hellsmoke wrapped in fog
Between this week and last, I've read a lot of books with French references and settings - The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender with its French-style bakery and Anna and the French Kiss and Just One Day being set in Paris - and as a result had to purchase baguettes and macarons. I regret nothing.
Herewith, some things that have brightened my week.
Watch
So You Think You Can Dance is back! I don't get fannish about it - I'm generally a passive viewer of competition reality shows - but I enjoy it so much.
But more importantly, holy shit, Orphan Black. One of the things I love so much about this show is how it can, in the same episode, completely horrify me with things like taking stem cells from Kira's tooth, acquired through means questionable at best, and giving them to Cosima without allowing her to make a fully informed decision, and in the next scene completely crack me up with the hijinks surrounding Felix, Alison, Sarah, and Vick. This episode made me feel a lot of feels though. (The following should be regarded like bullet points rather than anything coherent.) It's completely correct to me that while Donnie is Alison's monitor, he has no fucking clue what's actually going on. Sarah impersonating Alison is still delightful. As time goes on, I actually trust Cal more (cautiously, as it will likely bite me in the ass), and the bit where Kira pulls her own tooth was...sheesh, this poor baby. I'm pretty sure that I don't trust Siobhan but find her totally badass, and I was oddly pleased to see that Ethan Duncan hasn't lost it completely. And Rachel feels, where did you come from? Her and Leekie, nurture over nature, ack! Cosima felt like the mouthpiece for this episode, particularly in her words to Delphine regarding her life, her body, her biology - it hurt, but I loved her telling Delphine to get out of the lab. And holy shit, the last scene. Again I say, carry on, show.
Read
My last week away from work meant that I had time to read plenty. I've already talked about Looking for Alaska and my general disappointment with it here.
Lovely, Dark and Deep by Amy McNamara is a painful look into grief, loss, and guilt with lovely prose. The romance read as a bit false to me - too fast with too little foundation - but I can manage a little suspension of disbelief in exchange for the emotional resonance. Not a book for everyone, but perfect for my preoccupation with narratives that explore themes of death and grief.
Just One Day by Gayle Forman was delightful, as expected. Forman wrote a pair of my very favorites - If I Stay and Where She Went - so I bought Just One Day when it was released a year ago. I've been waiting to read it until the right mood struck, and I'm glad. Rule-following "good girl" Allyson takes a chance and leaves her supervised post-high school European group tour to spend one day in Paris with a handsome Shakespearean actor she just met. Cue travel porn, romance, and misunderstandings. Thinking he ditched her, she spends the next year in a funk, not simply because she lost this boy but because she lost this new, adventurous version of herself. Then she goes back to find him and, in the process, herself. It's a romance, yes, but it's more a story about a young woman finding herself and learning who she is, and I am here for those stories.
I also reread a couple of Nora Roberts' romance novels because I like them and who's going to stop me? I like Roberts' style, and there's something soothing about the familiar rhythms of her novels, just like in any genre fiction. And yes, her characters rely on common tropes but are still imbued with enough individuality that they feel like actual people - people you care about.
Hearts
♥ proper time off from work ♥ really adorable couples ♥ glitter ♥ coffee - extra delicious after a week without it due to illness, and my new English Toffee flavor is to die for ♥ bubble baths with bonus cat-digging-through-bubbles ♥ EOS shave cream ♥ sleeping in ♥ cats sleeping in boxes that are much too small for them ♥ macarons ♥ just-washed bedding ♥ the feeling that comes with rereading a book you enjoy ♥ smoothies ♥ new shoes ♥ Graze boxes - I still have US codes if anyone wants to try ♥ kind, helpful veterinarians ♥ making lists of AU ideas (and planning a couple to write)
Tell me, kittens, what is making your week? Alternatively, ask me fandom-type questions as you like.
Herewith, some things that have brightened my week.
Watch
So You Think You Can Dance is back! I don't get fannish about it - I'm generally a passive viewer of competition reality shows - but I enjoy it so much.
But more importantly, holy shit, Orphan Black. One of the things I love so much about this show is how it can, in the same episode, completely horrify me with things like taking stem cells from Kira's tooth, acquired through means questionable at best, and giving them to Cosima without allowing her to make a fully informed decision, and in the next scene completely crack me up with the hijinks surrounding Felix, Alison, Sarah, and Vick. This episode made me feel a lot of feels though. (The following should be regarded like bullet points rather than anything coherent.) It's completely correct to me that while Donnie is Alison's monitor, he has no fucking clue what's actually going on. Sarah impersonating Alison is still delightful. As time goes on, I actually trust Cal more (cautiously, as it will likely bite me in the ass), and the bit where Kira pulls her own tooth was...sheesh, this poor baby. I'm pretty sure that I don't trust Siobhan but find her totally badass, and I was oddly pleased to see that Ethan Duncan hasn't lost it completely. And Rachel feels, where did you come from? Her and Leekie, nurture over nature, ack! Cosima felt like the mouthpiece for this episode, particularly in her words to Delphine regarding her life, her body, her biology - it hurt, but I loved her telling Delphine to get out of the lab. And holy shit, the last scene. Again I say, carry on, show.
Read
My last week away from work meant that I had time to read plenty. I've already talked about Looking for Alaska and my general disappointment with it here.
Lovely, Dark and Deep by Amy McNamara is a painful look into grief, loss, and guilt with lovely prose. The romance read as a bit false to me - too fast with too little foundation - but I can manage a little suspension of disbelief in exchange for the emotional resonance. Not a book for everyone, but perfect for my preoccupation with narratives that explore themes of death and grief.
Just One Day by Gayle Forman was delightful, as expected. Forman wrote a pair of my very favorites - If I Stay and Where She Went - so I bought Just One Day when it was released a year ago. I've been waiting to read it until the right mood struck, and I'm glad. Rule-following "good girl" Allyson takes a chance and leaves her supervised post-high school European group tour to spend one day in Paris with a handsome Shakespearean actor she just met. Cue travel porn, romance, and misunderstandings. Thinking he ditched her, she spends the next year in a funk, not simply because she lost this boy but because she lost this new, adventurous version of herself. Then she goes back to find him and, in the process, herself. It's a romance, yes, but it's more a story about a young woman finding herself and learning who she is, and I am here for those stories.
I also reread a couple of Nora Roberts' romance novels because I like them and who's going to stop me? I like Roberts' style, and there's something soothing about the familiar rhythms of her novels, just like in any genre fiction. And yes, her characters rely on common tropes but are still imbued with enough individuality that they feel like actual people - people you care about.
Hearts
♥ proper time off from work ♥ really adorable couples ♥ glitter ♥ coffee - extra delicious after a week without it due to illness, and my new English Toffee flavor is to die for ♥ bubble baths with bonus cat-digging-through-bubbles ♥ EOS shave cream ♥ sleeping in ♥ cats sleeping in boxes that are much too small for them ♥ macarons ♥ just-washed bedding ♥ the feeling that comes with rereading a book you enjoy ♥ smoothies ♥ new shoes ♥ Graze boxes - I still have US codes if anyone wants to try ♥ kind, helpful veterinarians ♥ making lists of AU ideas (and planning a couple to write)
Tell me, kittens, what is making your week? Alternatively, ask me fandom-type questions as you like.