Fran > Recent Status Updates

Freeing myself to enjoy books that are not necessarily technically good and have lots of problems but have the exact kind of character and theme work I want

I've realized that I don't necessarily enjoy LMB's prose/style - very direct and abrupt - and the way she writes inner voices grates on me. And yet. And YET. The character work. It compels me. It must outweigh the bad significantly because despite it all I'm so invested I went out and got a bunch of secondhand copies for the other books in the series. I'm enraptured. I haven't read a book in less than a day in eons.

I keep hitting moments that make me wince. That are cringe or clunky or ham fisted or full of 1991 attitudes around gender roles and maternal instincts and bioessentialism etc etc. And yet. The next page will immediately hit me with something so gut wrenching and transcendent, I'm deeply invested regardless of its obvious flaws

how is literally every single chapter throwing something agonizing at me amidst terrible space opera tropes and questionable discussions of eugenics and consent. im dying. the emotional trenches. ive almost cried multiple times. the book reminding me why i like to read.

ik im not very far in and anthologies are always risky but it feels like my refrain for this year's reading is 'but what if it were good instead' ;-;

Once again. Series of all time and it stuck the landing

the things i do for work...... ;-;

chapter 23 siege of leningrad has me like....koschei a bondage christ figure???? absolutely haunting chapter. incredible.

Koschei isn't even evil he just desperately needs someone to match his freak

We are SO back

but what if it were good instead

I love bureaucracy, time travel, and doomed Arctic exploration. I had a macabre obsession with it aged 7 that I never shook. This SHOULD be my book. So far it is mostly kinda boring romance, a guy adapting to modern life WAY easier than he should, and a lot of heavy handed social commentary (which would be fine if we weren't trying to address Every Oppression all at once, and be funny, AND romantic, AND have a plot)

Liberation theology preferential option for the poor mention!!!!!! Truly I see ur vision mr green

Also there are some quite hefty reading recommendations in the end notes and oh boy I am DELIGHTED

I'm only a few chapters in but this is exactly what I was looking for. I'm not a scientist. But an exploration of disease and health through the lenses of history, social dynamics, economics, inequality, those are things I can understand (and can try to affect), interwoven with the very human story of this one young man with TB. Oh John Green, fellow ocd haver fringe Christian obsessed with humanity, rlly Gets It

I'm not generally a grimdark fantasy person NOR a constantly switching pov with 'city as main character', HOWEVER. the worldbuilding plays with all the evil banality of burecracy that i adore, and despite the constantly switching povs, i still have a /feel/ for all the characters, even if they're all sorta horrible? (and im getting tons of idea for my fantasy novel pastiche dnd campaign, dont tell my players shh)

what if the tomato and the garden and rhemann and 'fathers' got me. what then.

Save me jean moreau save me. Save me depressed bisexual french man in indulgent trauma dump ridiculous novel.

this aint it.....i wanted trashy easy to read indulgence but tbh this feels like a chore...

Rare W for prime minister harper on page 3 of the book, straight up no I DONT want to meet with zuckerberg at this state dinner in panama.

Aside, I'm 3 pages in and already horrified by the attitude of these ppl, INCLUDING the author. I have a sense she isn't going to be self aware of her own complicity in this whole mess. Like ma'am it's 2015, by this point we all knew fb was evil.

(It's a class thing. As always)

I am ready for this to be Absolutely Terrible becauseI don't need it to be GOOD I need to be mindlessly entertained with something super easy to read. It's been A Week. Trashy novel from the public library pride display. Save me.

aw shit, here we go again*

*starting another bookclub book i KNOW im going to hate

Return of my beautiful cringefail wizard wife AND a reminder that I love food and should be treating myself better by cooking more

What if this is actually just not good

to be fair. i think horror, for me, works best in auditory or textual mediums because it forces the pacing in a linear way that builds suspense. in a manga the pacing doesnt hit quite the same

not to be like the magnus archives did spiral based horror better...but.... so far it's been heavily reliant on the grotesque (if it was in color or photorealistic it wouldve been too much for me) but where is the PSYCHOLOGICAL terror....they are haunted by the spiral supposedly where are the mind games

the first two chapters didn't hook me, despite loving baldwin's prose. but part 1 chapter 3??? why is this book so quietly devastating, i asked, like a fool

my library holds are arriving in a way to conspire that i do not read a single happy book for the entirety of feb-march i guess

There are so many lines I want to tease apart in this book. Some a masterclass in subtlety, others hit you like a brick. I'm so close to the end. But the book has been building up to '[he] deserves no sympathy but won't ever be undeserving of love'.