2015 (100 books finished), and I've been reorganizing my books, which always makes me want to reread things I love. I may let myself stick with rereading for the rest of the year, and then start my 2016 target. (Which will be 100 books, with a goal that at least 50 of them will be books from my To Be Read bookcases. Yes, plural bookcases. According to LibraryThing, where I track it, I have almost 700 books marked To Read. That's a terrible number.) (My other goal is to get a library card and make better use of it. The local library here is small, but that doesn't mean I can't have a lot of fun with it.)
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth.org with
comments. Read the original post there. Comment here or there using OpenID.