Reading roundup (ARRR)
This is actually a Reading Roundup post, but since today is Talk Like a Pirate Day, certain duties must be discharged:
Ahoy, mateys, arrr, avast, etc.
I'd never encountered this before, so thanks to gehayi for linking it: Talk Like a Pirate Day Song by Tom Smith.
I actually found it not only clever (the rhymes!) and funny (giggled out loud a few times) but occasionally kind of poignant even, which I totally didn't expect. Favorite line:
I'm keepin' my eyes on the distant horizon,
Verizon can hold all my calls!
And the non-lyrics patter is a lot of fun, too. (Lyrics here)
*
49. R.A.Nelson, Teach Me -- So, I may have mentioned before that one of my guilty pleasures is reading YA books. Not just genre YA books, which are basically part of the same continuum as regular genre books, but, like, afterschool special type of YA books. My particular area of interest is apparently student/teacher affairs, thanks, probably, to all the crushes I had on my teachers/professors (that never went anywhere, I hasten to add). So, this is a student/teacher affair book. Spoilers
It was... weird. Like, it kind of bugged me, actually, because parts of it were quite good, I thought, perceptive and interesting, but the way in which the plot unfolded on the student's side was just so sensationalized and crazy and I kind of think it would've been a better, more interesting book if Nine had not gone off the deep end.
I just kind of had a hard time believing that Nine, who was pretty believable as a budding scientist and quintessential good student, careful observer of human nature, rational enough to wait until she was 18 to sleep with the guy, who says "I'm methodical in my love" (which is kind of a great phrase, because I know what she means), would react to even the admittedly very fucked up situation where she was having an affair with her English teacher and him subsequently cutting ties with her abruptly and marrying another woman apparently out of the blue by abandoning all her college plans, crashing his wedding in disguise, breaking and entering and trashing his apartment, stealing his luggage from the airport, stalking his wife, stealing a gun, and ultimately staging a shooting with a fake gun in a crowded theater. I mean, really? The progression once the teacher jilted her took her from a character that one could identify with to, basically, a freakshow, and that annoyed me. Another, probably related, quibble I had was some of Nine's diction, especially in the sections after the break, and especially her banter with Schuyler, which didn't feel very realistic to me.
Some things I liked about the book: The description of Nine's father, who is a NASA engineer: "He approaches life the way he pores over an electrical schematic. Missing the wiring necessary to intuit, he has methodically, patiently learned to observe." -- and that he ends up being the more perceptive, helpful parent. Another thing I liked is that Carolina is religious and feels no discrepancy between that and being a scientist, an astronomer -- because it seems like many books/etc. just assume the two are mutually exclusive.
I actually rather liked how the book handled Mr Mann, the teacher. He is not a villain out to take advantage of a young girl, but somebody with a dysfunctional childhood and a sucky life and poor judgement and not much willpower. I thought he was pretty nuanced, and I could see why Carolina would be attracted to him, and his actions were believable throughout -- he sort of vaguely tries to do the right thing, but not very hard, and he is pathetic more than despicable, sympathetic even, because he knows how pathetic he is, but his behaviour or not excused. I also liked that in the end he helped rescue Schuyler and took the blame for the accident, though the circumstances were rather contrived. I also liked the fact that Carolina and Mann had this whole jokey Yankey vs South thing going, with Nine defending the South as no more backwards and uneducated ("Y'all godless Yankees think wwe're all barefoot racist rednecks"). In general I really liked the beginning of their relationship, before she started going crazy, and I liked the resolution OK, too, everything from the hospital waiting room onwards.
Another thing I found interesting, though I'm not sure the book dealt with it adequately at all, are the scenes in Nine's room and later in the car where she... well, let's say that if the genders were reversed, it would be pretty clearly sexual assault. That is, it's still sexual assault, because I don't think the genders matter, and the "he's only saying no because he's really into her and wants it to mean something" sort of explanation is, you know, sub-optimal. I don't think Carolina's behaviour there is excused any more than her B&E and pseudo-shooting is, but I do think it's skeevier than the book acknowledges, even though she's the girl and Schuyler's the guy.
Also, this book actually did make me like a couple of the Emily Dickinson poems it uses throughout, which have never been my cup of tea before. So that's good, I guess.
50. Scott Westerfeld, Behemoth -- still liking this series, though I think Leviathan was the better, more interesting book. So much happened there that Behemoth feels kind of slow by comparison. SPOILERS! The first book had all the cool worldbuilding -- here we get the perspicacious loris, who is cute but not as cool as hydrogen-breathing whales or flechette bats (and, honestly a bit of a letdown after all that mystery with the eggs, even if it does turn out to have the capacity to reason), and animal- and spirit-shaped walkers, which, again, not nearly as cool. Oh, but the rebreather was cool! "the feeling was uncanny and a bit horrid. The tendrils of the beastie crept into her mouth, seeking a source of carbon dioxide. A fishy taste covered her tongue, and the air she breathed turned warm and salty, like in the Leviathan's galley when the cooks were frying up anchovies." -- now that's the worldbuilding I want from this thing! :D Another worldbuilding detail I liked, a very minor one, is that the metric vs English system and having to convert in one's head are actually mentioned. This makes me happier than is probably normal.
I'm still liking Deryn a lot. I was concerned that her feelings for Alec would take over the plot and their dynamic, but they don't. Even the one, rather contrived, scene where she thinks Alec is in love with her and it turns out he's in love with the ship was OK, and she continued to be kickass throughout. The scene where she is awarded the medal for resuing Newkirk is poignant, and her disastrous command and her being on her own afterwards, and earlier fighting off the attack on the walker in Istanbul are really great, too. And she gets some great lines:
"You're looking for a way to escape, aren't you?"
Alek felt his jaw clench. "Am I that obvious?"
"No. I'm just dead clever. [...] Have you not noticed?"
Alek took a moment to think about this, then smiled. "I have."
Alek -- I've always been less interested in Alec, but I do enjoy his entourage. Volger figuring out Deryn, Volger blithely assuming Alek would strangle the creature that hatched, Volger staying behind so that Alek can escape ("Good-bye, Alek. Make your father proud." But my father is dead... and you're not." <-- kind of awww!) -- I just really like Volger, OK, and I found his dynamic with Deryn to be pretty great. I thought the whole revolutionary subplot was a bit too clearly populated to make Alek less dismissive of women -- that was slathered on a bit thick ("There certainly are a lot of females in this revolution"). That said, I did like Nene, though Lilit I mostly found annoying. I did snicker at her crush on "Dylan", and the kiss after she had apparently figured out why the loris kept saying Mr Sharp.
I keep wondering why I don't ship Deryn and Alek more than I do. Which, I find it cute, but actually prefer it as a friendship. It's possible that they just seem too young, but, I dunno... I have a feeling that I might actually ship them more of Deryn *was* Dylan, which is odd, since girl-dressed-as-boy falling in love with a comrade is kind of a kink of mine. I guess maybe Alek's just not the sort of leading man that works for me in that kind of context...
Now Alek's answer about Lilit has thrown another wrench into it, that he would never be able to marry a commoner -- except unless the letter is not valid anymore with the Pope's death, or things are really going to change.
Also, quotes like "Don't try to be clever, young man. [...] It's elephants all the way down" and other variations on the turtle theme will apparently never get old for me. (In this case, Nene says this.)
So, enjoyed this book. Still really liking the series. Can't wait to read Goliath, which just came out and is the conclusion of the trilogy. And I'm actually wondering if the rodents are old enough to enjoy it properly, because I think they would like it if the world-building and history are not too slow to turn them off.
51. Holly Black, Red Glove -- I found the first book of the Curse Workers series kind of slow going at first, and I think now it was mostly because Cassel was on his own at first, and I find loner heroes far less interesting than ensemble casts, especially if they have angst. This sequel starts off with an ensemble cast, and gets going right away, and I enjoyed it even more for that reason. Spoilers
Cassel is OK. I like him as a protagonist mostly because he is sympathetic, just enough of a smart-ass to make things interesting, and for the dynamic he has with characters who intrigue me more, like... well, most of them. Zacharov and Lila and Sam and Daneca and his grandfather, for example. Who were all in this book, I was happy to see, at least for a little bit. Oh, I did love the detail that Cassel's favorite class is Probability & Statistics -- don't see that very often, and it makes perfect sense for him, as a bookie. XP
Sam continues the wonderful tradition of sidekicks named Sam who are a bit on the heavy side but loyal and awesome. I love this conversation between him and Cassel:
"I never asked you what kind of worker you are," Sam says, fliging the words at me like a challenge.
"Yeah," I say carefully. "And I really appreciate that."
"If I did..." Sam pauses. "If I did, would you tell me?"
"I hope so," I say.
[later]
"What kind of worker are you?" Sam's looking over at me with the benevolent curiosity of the drunk.
I bite off what I was going to say, hesitate. The moment drags on, suspended in amber.
"You don't have to tell me," he says. "It doesn't matter."
I know what he thinks my answer is going to be. He figures I'm a death worker. [...] If I say I'm a death worker, he'll swallow it. He'll think I'm a good freind. He'll think I'm honest. [...]
I want to be that friend. "Transformation," I say. It comes out like a croak.
He sits up fast, staring at me. All traces of humor are gone. "What?"
"See? I'm getting better at being truthful," I say, trying to lighten the mood. My stomach hurts. Honesty freaks me right the hell out.
"Are you crazy?" he asks me. "You shouldn't have told me that! You shouldn't tell anyone! Wait, you're really--?"
I just nod.
It takes him a long moment before he can come up with anything else.
"Wow," he says finally, awe in his voice. "You coul create the best special effects in the world."
Daneca -- in this book, especially, I felt like Daneca was sort of an answer to Hermione, although of course it's possible for a girl to be smart and a social activist and *not* be written in response to Hermione. But I thought it was neat that Cassel and Sam both clearly admire her convictions and support her even though they'd rather goof off and watch monster movies, and that she is willing to have a bit of fun, too. The revelation that she is a worker but that, apparently, the only person she's ever worked is herself, was very interesting, and the understandable resulting rift between her and Sam is, too. One of my favorite things about the book, actually, was how Cassel dealt with that rift:
Sam isn't smiling. "You're going to treat [Daneca] the same way you treated Audrey, aren't you? Barely noticing if you hurt her. I always knew Daneca liked you. Girls like you, Cassel. And you ignore them. And then they like you more."
"Hey," I say. "Wait a minute. She skipped class because she was miserable over you. We talked about you."
"What did she say?" I can't tell if he believes me, but at least I've distracted his focus.
I sigh. "That you are a bigot who doesn't want to date a worker girl."
"I'm not!" Sam says. "That's not even why I'm mad at her."
"I told her that." I chuck a pillow at him. "Just before we leaped into each other's arms and made out passionately like weasels on Valentine's Day, like those really magnetic magnets, like greased-up eels--"
"Why am I your friend?" Sam moans, flopping back onto the bed. "Why?"
I really like Zacharov. For all that he's only been in a couple of scenes, I have to admit he is one of my favorite characters. From lines like "I am a busy man and I do not oversee murders. I also do not take pointless risks." to expensive presents, to getting more backstory on him, this was a good book for that. And I would really love to see more backstory on Zacharov and Desi, Cassel's grandfather. (I suspect I wouldn't say no to fic, either.)
And Lila... well, I kind of missed the kick-ass Lila of book 1 in this one, honestly. Lila is still pretty awesome, but her being under the curse, or at least having to suspect she was still under the curse, made it more difficult for me to enjoy her sections and her interaction with Cassel. Him getting Daneca to work Lila to counteract the curse was the one thing in the book I really had trouble suspending disbelief for. Where the book leaves off Lila and Cassel -- on different side of the law and her apparently over the curse and hating him -- felt like the plot-required place for their relationship to go, but emotionally it felt kind of forced.
The mystery of Philip's murder, Cassel's mother's big con withe the Prop 2 senator, the whole thing with the FBI and Barron trying to go over to the other crime family were all neat bits, as were the smaller but no less important dramas playing out at the school -- there was a LOT happening in this book, but the pacing felt natural.
I also enjoyed the added bits of worldbuilding. A lot of the heavy lifting was done in the first book, which made it go kind of slow, but in this one, with the broad foundation established, there are all the neat little details, like Cassel trying hard not to stare at bare female hands, government officials who are anti-worker often turning out to be workers themselves, posters promoting gloves ("No glove no love", only literally). And I like the random little details of real life that have nothing to do with the magic, like Sam's sister in Bryn Mawr "driving my parents crazy because she has a girlfriend covered in tattoos".
Quotes:
Re: Philip's funeral: "Mom's putting on a show, but that doesn't mean she's not actually sad. It's just that she isn't letting her grief get in the way of her performance."
FBI guys: "You're a worker. You know what that means? [...] It means you've already done something illegal. All workers have. Otherwise, how would you know what you are?" (This is a pretty chilling line.)
Cassel and Lila on a date:
"Oh come on," I say, laughing. "You've been gone for three years; you're not a time traveler. you know what a date is."
"No, I'm serious," she says. "It's just all very proper. Like maybe we're going to go parking later or you're going to give me your pin."
"How as it at your old school? Stright-up Roman orgies?"
[...]
"There were a lot of parties. People just hooked up sometimes. No one was exclusive." [...] "But worry not. I am amused by your quaint customs."
"I always feel awkward in Daneca's house. I can't help casing the joint."
Note to self: book #3, Black Heart, is supposed to be out in April 2012.
52. Kim Harrison, Something Deadly This Way Comes -- so, I didn't realize, when I checked it out, that this was book 3 (or something) of the series. I suspect that didn't help my reading experience, but this was kind of a blah book for me. Which I'm a bit surprised by, because I started the Hollows/Rachel Morgan books with, like, book 6, and I still found myself quite engrossed in it. There, I found the world-building pretty interesting, and the characters. In this series, not so much. Maybe she is sort of muting her writing for teens? On the character front, Barnabas the former light reaper is the only one I found the least bit interesting (certainly not Madison herself, or her love interest, Josh). And the world-building felt overly complicated and tedious. So, OK, I don't care about angels or souls or reapers, but I don't care about vampires or weres or demons either, and I still enjoyed the Rachel Morgan books. I may pick up the first book if I come across it, just to see if starting at the beginning would make it any more palatable to me, but as for now, a disappointment.
**
I'm not going to count these as a book (or three, or four, or whatever it is now), because I read it all online, but I also ended up reading all of Gunnerkrigg Court thanks to if0x's rec (as we say in the Old Country, s ego legkoj ruki, which is how I ended up getting into the Sookie Stackhouse books too, for the record). I didn't think it would be my thing, because, steam-punky, at least on the Court side, and I'm actually not a fan of mixing technology and magic, but it started off charming and then I ended up really liking it on a deeper level, too. Spoilers!
I really like Kat, which I bet is not much of a surprise to anyone. I like that she is kind of a genius with technology but also a really good friend, that she stands up for Annie (to the point of hitting a magical creature on her behalf), and that she is a good friend to people who aren't Annie, too, like Paz. I love the fact that she can be kind of a dork, cheerfully, and that she has emotions of her own, and has a crush on Mr Eglamore and a relationship and a general interest in hot guys, and seems really well-adjusted and has a good relationship with her parents, and that the robots think she is an angel. I have to say I seem to like Kat more in the chapters where she and Annie are working together or otherwise interacting, and less in the chapters "dedicated" to Kat herself, but that's because I find her and Annie's relationship more interesting than the other stuff.
I'm intrigued by the mystery of the older generation, the whole love... quadrangle? between Annie's mother and her father, Mr Eglamore, and Renard. And whoever Jones is and however she factors into it all. The mystery of the distant past, the court's founders and Jeanne the ghost and Diego's robots and all of the magical stuff going on, Zimmy and Gamma and Coyote et al are cool as background information, but I'm a lot less invested in them, I find, than Annie and Kat and Annie's parents' generation (+Jones).
Also, antimony (Sb) is just above bismuth (Bi) in the periodic table (and vertical arrangement --> similar properties of elements). I'm just... making an observation, what with the seed bismuth thing. Antimony is kind of a kick-ass name, btw. Also, something like "Surma" (with a soft sign after the R) is the Russian word for antimony, which I suspected but had to consult Wikipedia to check.
**
P.S. I'm attempting to actually bring my tags for the reading roundups into some semblance of order. My lofty goal is to go back and retag stuff properly, which I can't guarrantee will actually happen, but I think I can at least tag stuff properly going forward. (Up till now, even I haven't been always able to find stuff under my highly esoteric system. Or, as it were, "system".) ETA: retagging my reading roundups thing turned out to be not as much work as I'd expected, and I'm basically done. I might be missing some write-ups that slipped through, and 2004 in particular is more incidental than organized in terms of what I even wrote down, but I think I'm done tagging.
Ahoy, mateys, arrr, avast, etc.
I'd never encountered this before, so thanks to gehayi for linking it: Talk Like a Pirate Day Song by Tom Smith.
Click to viewI actually found it not only clever (the rhymes!) and funny (giggled out loud a few times) but occasionally kind of poignant even, which I totally didn't expect. Favorite line:
I'm keepin' my eyes on the distant horizon,
Verizon can hold all my calls!
And the non-lyrics patter is a lot of fun, too. (Lyrics here)
*
49. R.A.Nelson, Teach Me -- So, I may have mentioned before that one of my guilty pleasures is reading YA books. Not just genre YA books, which are basically part of the same continuum as regular genre books, but, like, afterschool special type of YA books. My particular area of interest is apparently student/teacher affairs, thanks, probably, to all the crushes I had on my teachers/professors (that never went anywhere, I hasten to add). So, this is a student/teacher affair book. Spoilers
It was... weird. Like, it kind of bugged me, actually, because parts of it were quite good, I thought, perceptive and interesting, but the way in which the plot unfolded on the student's side was just so sensationalized and crazy and I kind of think it would've been a better, more interesting book if Nine had not gone off the deep end.
I just kind of had a hard time believing that Nine, who was pretty believable as a budding scientist and quintessential good student, careful observer of human nature, rational enough to wait until she was 18 to sleep with the guy, who says "I'm methodical in my love" (which is kind of a great phrase, because I know what she means), would react to even the admittedly very fucked up situation where she was having an affair with her English teacher and him subsequently cutting ties with her abruptly and marrying another woman apparently out of the blue by abandoning all her college plans, crashing his wedding in disguise, breaking and entering and trashing his apartment, stealing his luggage from the airport, stalking his wife, stealing a gun, and ultimately staging a shooting with a fake gun in a crowded theater. I mean, really? The progression once the teacher jilted her took her from a character that one could identify with to, basically, a freakshow, and that annoyed me. Another, probably related, quibble I had was some of Nine's diction, especially in the sections after the break, and especially her banter with Schuyler, which didn't feel very realistic to me.
Some things I liked about the book: The description of Nine's father, who is a NASA engineer: "He approaches life the way he pores over an electrical schematic. Missing the wiring necessary to intuit, he has methodically, patiently learned to observe." -- and that he ends up being the more perceptive, helpful parent. Another thing I liked is that Carolina is religious and feels no discrepancy between that and being a scientist, an astronomer -- because it seems like many books/etc. just assume the two are mutually exclusive.
I actually rather liked how the book handled Mr Mann, the teacher. He is not a villain out to take advantage of a young girl, but somebody with a dysfunctional childhood and a sucky life and poor judgement and not much willpower. I thought he was pretty nuanced, and I could see why Carolina would be attracted to him, and his actions were believable throughout -- he sort of vaguely tries to do the right thing, but not very hard, and he is pathetic more than despicable, sympathetic even, because he knows how pathetic he is, but his behaviour or not excused. I also liked that in the end he helped rescue Schuyler and took the blame for the accident, though the circumstances were rather contrived. I also liked the fact that Carolina and Mann had this whole jokey Yankey vs South thing going, with Nine defending the South as no more backwards and uneducated ("Y'all godless Yankees think wwe're all barefoot racist rednecks"). In general I really liked the beginning of their relationship, before she started going crazy, and I liked the resolution OK, too, everything from the hospital waiting room onwards.
Another thing I found interesting, though I'm not sure the book dealt with it adequately at all, are the scenes in Nine's room and later in the car where she... well, let's say that if the genders were reversed, it would be pretty clearly sexual assault. That is, it's still sexual assault, because I don't think the genders matter, and the "he's only saying no because he's really into her and wants it to mean something" sort of explanation is, you know, sub-optimal. I don't think Carolina's behaviour there is excused any more than her B&E and pseudo-shooting is, but I do think it's skeevier than the book acknowledges, even though she's the girl and Schuyler's the guy.
Also, this book actually did make me like a couple of the Emily Dickinson poems it uses throughout, which have never been my cup of tea before. So that's good, I guess.
50. Scott Westerfeld, Behemoth -- still liking this series, though I think Leviathan was the better, more interesting book. So much happened there that Behemoth feels kind of slow by comparison. SPOILERS! The first book had all the cool worldbuilding -- here we get the perspicacious loris, who is cute but not as cool as hydrogen-breathing whales or flechette bats (and, honestly a bit of a letdown after all that mystery with the eggs, even if it does turn out to have the capacity to reason), and animal- and spirit-shaped walkers, which, again, not nearly as cool. Oh, but the rebreather was cool! "the feeling was uncanny and a bit horrid. The tendrils of the beastie crept into her mouth, seeking a source of carbon dioxide. A fishy taste covered her tongue, and the air she breathed turned warm and salty, like in the Leviathan's galley when the cooks were frying up anchovies." -- now that's the worldbuilding I want from this thing! :D Another worldbuilding detail I liked, a very minor one, is that the metric vs English system and having to convert in one's head are actually mentioned. This makes me happier than is probably normal.
I'm still liking Deryn a lot. I was concerned that her feelings for Alec would take over the plot and their dynamic, but they don't. Even the one, rather contrived, scene where she thinks Alec is in love with her and it turns out he's in love with the ship was OK, and she continued to be kickass throughout. The scene where she is awarded the medal for resuing Newkirk is poignant, and her disastrous command and her being on her own afterwards, and earlier fighting off the attack on the walker in Istanbul are really great, too. And she gets some great lines:
"You're looking for a way to escape, aren't you?"
Alek felt his jaw clench. "Am I that obvious?"
"No. I'm just dead clever. [...] Have you not noticed?"
Alek took a moment to think about this, then smiled. "I have."
Alek -- I've always been less interested in Alec, but I do enjoy his entourage. Volger figuring out Deryn, Volger blithely assuming Alek would strangle the creature that hatched, Volger staying behind so that Alek can escape ("Good-bye, Alek. Make your father proud." But my father is dead... and you're not." <-- kind of awww!) -- I just really like Volger, OK, and I found his dynamic with Deryn to be pretty great. I thought the whole revolutionary subplot was a bit too clearly populated to make Alek less dismissive of women -- that was slathered on a bit thick ("There certainly are a lot of females in this revolution"). That said, I did like Nene, though Lilit I mostly found annoying. I did snicker at her crush on "Dylan", and the kiss after she had apparently figured out why the loris kept saying Mr Sharp.
I keep wondering why I don't ship Deryn and Alek more than I do. Which, I find it cute, but actually prefer it as a friendship. It's possible that they just seem too young, but, I dunno... I have a feeling that I might actually ship them more of Deryn *was* Dylan, which is odd, since girl-dressed-as-boy falling in love with a comrade is kind of a kink of mine. I guess maybe Alek's just not the sort of leading man that works for me in that kind of context...
Now Alek's answer about Lilit has thrown another wrench into it, that he would never be able to marry a commoner -- except unless the letter is not valid anymore with the Pope's death, or things are really going to change.
Also, quotes like "Don't try to be clever, young man. [...] It's elephants all the way down" and other variations on the turtle theme will apparently never get old for me. (In this case, Nene says this.)
So, enjoyed this book. Still really liking the series. Can't wait to read Goliath, which just came out and is the conclusion of the trilogy. And I'm actually wondering if the rodents are old enough to enjoy it properly, because I think they would like it if the world-building and history are not too slow to turn them off.
51. Holly Black, Red Glove -- I found the first book of the Curse Workers series kind of slow going at first, and I think now it was mostly because Cassel was on his own at first, and I find loner heroes far less interesting than ensemble casts, especially if they have angst. This sequel starts off with an ensemble cast, and gets going right away, and I enjoyed it even more for that reason. Spoilers
Cassel is OK. I like him as a protagonist mostly because he is sympathetic, just enough of a smart-ass to make things interesting, and for the dynamic he has with characters who intrigue me more, like... well, most of them. Zacharov and Lila and Sam and Daneca and his grandfather, for example. Who were all in this book, I was happy to see, at least for a little bit. Oh, I did love the detail that Cassel's favorite class is Probability & Statistics -- don't see that very often, and it makes perfect sense for him, as a bookie. XP
Sam continues the wonderful tradition of sidekicks named Sam who are a bit on the heavy side but loyal and awesome. I love this conversation between him and Cassel:
"I never asked you what kind of worker you are," Sam says, fliging the words at me like a challenge.
"Yeah," I say carefully. "And I really appreciate that."
"If I did..." Sam pauses. "If I did, would you tell me?"
"I hope so," I say.
[later]
"What kind of worker are you?" Sam's looking over at me with the benevolent curiosity of the drunk.
I bite off what I was going to say, hesitate. The moment drags on, suspended in amber.
"You don't have to tell me," he says. "It doesn't matter."
I know what he thinks my answer is going to be. He figures I'm a death worker. [...] If I say I'm a death worker, he'll swallow it. He'll think I'm a good freind. He'll think I'm honest. [...]
I want to be that friend. "Transformation," I say. It comes out like a croak.
He sits up fast, staring at me. All traces of humor are gone. "What?"
"See? I'm getting better at being truthful," I say, trying to lighten the mood. My stomach hurts. Honesty freaks me right the hell out.
"Are you crazy?" he asks me. "You shouldn't have told me that! You shouldn't tell anyone! Wait, you're really--?"
I just nod.
It takes him a long moment before he can come up with anything else.
"Wow," he says finally, awe in his voice. "You coul create the best special effects in the world."
Daneca -- in this book, especially, I felt like Daneca was sort of an answer to Hermione, although of course it's possible for a girl to be smart and a social activist and *not* be written in response to Hermione. But I thought it was neat that Cassel and Sam both clearly admire her convictions and support her even though they'd rather goof off and watch monster movies, and that she is willing to have a bit of fun, too. The revelation that she is a worker but that, apparently, the only person she's ever worked is herself, was very interesting, and the understandable resulting rift between her and Sam is, too. One of my favorite things about the book, actually, was how Cassel dealt with that rift:
Sam isn't smiling. "You're going to treat [Daneca] the same way you treated Audrey, aren't you? Barely noticing if you hurt her. I always knew Daneca liked you. Girls like you, Cassel. And you ignore them. And then they like you more."
"Hey," I say. "Wait a minute. She skipped class because she was miserable over you. We talked about you."
"What did she say?" I can't tell if he believes me, but at least I've distracted his focus.
I sigh. "That you are a bigot who doesn't want to date a worker girl."
"I'm not!" Sam says. "That's not even why I'm mad at her."
"I told her that." I chuck a pillow at him. "Just before we leaped into each other's arms and made out passionately like weasels on Valentine's Day, like those really magnetic magnets, like greased-up eels--"
"Why am I your friend?" Sam moans, flopping back onto the bed. "Why?"
I really like Zacharov. For all that he's only been in a couple of scenes, I have to admit he is one of my favorite characters. From lines like "I am a busy man and I do not oversee murders. I also do not take pointless risks." to expensive presents, to getting more backstory on him, this was a good book for that. And I would really love to see more backstory on Zacharov and Desi, Cassel's grandfather. (I suspect I wouldn't say no to fic, either.)
And Lila... well, I kind of missed the kick-ass Lila of book 1 in this one, honestly. Lila is still pretty awesome, but her being under the curse, or at least having to suspect she was still under the curse, made it more difficult for me to enjoy her sections and her interaction with Cassel. Him getting Daneca to work Lila to counteract the curse was the one thing in the book I really had trouble suspending disbelief for. Where the book leaves off Lila and Cassel -- on different side of the law and her apparently over the curse and hating him -- felt like the plot-required place for their relationship to go, but emotionally it felt kind of forced.
The mystery of Philip's murder, Cassel's mother's big con withe the Prop 2 senator, the whole thing with the FBI and Barron trying to go over to the other crime family were all neat bits, as were the smaller but no less important dramas playing out at the school -- there was a LOT happening in this book, but the pacing felt natural.
I also enjoyed the added bits of worldbuilding. A lot of the heavy lifting was done in the first book, which made it go kind of slow, but in this one, with the broad foundation established, there are all the neat little details, like Cassel trying hard not to stare at bare female hands, government officials who are anti-worker often turning out to be workers themselves, posters promoting gloves ("No glove no love", only literally). And I like the random little details of real life that have nothing to do with the magic, like Sam's sister in Bryn Mawr "driving my parents crazy because she has a girlfriend covered in tattoos".
Quotes:
Re: Philip's funeral: "Mom's putting on a show, but that doesn't mean she's not actually sad. It's just that she isn't letting her grief get in the way of her performance."
FBI guys: "You're a worker. You know what that means? [...] It means you've already done something illegal. All workers have. Otherwise, how would you know what you are?" (This is a pretty chilling line.)
Cassel and Lila on a date:
"Oh come on," I say, laughing. "You've been gone for three years; you're not a time traveler. you know what a date is."
"No, I'm serious," she says. "It's just all very proper. Like maybe we're going to go parking later or you're going to give me your pin."
"How as it at your old school? Stright-up Roman orgies?"
[...]
"There were a lot of parties. People just hooked up sometimes. No one was exclusive." [...] "But worry not. I am amused by your quaint customs."
"I always feel awkward in Daneca's house. I can't help casing the joint."
Note to self: book #3, Black Heart, is supposed to be out in April 2012.
52. Kim Harrison, Something Deadly This Way Comes -- so, I didn't realize, when I checked it out, that this was book 3 (or something) of the series. I suspect that didn't help my reading experience, but this was kind of a blah book for me. Which I'm a bit surprised by, because I started the Hollows/Rachel Morgan books with, like, book 6, and I still found myself quite engrossed in it. There, I found the world-building pretty interesting, and the characters. In this series, not so much. Maybe she is sort of muting her writing for teens? On the character front, Barnabas the former light reaper is the only one I found the least bit interesting (certainly not Madison herself, or her love interest, Josh). And the world-building felt overly complicated and tedious. So, OK, I don't care about angels or souls or reapers, but I don't care about vampires or weres or demons either, and I still enjoyed the Rachel Morgan books. I may pick up the first book if I come across it, just to see if starting at the beginning would make it any more palatable to me, but as for now, a disappointment.
**
I'm not going to count these as a book (or three, or four, or whatever it is now), because I read it all online, but I also ended up reading all of Gunnerkrigg Court thanks to if0x's rec (as we say in the Old Country, s ego legkoj ruki, which is how I ended up getting into the Sookie Stackhouse books too, for the record). I didn't think it would be my thing, because, steam-punky, at least on the Court side, and I'm actually not a fan of mixing technology and magic, but it started off charming and then I ended up really liking it on a deeper level, too. Spoilers!
I really like Kat, which I bet is not much of a surprise to anyone. I like that she is kind of a genius with technology but also a really good friend, that she stands up for Annie (to the point of hitting a magical creature on her behalf), and that she is a good friend to people who aren't Annie, too, like Paz. I love the fact that she can be kind of a dork, cheerfully, and that she has emotions of her own, and has a crush on Mr Eglamore and a relationship and a general interest in hot guys, and seems really well-adjusted and has a good relationship with her parents, and that the robots think she is an angel. I have to say I seem to like Kat more in the chapters where she and Annie are working together or otherwise interacting, and less in the chapters "dedicated" to Kat herself, but that's because I find her and Annie's relationship more interesting than the other stuff.
I'm intrigued by the mystery of the older generation, the whole love... quadrangle? between Annie's mother and her father, Mr Eglamore, and Renard. And whoever Jones is and however she factors into it all. The mystery of the distant past, the court's founders and Jeanne the ghost and Diego's robots and all of the magical stuff going on, Zimmy and Gamma and Coyote et al are cool as background information, but I'm a lot less invested in them, I find, than Annie and Kat and Annie's parents' generation (+Jones).
Also, antimony (Sb) is just above bismuth (Bi) in the periodic table (and vertical arrangement --> similar properties of elements). I'm just... making an observation, what with the seed bismuth thing. Antimony is kind of a kick-ass name, btw. Also, something like "Surma" (with a soft sign after the R) is the Russian word for antimony, which I suspected but had to consult Wikipedia to check.
**
P.S. I'm attempting to actually bring my tags for the reading roundups into some semblance of order. My lofty goal is to go back and retag stuff properly, which I can't guarrantee will actually happen, but I think I can at least tag stuff properly going forward. (Up till now, even I haven't been always able to find stuff under my highly esoteric system. Or, as it were, "system".) ETA: retagging my reading roundups thing turned out to be not as much work as I'd expected, and I'm basically done. I might be missing some write-ups that slipped through, and 2004 in particular is more incidental than organized in terms of what I even wrote down, but I think I'm done tagging.