Ambrosia > Recent Status Updates

I am thoroughly entertained to realize, almost halfway through, that this story is basically a highly polished, carefully worldbuilt, space operatic version of "Charley's Aunt". Truly, the identity-swap farce will never die. 😆

I feel a little bit like this

Had to do a bit of Googling to figure out why the pro-Medici groups were calling out "Balls! Balls!" during the attempted coup...

"Orsanmichele...was one of the major civic monuments of Florence. Its medieval façade was punctuated by numerous niches, each one belonging to one of the major trade guilds, who were expected to fill them with sculptures of their patron saints...Orsanmichele, with its singular blend of religion, business, and art, is a perfect symbol of the spirit of Renaissance Florence." Okay, who's up for a trip to Italy?

"...For a wild moment I entertained the idea that my father had timed his death with this in mind, as some sort of deranged tribute. But that would only confirm that his death was not my fault. That, in fact, it had nothing to do with me at all. And I'm reluctant to let go of that last, tenuous bond."

I think I'm going to go stare at the wall for a while, now.

Really liking the audiobook narrators - it's just one man and one woman doing all the male/female parts, but they give each one a distinct accent, which really helps you remember who's speaking. I especially like Lizzie Borden's - she sounds more than a bit like Kate Hepburn.

Barely a quarter through and I'm already blown away. The craftsmanship here - the way she communicates so much nuance and emotion in deceptively simple and straightforward sentences, both through word and picture choice -is astounding, and the subject matter heartbreaking. I'm almost afraid to keep reading.

Not even two minutes in, and I can see we're turning the twinned-terror-of-sex-and-death knob all the way up to 11. I approve.

I stayed up far too late last night finishing "The Bone Swans of Amandale". Now *that's* a proper fairy tale!

The cover copy says that this *isn't* one of Jackson's horror stories, but frankly, this book is doing nothing to convince me that being a housewife/writer with three small children in the 1950s *isn't* horrific!

Somewhere this book went from being a mundane collection of growing-up stories with occasional gems of insight, to something dangerously clever and meta with aspirations to profundity. And I can't for the life of me think where.

It's taken me a day and a half to get through 25 pages. I keep alternately choking at the ridiculous prose or growling at the misogyny. Seriously? This is a classic?

Damn. This one's going to take a bit of digesting.

This one's really not grabbing me. It can't seem to decide if it's being a novel or a biography...think I'll set it aside for a while.

oh man Cordelia's climactic one-liner almost made me choke on my pancakes. <3<3<3

My update feed is full of the Vorkosigan saga, from four different people. Eeeexcellent.

That proposal, though. Ehrmahgerd. <3

The one good thing about prolonged illness - I'm able to spend a lot of time catching up on my reading.

Holy balls. I'm barely a fraction of the way in, and I'm already thinking I need a spreadsheet to keep track of all the clues, references, double meanings, and hints. This book may not be subtle in its atmosphere-building, but I'll be damned if it isn't laid on so thick as to be just as effective.

I love Bujold's worldbuilding. One chapter in and we have all the pertinent information without a single infodump.

So...much.....Church history.......

Nooooo, Laurence! You and your damned honor...

Damn. This is rapidly turning into one of those "almost afraid to keep reading in case the rest of the story doesn't live up to the beginning" books.

Not just a bit of romantic misdirection, but possibly taking the supposed romantic hero someplace rather darker than I would have guessed. Nicely done, Ms. Bujold.