Return of the reading meme 2/5
What am I reading now?
I'm back in my YA fiction reading. Laini Taylor's "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" is beautifully written but very strange book set mostly in Prague about an artist that runs errands for a chimera. And Victoria Schwab's "The Archived" feels very similar in the secret world with doors sort of way -- it's slightly more creepy horror than I usually read, but I'm enjoying it. (Also slightly depressed yesterday learning there probably won't be a third book unless the sales pick up massively. Schwab doesn't do cliffhangers so her publisher is treating the third book as "unnecessary". Understandable from a business standpoint, but sucks as a reader.)
I'm struggling with Jaye Wells' "Dirty Magic". For all that I love police procedurals + magic, this feels a little "paint by numbers" so far in the talking tough- it's really just paperwork type ways. Maybe it gets better.
What did I finish?
Of my all the audiobooks post, I've finished all but "Sister Queens", which is absorbing in a horrific "Run ladies run" sort of way, since I've reached the part where Juana is imprisoned and Catherine struggles with her pregnancies. (I'm left wondering if Henry VIII's marriages would have turned out differently with modern medicine and ultrasounds and etc. Catherine's first pregnancy was particularly difficult to listen to.)
Gail Carriger's "Curtsies and Conspiracies" was still fun, although the pacing worries me. Long drawn out stuff at school punctuated with the madcap adventure at the end. Still fun seeing the younger/earlier versions of the "Parasol Protectorate" characters crop up in all their florid glory.
PD James' "Death Comes Pemberley" was disappointing. The epilogue came the closest to capturing the magic of Lizzie and Darcy. With P&P, it feels very female-driven/oriented, whereas all the scenes in Death Comes to Pemberley are male oriented, with places/settings women wouldn't traditionally go into, like the courtroom. At the book club meetup, someone wondered if she was trying to use all Austen's books, so the dark gloomy tone felt more in keeping with Northanger? I also felt like the author was being a little too clever at times with the in-references and so forth.
What will I read next?
That depends on what I finish from column A at this point. Tempted to cool down a little from the audiobooks, especially if I finish Sister Queens.
I'm back in my YA fiction reading. Laini Taylor's "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" is beautifully written but very strange book set mostly in Prague about an artist that runs errands for a chimera. And Victoria Schwab's "The Archived" feels very similar in the secret world with doors sort of way -- it's slightly more creepy horror than I usually read, but I'm enjoying it. (Also slightly depressed yesterday learning there probably won't be a third book unless the sales pick up massively. Schwab doesn't do cliffhangers so her publisher is treating the third book as "unnecessary". Understandable from a business standpoint, but sucks as a reader.)
I'm struggling with Jaye Wells' "Dirty Magic". For all that I love police procedurals + magic, this feels a little "paint by numbers" so far in the talking tough- it's really just paperwork type ways. Maybe it gets better.
What did I finish?
Of my all the audiobooks post, I've finished all but "Sister Queens", which is absorbing in a horrific "Run ladies run" sort of way, since I've reached the part where Juana is imprisoned and Catherine struggles with her pregnancies. (I'm left wondering if Henry VIII's marriages would have turned out differently with modern medicine and ultrasounds and etc. Catherine's first pregnancy was particularly difficult to listen to.)
Gail Carriger's "Curtsies and Conspiracies" was still fun, although the pacing worries me. Long drawn out stuff at school punctuated with the madcap adventure at the end. Still fun seeing the younger/earlier versions of the "Parasol Protectorate" characters crop up in all their florid glory.
PD James' "Death Comes Pemberley" was disappointing. The epilogue came the closest to capturing the magic of Lizzie and Darcy. With P&P, it feels very female-driven/oriented, whereas all the scenes in Death Comes to Pemberley are male oriented, with places/settings women wouldn't traditionally go into, like the courtroom. At the book club meetup, someone wondered if she was trying to use all Austen's books, so the dark gloomy tone felt more in keeping with Northanger? I also felt like the author was being a little too clever at times with the in-references and so forth.
What will I read next?
That depends on what I finish from column A at this point. Tempted to cool down a little from the audiobooks, especially if I finish Sister Queens.