EPBOT Readers discussion

Hi all,

Trying to get a quick post up before heading on a little vacation. Not super excited, it was unilaterally decided and planned for us by my husband's parents, completely ignoring my requests "Please don't do it in September because this is a milestone birthday year and I would like to have the month free so I don't have to worry about using too many vacation days and not being able to take time off for my birthday" and then they went and planned it for the weekend/week after my birthday. Sigh. So I wasn't able to even take the day of my birthday off and had to postpone my birthday party until next weekend. But i'll try to have some fun.

This week I finished:

The Archive Undying - Finally finished this. It was interesting, but very dense and very confusing. the perspective kept shifting around and there were several sections in second person, but it wasn't always the same person speaking in second person so it got very confusing trying to figure out WHO was speaking. It was just fascinating enough to keep me reading, but tedious and confusing enough that I don't think i'll continue the series when the next comes out.

The Tea Dragon Society, The Tea Dragon Festival The Tea Dragon Tapestry This was such a charming series! The art was beautiful, the stories were sweet, and I want a plushie of all the tea dragons. I'm going to need to find physical copies of them now.

Thornhedge - I always like retellings and T Kingfisher so I enjoyed this. Although it wasn't my favorite of hers, I think it wasn't as in depth as some of her other stories. However I really loved Toadling, so it was still fun to read.

The Hawthorne Legacy - still very YA, but it's still a fun audiobook that doesn't require a lot of attention. It seems like the love triangle is pretty resolved by the end of this one, I'm hoping it stays that way. I really hate that trope.

Night Warrior - I read this for a reading challenge for a local author, it's a friend of a friend and he lives within a 10 minute drive of me. The premise was right up my alley, reverse portal fantasy. But the writing....eehhh. It was not good. I think "Feel the sweet release of death!" was uttered at least 20 times. Very overblown writing, it felt like the kind of fantasy that's used to make fun of fantasy. I admit I kinda fudged my rating becaue i have the feeling he's the kinda guy who reads his goodreads reviews and I didn't want to write an accurate rating with an honest review, so I just gave it a no-comment 3 stars which hopefully won't elicit comment. I don't want to hurt the dude's feelings but I'm not sure he's at "can take honest critiques of his work" stage yet.

Carrie Soto Is Back - Did the audio book for this, liked it much more than expected! I didn't particularly like her small appearance in Malibu Rising, and I care absolutely nothing about tennis. But my library is doing a genre genius challenge and I needed a sports book, and TJR always has solid audio books so I figured I might as well try it. I wouldn't say Carrie is exactly LIKEABLE, but that's kind of the point of the book. How women are always expected to be soft and nice and likeable. How if she celebrates her victory or talks smack or is confident about winning it's seen as being arrogant or ungracious or a poor winner, when the same behavior in male athletes would be considered confidence and bravado. It's an interesting counter to Malibu Rising where Nina was sexy and pretty and wasn't allowed to actually compete in surfing because it might ruin her modeling career as a surf-model if people knew how well she did or didn't surf. And when suggestive slogans were paired with her ads, people took that as permission to touch her or make comments on her body all the time. Women in the public eye can't really win either way.

Currently reading:

Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology - a collection of short dark stories by various Indigenous authors. Includes a bunch of pretty recognizable names like Cherie Demaline, Rebecca Roanhouse, Tommy Orange, among others. As well as some lesser known ones or first time published authors. I'm really liking so far.

A Simple Favor - audio book, needed a book to movie title that I haven't already read. I wached the movie a few months ago and liked it alright. Interesting seeing where the movie differed.

QOTW:

Borrowing from popsugar again because I'm tired. Have you ever read a retelling that you ended up liking better than the original?

I don't know if I would say the retellings are BETTER than the original, but several I like/enjoy more for various reasons. One of my favorites is The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein that tells the story from Elizabeth's perspective. It gives a lot more depth and agency to the women involved in the story, and makes Dr Frakenstein out to be more than just a bumbling doctor who didn't quite know what to do with his creation.

Hello,

Sheri I hope you can have some fun on this vacation. I hope it is at least somewhere interesting and enjoyable. So sorry to hear you didn't get to celebrate your milestone birthday the way you wanted. I give you props for maintaining harmony in this circumstance.

I only have one finish this week, The Brass Queen. I added some thoughts in the other thread for it. I didn't care for it that much but I did finish. That's all I'll say about it here but I await to see what others say in the thread.

We were in Acadia NP this past week with friends so I had no audiobook time.

My next book that I just started last night is Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures.

I briefly started The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi but it is only a 14 day loan from the library. I'm leaving for two weeks to visit my elderly mother in 6 days so there's no way I can finish. So that will go back and I'll get it again another time.

QOTW:
Truly I've got nothing and drawing a blank. I liked The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter but it wasn't really a retelling but a story that included elements of several originals. So I don't think it counts.

Happy check-in!

Finished:
The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall - I would rate it 3.5 stars. It was a fun YA pirate adventure.

Comics & manga:
Witch Hat Atelier, Vol. 11

Currently reading:
Starter Villain by John Scalzi - I am loving this so far. If you liked Kaiju Preservation Society, I think you'll like this.

Upcoming/Planned:
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

QOTW: 
I think I like a lot of fairy tale retellings better than the original, especially when they flesh out and update or modernize the story in some way, or remove some problematic element such as sexism or racism. A lot of original fairy tales and fables don't really have a lot of depth or characterization. Other retellings are more hit and miss for me. For example, I don't think I've read a Pride and Prejudice retelling that I like more than the original.

Heh, I've been bracing myself for people to start raving about Starter Villain, reminding myself I've tried Scalzi multiple times and it's not going to be for me and I don't particularly like cats. I'm excited for everyone else to love it, though!

Arsenic and Adobo - I read this for a library challenge as a book about someone from another culture (Filipino-American). I'm happy to see more diversity in the cozy mystery genre (there are also supporting characters of other ethnicities and LGBTQ+). This one hits all the tropes: moving back from the big city to help with the family business, multiple potential love interests, recipes in the back, solving the mystery at the last minute while the murderer tries to kill you... Unfortunately I am still entirely burnt out on all that and I would like some clues please (provided sufficiently before the final reveal). It seems like that's still more popular in Britain than America.

Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World - So this author wrote a book about how "wild" and "natural" are meaningless in a world in which the entire world has been affected by human activity, but that one isn't available at my library. In this book, she takes that premise as a given, and then asks what, if any, responsibility or obligation we as humans have to animals and/or species and/or biodiversity. A few philosophical/ethical frameworks are presented, and then we look at what are basically various trolley problems about killing one type of animal to save another and that sort of thing. This being philosophy, there are no good answers. Also the copy editing was so bad: sentences missing words, "of" swapped with "on", riding in a "dingy"... Not recommended, read Wild Ones instead if you want to feel bad about unanswerable conservation questions.

QOTW: I agree with Jen, in that the first example I thought of was Disney's Little Mermaid, which has some issues but is definitely less problematic than the original Andersen story.

Just finished Starter Villain! I've really enjoyed almost everything I've read of his. This was fun.
I also read the latest installment of the Gunnie Rose series by Charlaine Harris. She's another favorite, I've enjoyed all of her different series.
QOTW: I liked the Lunar Chronicles, which are dystopian YA versions of fairy tales. Also How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse, which borrows from Sleeping Beauty. I also really liked Nettle & Bone; I was impressed by how the author wove together so many traditional fairy tale elements into something fresh.

Ugh Sheri, I hate it when people try to be nice in a way that is not actually what you wanted at all, because then you feel guilty for not being excited. I hope you were able to enjoy your trip despite the timing.

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls was lovely and made me want to look up more of Cherie Dimaline's work. It was dark, though, and I needed to follow up with something light so I'm catching up on the last two October Daye books that I haven't read yet. I'm a bit more than halfway through Be the Serpent and have Sleep No More waiting in the wings for when I finish.

QOTW: I'll second the recommendation of How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse, which was good fun. Nothing else is coming to mind at the moment but I'll ponder and come back if I think of something!