Auroch > Recent Status Updates

Chpt 2: The Muscrat Conundrum

"Where is Home, Mum?": the mix of realistic, geometric, and surreal art does a great job of graphically translating the tangle of emotions the author feels as she begins unraveling her mixed emotions surrounding the deeply religious, but dysfunctional family she grew up in in the context of a wider diaspora; but pair this with the stream-of-thought journal-like text blurbs and it reads less mosaic more crazy-wall.

I read the graphic novel "Where is Home, Mum?" But the new update won't let me add it as a book or review it so I'll put a mini-review here and then flesh it out if someone manages to add it later. (1/2)

I read the graphic novel "Where is Home, Mum?" But the new update won't let me add it as a book or review it so I'll put a mini-review here and then flesh it out if someone manages to add it later. (1/2)

After hitting a wall in the audiobook I'm switching and waiting for the ebook;however, two chapters in and I'm predicting that I'm not going to be a big fan of this book.

12:20 min/15hr

Finally restarted the audiobook! The full cast narration really helps in keeping track of all the characters with long complicated names.

At long last my hold came in! Alas, it's been so long that I've forgotten most of the plot so I'll be re-starting this completely instead of just finishing it.

Restarted this one with the physical book!

Two chapters in and: this is proving exactly as bad as everyone told me it would be...

Restarting the audiobook!

Thus far the title is the most interesting thing about this collection of short stories which don't seem to have any plot or memorable characters which sort of confuses me as to where the title comes from.

While admittedly my current reading pile is a bit of an avalanche this should wrap up around the end of the month as I attempt to rush through my current reads before my library loaners come due and the eCloud audiobook service closes at my library. After that I'll probably circle back to several books I put down over the past few months or focus on putting another dent in my physical TBR pile.

It's like a 'Chicken Soup' anthology, but with morbid humor! Knowing someone in this field, I'm not sure if other funeral directors would necessarily appreciate all the stories, but someone considering going into a mortuary-related profession would probably find this helpful as it's completely upfront about the work/life non-balance the job requires.

After being told this is a good primer for anyone looking to read Murakami, but afraid of the length either Murakami is a mind-numbingly barely-there plot with lush descriptions or my sources have bamboozled me. Unless you really like the hard philosophical classics I'd probably give this a pass.

Ugh. After being more than a little disappointed with 'A Wizard of Mars' I'm starting to abandon hope that the next full novel will go well because it follows the same dated/cringey humor, date-oriented, and reformated for maximum HP-related marketing formula of the last book (and all of the books written post-timeline rewrite). Contrary to the premise these short stories are skippable within the series as a whole.

Thus far I'm pleasantly surprised, but I think it's also partly due to being a year late to the hype train-then-drop off I noticed surrounding this book last year. Rather than the romance-fantasy this was marketed as it strikes me more as a slower coming-of-age/contemporary with little wisps of magic and romance in the background.

So far I really like the twist on a more traditional gothic tale premise, but there have been more then a few tangents about eugenics that feel like they go on a bit too long... I'm not sure if this is headed in a 'Get Out' direction, but I sort of hope so purely so this isn't just an attempt at gritty filler.

If you like cotton candy sweetness rom-coms this would definitely up your alley, but the frequent 4th wall breaks feel a bit jarring by comparison.

I'm stopping for now at Chapter 16 as I need to return this to the library; intending to get back to this in the near future once my library pile is less absurd.

Roughly a third of the way in and I'm rather confused why so many are hyping this retelling up. While I like the ominous atmosphere it seems to be at the expense of... everything else? The characters feel like cardboard cut-outs, each with their own one-note brand of 'you wouldn't understand my angst' that appears to be their defining character trait. Likewise the plot just sort of treads water to be 'mysterious'.

This is on the back-burner for the time being as I've hit a wall in the audiobook and intend to wait for the physical edition to become available at my library...37 holds from now.

5 hr 30 min

1 hr 15 min

So... This book has followed roughly the same formula as 'The Great Alone' where it starts off unique and interesting, gets a little predictable, then does a hard swerve into a completely different unforshadowed topic and a rushed romance to wrap things up. In this case after running out of ideas related to the dust bowl the story randomly became all about communism.

For a book titled after a small town choir this has turned out to be 90% rushed romantic triangles, quadrangles, and shapes of every size. I think I'd have liked this better if more time had been spent building up the town or the various relationships, but the letter/journal format seems determined in avoiding descriptions. It's definitely Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society-adjacent.

While I like the writing style (more 'having a conversation with science in it' as opposed to reading from a textbook) I'm not sure this is as accessible as I was lead to believe. For example, the way the author flips back and forth while discussing different epochs/eras might be hard to follow if you don't already have at least some framework to go off of.

If feels like everything I've liked about 'Tithe' is balanced by everything I hate about 'A Song Below Water' in equal measure. The combination of valley girl dialogue and over-explaining how the magic mixes with history but doesn't actually change history really irks me. It's also one of those urban fantasies where every magic creature possible has been crammed in at every available opportunity.

While this is technically urban fantasy I like how the story leans into a soft fantasy atmosphere. The Jersey beach town setting as opposed to suburbia or a city also helps the story avoid the usual clashing themes of magic with explaining things that is really common in urban fantasy.