Weekly Reading Wednesday (except that it's Friday)
I'm going to try to start doing the weekly reading meme that's going around, and figured it was better to start on the wrong day than to begin an endless cycle of putting it off to the next week to start it on the right day.
What are you currently reading?
I'm reading Kelley Armstrong's Industrial Magic, which is part of her "Women of the Otherworld" series. I picked up Counterfeit Magic, which focuses on the same characters, at the library a while back, and am unfortunately going about it in the wrong order since I'm having to ILL some of them and they aren't exactly arriving in chronological order. I haven't read enough of it yet to have an opinion, but I'm liking it a lot so far.
I've also started reading a 5 volume wuxia romance manhua called Fantastic Tales by Li Huan. I've read the first volume, and so far Our Heroine has crashed a martial arts tournament, poisoned her Tall Dark And Humourless love interest via planting a kiss on him mid-duel, unpoisoned-him, attempted to assassinate the evil prime minister, been arrested, and escaped jail solo. Currently, she and Tall Dark And Humourless are standing on a rooftop, debating whether or not they should go back and rescue their companions. It's along the lines of "I don't really feel like it...they should be able to save themselves...maybe I should...?" (Said companions are intelligent enough to realize they shouldn't wait around for those two to decide how far on the dark side of the anti-hero scale they currently reside.) I expect to have a good deal of fun with this one.
What did you recently finish reading?
Beauty Under the Moon, a very short manhua (about 100 pages) by Misha about a struggling photography student who runs into (literally) a young man who performs women's roles in the Peking Opera, and they end up on the run from the goon of his evil senior, who is trying to get rid of him so he can win a competition. Lota of hijinks and running around and pretty opera costumes. Also, the Peking Opera apparently trains you to leap out a third story window while carrying another person, and somehow land on your feet. Nothing overly special, but fun.
I also just read Stolen the only full length novel of Kelley Armstrong's books that I've read, and the second in the series. I...am glad I read Counterfeit Magic first? Technically, I liked it, but I also found it triggering on every possible level, and couldn't help but think the main xcharacter, Elena, had a lot of internalized misogyny at times, and Armstrong is prone to describing her werewolf leads in superhumanly beautiful terms (a serious contrast to how people in the Paige-centric books seem to be deliberately "average-person-on-the-street attractive" and not superhot goods). I'm glad I rad all of it, but I'm not sure I would have if it weren't the book where Paige and Savannah are introduced.
I've also just caught up with all the volumes of Kami-sama Kiss that have been released in the US. The short version is "broke girl gets tricked into becoming the local land god, tangles in numerous ways with her waspish and uber-tsundere familiar, who used to be an evil fox yokai." There will be a long version later, but I like it a lot. I've also read a lot of Kimi ni Todoke and am watching the anime. I'm enjoying it, but still working out what I think about various things. I also shake my head at people who compare it to Wallflower, because being about high school students and the heroine's physically resembling each other (both get compared to Sadako from The Ring a lot) is literally all they have in common. (I mean, I knew they wouldn't be anything alike just based on reading a bit about KnT, but still.)
What do you think you’ll read next?
The rest of Fantastic Tales, and either another Kelley Armstrong (since I can't renew a lot of them) or Catherynne Valente's Six-Gun Snow White.
What are you currently reading?
I'm reading Kelley Armstrong's Industrial Magic, which is part of her "Women of the Otherworld" series. I picked up Counterfeit Magic, which focuses on the same characters, at the library a while back, and am unfortunately going about it in the wrong order since I'm having to ILL some of them and they aren't exactly arriving in chronological order. I haven't read enough of it yet to have an opinion, but I'm liking it a lot so far.
I've also started reading a 5 volume wuxia romance manhua called Fantastic Tales by Li Huan. I've read the first volume, and so far Our Heroine has crashed a martial arts tournament, poisoned her Tall Dark And Humourless love interest via planting a kiss on him mid-duel, unpoisoned-him, attempted to assassinate the evil prime minister, been arrested, and escaped jail solo. Currently, she and Tall Dark And Humourless are standing on a rooftop, debating whether or not they should go back and rescue their companions. It's along the lines of "I don't really feel like it...they should be able to save themselves...maybe I should...?" (Said companions are intelligent enough to realize they shouldn't wait around for those two to decide how far on the dark side of the anti-hero scale they currently reside.) I expect to have a good deal of fun with this one.
What did you recently finish reading?
Beauty Under the Moon, a very short manhua (about 100 pages) by Misha about a struggling photography student who runs into (literally) a young man who performs women's roles in the Peking Opera, and they end up on the run from the goon of his evil senior, who is trying to get rid of him so he can win a competition. Lota of hijinks and running around and pretty opera costumes. Also, the Peking Opera apparently trains you to leap out a third story window while carrying another person, and somehow land on your feet. Nothing overly special, but fun.
I also just read Stolen the only full length novel of Kelley Armstrong's books that I've read, and the second in the series. I...am glad I read Counterfeit Magic first? Technically, I liked it, but I also found it triggering on every possible level, and couldn't help but think the main xcharacter, Elena, had a lot of internalized misogyny at times, and Armstrong is prone to describing her werewolf leads in superhumanly beautiful terms (a serious contrast to how people in the Paige-centric books seem to be deliberately "average-person-on-the-street attractive" and not superhot goods). I'm glad I rad all of it, but I'm not sure I would have if it weren't the book where Paige and Savannah are introduced.
I've also just caught up with all the volumes of Kami-sama Kiss that have been released in the US. The short version is "broke girl gets tricked into becoming the local land god, tangles in numerous ways with her waspish and uber-tsundere familiar, who used to be an evil fox yokai." There will be a long version later, but I like it a lot. I've also read a lot of Kimi ni Todoke and am watching the anime. I'm enjoying it, but still working out what I think about various things. I also shake my head at people who compare it to Wallflower, because being about high school students and the heroine's physically resembling each other (both get compared to Sadako from The Ring a lot) is literally all they have in common. (I mean, I knew they wouldn't be anything alike just based on reading a bit about KnT, but still.)
What do you think you’ll read next?
The rest of Fantastic Tales, and either another Kelley Armstrong (since I can't renew a lot of them) or Catherynne Valente's Six-Gun Snow White.