Jamie’s Comments (group member since Oct 18, 2019)

Jamie’s comments from the Another World Book Club group.

(Going to go ahead and set up the thread since December is just around the corner.)

Since this is an anthology we’re going to do this month a little differently. We’ll all read two of the same stories, then everyone can pick two other stories from the book that interest them to discuss.

The shared stories are:

“One Odd Shoe,” by Pat Murphy
“The Fortune-Teller,” by Patricia A. McKillip

(Keep your eyes peeled for the pending “uh-oh, what’s on the list for 2022??” thread!)

Hey everyone, sorry I’ve been falling so far behind this year! Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

Here’s the thread to discuss Amberlough if anyone has had a chance to read it. What did you think? It’s not-quite-fantasy with a serious dog twist.

This is one that I love for the atmosphere/ambiance but kind of hate how it plays out for severa characters. And I agree that the timeline is a little hard to follow sometimes.

Per our poll earlier this year, December's book is an anthology and we'll be doing things a little differently.

We'll all read two of the same stories from The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales to discuss. Then everyone can pick two more stories that interest them to talk about, as well.

I actually managed to get this month finished!

Seriously, though, I did really enjoy this book. The magic system is interesting, the language the author uses is gorgeous, and I think it’s interesting that the characters/plot have Arthurian parallels (beyond the name Merlin).

Lara Elena Donnelly's spy novel, Amberlough , which is set in a world not quite like our own.

(Camden County Library patrons can pick up a copy at the front desk of the Osage Beach Library, or place a hold in Evergreen, or Overdrive.)

Spooky season is upon us and we're celebrating with Neil Gaiman's unsettling The Ocean at the End of the Lane .

(Again, Camden County Library patrons can place a hold in Evergreen, on Overdrive, or pick up a copy at the front desk of the Osage Beach Library.)

This month we're exploring the atmospheric fantasy of Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus .

(Camden County Library patrons can place a hold in Evergreen or on Overdrive, or you can pick up a copy at the front desk in Osage Beach Library.)

And we're back to full-fledged novels this month with Mira Grant's horror on the high seas, Into the Drowning Deep !

(Camden County Library patrons can place a hold in Evergreen, or pick up a copy at the front desk in Osage Beach Library.)

This month we're reading An Unkindness of Magicians , by Kat Howard.!

(Camden County Library patrons can place a hold in Evergreen, or pick up a copy at the front desk in Osage Beach Library.)

It has come to my attention that my last post in this topic didn't go through (Oops!) So here's what I tried to post back in March:

I think Eleanor was so overshadowed by her mother and then her sister that she never quite had the chance to grow up.  The way she seemed to relate to Luke and Theodora reminded me of a kid trying to fit in at camp.  So maybe she was more susceptible because she hadn’t been able to form herself as an independent personality.

(Also, I love “The Lottery,” but I think probably my favorite thing Shirley Jackson’s written is We Have Always Lived in the Castle!)

Okay. I finally finished this on Saturday, but it took a bit to gather my thoughts.

I have to admit I'm not a big fan of Stephen King, but I did enjoy this book.

I think it's interesting that the Institute was very careful while recruiting staff to only select people who had already had to twist their sense of morality around the whole greater-good argument, and I'm a bit surprised that it was so easy for them to maintain that everything they did was for the greater good even when faced with the suffering of children. Then again, if you've spent a lot of time in an active war zone it's easy to start looking at anyone who isn't definitively on your side as less-than-human.

I find it fascinating that Mrs. Sigsby didn't have any curiosity whatsoever about how they recruited potential cleaning staff, even though it states in the book that she's the one who actually hired Maureen. (Just another example of how they got too comfortable and complacent with their operation, I guess.) The fact that she grudgingly admitted to herself that Maureen might've been a good spy in another career, while not knowing that's exactly the kind of thing Maureen had done before working for the Institute is ironic (and a nice emphasis on the class snobbery that get's pointed out throughout the whole book).

Did Eleanor’s journey to Hill House remind anyone else of the beginning of The Wind in the Willows when we first meet Mole? Both feel like an innocent's call to adventure from somewhere dark and domestic.

Another novella for June, this one is Sarah Gailey's River of Teeth (also collected with it's sequel into the American Hippo omnibus).

(Camden County Library patrons can place a hold in Evergreen, or pick up a copy at the front desk in Osage Beach Library.)

We have another short one this month, Martha Wells's novella All Systems Red.

(Camden County Library patrons can place a hold in Evergreen, on Overdrive, or pick up a copy at the front desk in Osage Beach Library.)

Finally finished! I read the free preview back when this came out, and I was struggling with rereading that part so I could get to the meat of the story.

Amber, you're right that it echoes the Throne of Glass series: king takes magic, girl tries to bring it back, oops the prince has magic too. It isn't a unique plot, but I do think it's told more efficiently in Children of Blood & Bone. The pacing is pretty tight, and it gets us through several plot twists over the course of the one book that took ToG several volumes to cover (which with Maas's book felt like "wait, what kind of story is this?" whiplash).

And for the record, Inan frustrated me so much throughout this book, but he still deserved better.

April's read is Stephen King's 2019 book, The Institute.

(Camden County Library patrons can place a hold in Evergreen, on Overdrive, or pick up a copy at the front desk in Osage Beach Library.)

March's read is the 1959 modern gothic, The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson.

(Camden County Library patrons can place a hold in Evergreen, on Overdrive, or pick up a copy at the front desk in Osage Beach Library.)

February's read is a Young Adult novel, Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi, in which the magic that's been stamped out returns with a vengeance.

(Camden County Library patrons can place a hold in Evergreen, on Overdrive, or pick up a copy at the front desk in Osage Beach Library.)

I was reluctant to get started with this book (cannibalism and the supernatural is usually the perfect recipe to freak me out), but it was really good and once I started I plowed right through! (Though after finishing it I immediately had to check the locks on all the doors, and I will also not sleep right for a week.)

Reading the book, I did actually trust Lewis Keseberg about Tamsen's daughters still being alive (and then, being me, I looked up survivors of Donner Party and evidently all five of the Donner daughters survived). I'm not really convinced Jory did know about Tamsen's feelings, because it seems like we would've gotten a flashback to the shame of them acting on them, and not just Tamsen's shame for feeling that way.

I was under the impression Tamsen and her brother never acted on their feelings, and that Tamsen was never quite sure Jory knew of her feelings or shared them. There seemed to be a lot of "wait, what does that look mean?!" in her flashback segment.

The little bits of totally untrained excavation of the people just a couple years ahead of them was fascinating. I kind of loved the way the character reacted to seeing signs of people struggling ahead of them, and the way it hollowed some of them out and others just tried to ignore it.