Gillian > Recent Status Updates

Roanhorse loves her sexy killers, be they naive and unsocialized [redacted], seductive assassins/[redacted], or jaded flinty survivors. And I love that for me. (Yay, Iktan is back!)

I can't decide if this moment feels merely toothless or is beautiful anyway.

But the whole thing feels like a book written by someone who is neither historian nor activist. And who just discovered that activism exists. [Art will save us!™️] I don't know anything about Ng's life so I don't know that's true about her. But that's how it feels.

Basically I don't think Ng is managing the big picture very well but on the small, family centered scale she continues to shine.

I think it's both me AND the book. There's something about it that's very Literary Fiction Author Attempts Speculative Fiction. And a strong thread of Writers Believes That Stories And Books Will Save Us, which can be inspiring or trite and irritating depending on your perspective (in my current mood it's irritating). But it's also filled with captivating moments and interesting characters.

I don't know if it's me or the book, but Ng's foray into this genre isn't quite working for me. Still interesting enough that i want to keep reading though.

So far I'm a fan.

Let's hear it for people-who-like-to-sleep-a-lot rep.

Almost at the end, babeeeey! Only 16 minutes left. I'm more and more lost but I'm determined to finish it.

(Goodreads gives such a tiny character limit for these ☹️)
I am interested enough in what happens to push through to the end, but I'm only listening with 85% of my attention so I'm getting more and more lost. However I'm also fine with only getting the gist of the events.
The narrator is good, but I may have liked this more reading it, and being able to skim the boring parts.

In the homestretch, finally!
I've really tried to get into this but now I've admitted to myself I find it kinda boring. It has lots of elements I'm intrigued by, but somehow the way MW mixes them together it just ends up... kinda dull. More of a focus on the details of action than I prefer, and less on characters and emotions. Lots of world building but somehow many of my questions still haven't been answered.

Ahhh! This is so much fun to re-read (re-listen to) and notice all the moments where MWT is subtly being super clever.

After The Buried Giant, I wanted a palate cleanser audiobook I could listen to while cross-stitching that was a) a straightforward story w/ easy prose, b) a book I'd read before so I wouldn't get lost if momentarily distracted, c) read by a narrator I liked, and d) available now at my library. After a long search I am happy with this! Bonus of getting to experience the story again, knowing the ending.

I have GOT to get in the habit of noticing dates/times/places given at the top of the chapter. Multiple decades as a reader and my eyes still skip over them. Then I end up lost and confused about chronologies.
Re this book specifically, I like it! Some great characters, really engaging prose, and what an opening. RR also does a great job with conveying the world of the book.

Listening and cleaning, yay!

Re-listening to this is great, b/c I have only the vaguest memory of the plot but every time something happens I'm like "oh yeah." Don't remember what's next though. Fitting for a book that centers around memory/loss.

Many of KI's books are difficult to summarize, and therefore to remember. Though this is one of his most "plotty" books in terms of events happening one after the other.

Yes, I really am in the middle of EIGHT books right now. And want to finish all of them. Well, probably not Cherryh's Foreigner any time soon, but all of the rest I'm very interested in. I just have zero attention span or focus these days. And to think I used to binge whole long series in a couple days! This is actually a reread, or rather re-listen. KI is so good at revealing info. And writing. Narrator is perfect.

Also, I never think of characters as my "blorbos" but something about Dorothea made me immediately go Blorbo! She's so weird and passionate and trying so hard to live a meaningful life while circumscribed by Regency England provincialism and misogyny, and only having Christianity to look to for inspiration. So humanly petty and judgmental, while genuinely being loving and wanting to do good. Aro and/or Ace? I <3 her.

1 hour in, only 31 left to go!
I picked this somewhat randomly because I heard Kate Reading narrating something else I wasn't interested in, but liked her voice. She's great for this! And I can see why it has stood the test of time to become a classic. GE is incisive, subtly hilarious, but kind and understanding underneath it all. The story so far is rambling scenes, but feels like it's going somewhere with it.

I'm trying to become an audiobook listener so I can do other things while I listen, but the problem is that if I do anything but the simplest of tasks I get distracted and don't pay attention to the words, and then I have to rewind. This is not the fault of THIS book; it happens to me with anything. But I'm intrigued by the story so far, and I like the narrator's reading. Plus I've made progress in my cross-stitch!

"This is a shockingly understaffed clinic. I don’t understand why the syndics don’t request some more postings from the Medical Federation, or else cut down the number of admissions; some of these aides and doctors are working eight hours a day! Of course, there are people in the medical arts who actually want that: the self-sacrifice impulse. Unfortunately it doesn’t lead to maximum efficiency. . . ." 😘ULG

Le Guin is brilliant of course. But it's fascinating to see what in 1974 were her limits of imagination on "society with total gender equality." As well as the *almost* total invisibility of queerness.
(This is a reread but my memory of details is fuzzy.)

Giving up and turning to Octavia Butler, who knows how to write *alien* aliens.

Maybe I'll come back when I'm more in the mood for political intrigue with a vague sci-fi flavor.

I'm still hung up on how un-alien these aliens are in both biology history and culture. Which is fine! It's Star Trek/Wars aliens! A common sci-fi setting for exploring relatively minor cultural differences! I just was for some reason expecting something grander. I'll get over it eventually (or I'll give up on the book). It all feels subtly but distinctly dated. 1994 was another era in SFF. I'll try to love Bren.