James > Recent Status Updates

"They sat with their arms wrapped around each other in a fraternal gesture of unity…Theirs was a private sorority…"
I mean, it's two women, do they have to have a fraternity and a sorority. Can't they just have sorority.

I'm kind of impressed at how many times "loose/loosing" is used instead of "lose/losing" in this printed book.

I have the impression this is going to remind me of Karen Pirie, but gay.

"The fluorescent bulbs overhead flickered momentarily before bathing the interior of the boathouse in incandescent white light."
Make up your mind, was it fluorescent or incandescent?

A little late, but I think it's the guy from the photo.

Ah. Jude was abused (horrifcly, apparently), and now he’s trying to kill himself. Great. And the punishment for the first attempt was that he has to live the rest of his life paying for that attempt. I guess he was abused by religious persons, so this is some kind of divine retribution. Maybe I should look up Jude in the Bible

I keep waiting for something to happen, even though I know this isn’t that type of book, and I still don’t actually have a grasp on which character is which.

It's just overly written. There's way too much telling and not showing, and way too much time spent on stuff that's unimportant. Nothing about the previous hostess is important to this story. And if the previous owners of the lodge don't turn out to be important to the story…

There’s a lot of unnecessary backstory for unimportant characters

a) I may not finish this very _summer reading_ book because
b) only the white, male Abercrombie model characters get descriptions of what they look like. Ricky Gonzalez, Kayla Calloway, Jan Annondale, Sun Cho, Ariella, David Samson…none of them. Not a word. I can imagine them to look however I want. But the main cast of gay and bisexual men: all white, all model gorgeous.

For the first time, I’ve actively noticed Troy being written in first person (and everyone else in third) and a) it felt really stream-of/consciousness, and b) the transition to third person was really jarring

There was not near lyenough exposition of who Wyatt is to explain why he makes the decisions he does.

Ugh. A fucking rape scene. Would I feel better if it were a would-be bashing? I don’t know. I understand that we’re supposed to understand their special bond and that trauma binds in very special ways, and it’s a very realistic scenario…but still…ugh

“However, there was business to be done, and I could allow nothing to interfere with it.”
I swear, if we could just remove capitalism…

I don't like this book. It's difficult for me to say because I really wanted to like it, but I don't like it. I don't like the characters. I don't like the setting, I don't like the scenarios they are in. To be clear, all of these are _me_ things and not _book_ things. And not only do I not like the characters, I, as a gay black man (who's only a decade older than the characters) don't connect with them

And I’ve stopped at the rape scene.

The writing isn't great. The world building is okay (I think it would have been better to set it in an alternate present, rather than a future that looks weirdly like 2010). Also, the clearly English author writing a book set in a future US is equally jarring.
But the concept is novel, and the book is at least aware of the tropes it uses.
And really, I'm just happy to see "born sexy yesterday" but gay.

At life's limits-I want so much more of this. It was a great self-contained story. I found myself so engrossed in the story, I completely forgot to think about the writing (which was also good). The quality of the writing reminded my The shipping news, or beloved, in how textured the writing was.

Future Christmas-The writing was okay and the setting was okay, but it reads like early 80's straight-guy fiction; this time in a christmas myth setting.

At the Huts of Ajala--Again. Super good. I love this birthing story.

Gimmile's Songs-DNF. Love the "men writing women" moment.

Twice, at once, Separated--Wow. Not only was it exquisitely written, but I finished it just as the last movement of Hindemith's four variations for piano and orchestra finished: an appropriately grandiose ending for an expertly grandiose story.

Ganger —nope. DNF

Aye, and Gomorrah —it’s well-written, and thought provoking, but it has me feeling uncomfortable and I don’t know why.