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Best-Laid Plans, + Stuff I Read
So, the initial honeymoon burst of enthusiasm for writing and writing stuff got knocked out at speed by an unexpected bout of very nasty cold which has had me horizontal for as much as possible of the last few days. But! I am on the mend, and while I've not done much writing, I have done a bit of reading, so I thought it might be nice to post about some of the things I've read lately.
Song of the Lioness quartet, Tamora Pierce. Having been recommended Tamora Pierce books on and off for, like, a decade, just before Christmas I finally downloaded one of them (because people were telling someone else to read it...), and promptly devoured all four Lioness books in under a week. Turns out, this is exactly the sort of thing I'd have enjoyed as a kid. I still enjoyed it as an adult, but as an adult I've got a bit more of a critical eye when it comes to things like narration style and because-of-some-plot hand-waving of events, which took me out of things a little. Not enough to stop me wanting MOAR, though - I'm about to start on the Immortals quartet (which I have only just got hold of, because apparently you can't get them on UK Kindle, so I had to buy physical copies).
The Courtesan Duchess, Joanna Shupe. Shameless, indulgent smut. Which I haven't ever really sought out, outside of fanfic. Plot: suitably ridiculous; characters: appropriately tortured and emotional; sex: weirdly concentrated at the start of the book - I guess I'm used to slow-burn fic, where the emotional agonising comes first.
Best of My Love, Susan Mallery. I was hoping for switch-your-brain-off romance, but AUGH all of the characters speak like textbooks. "I feel this so I am doing that which is making me feel the other." INCLUDING the men in the scene which is meant to be about how men don't talk about how they feel! (Read it all anyway. But, yeah.)
Running on Air, eleventy7 (Draco/Harry fic) (reread). (I have accidentally become a fan of Drarry fic, oh dear.) This, friends, is beautifully written. It feels like an artsy film student project, all lingering shots of overly-golden wheat fields and white lines flicking past on the tarmac. And it was lovely, even on a second reading while I was ill.
Stay: A Novel, Allie Larkin (reread). One part "ugh I'm ill what else is on my Kindle", one part "hey I'm halfway through rereading this", one part "wow, Best of My Love was bad, let's remember what an enjoyable romance looks like". I like this one. I recommend it.
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen. I'd actually never read this until this week! While ill and flicking through Netflix, I came across the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies film (I have read the P&P&Z book, which I guess is almost like reading P&P...) and decided to fill some time with it. I then got really annoyed at what they'd done to it, and had to go read actual P&P. (They'd tried to action it up and make the zombies the focus of the plot - but in the P&P&Z book I'm pretty sure the zombies are just wallpaper for, well, P&P. Much better.) I'm glad I didn't have to study P&P at school, because I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it then (I was too busy being aggressively anti-femme, which included anti-romance in any and all forms), but I very much enjoyed reading it now. I really want to rewatch the Keira Knightly film, which I sort of saw when it came out, but didn't pay proper attention because I was too sugared-up/determined to dislike it/busy going to the bathroom because of all the Coke I'd drunk. Sadly, Netflix only has the BBC miniseries, and I don't think I can face watching something with Colin Firth as the male romantic lead. (I suspect I am a generation too young to have appreciated Colin Firth as a romantic lead. Or maybe not. Maybe I just don't really like his face. It's probably because I hate Love Actually. Sorry, Colin.)
(This list is weirdly romance-heavy. Apparently it's been that kind of January. All the serious sci-fi books I haven't read are sat on my bookshelf looking very left out.)
Song of the Lioness quartet, Tamora Pierce. Having been recommended Tamora Pierce books on and off for, like, a decade, just before Christmas I finally downloaded one of them (because people were telling someone else to read it...), and promptly devoured all four Lioness books in under a week. Turns out, this is exactly the sort of thing I'd have enjoyed as a kid. I still enjoyed it as an adult, but as an adult I've got a bit more of a critical eye when it comes to things like narration style and because-of-some-plot hand-waving of events, which took me out of things a little. Not enough to stop me wanting MOAR, though - I'm about to start on the Immortals quartet (which I have only just got hold of, because apparently you can't get them on UK Kindle, so I had to buy physical copies).
The Courtesan Duchess, Joanna Shupe. Shameless, indulgent smut. Which I haven't ever really sought out, outside of fanfic. Plot: suitably ridiculous; characters: appropriately tortured and emotional; sex: weirdly concentrated at the start of the book - I guess I'm used to slow-burn fic, where the emotional agonising comes first.
Best of My Love, Susan Mallery. I was hoping for switch-your-brain-off romance, but AUGH all of the characters speak like textbooks. "I feel this so I am doing that which is making me feel the other." INCLUDING the men in the scene which is meant to be about how men don't talk about how they feel! (Read it all anyway. But, yeah.)
Running on Air, eleventy7 (Draco/Harry fic) (reread). (I have accidentally become a fan of Drarry fic, oh dear.) This, friends, is beautifully written. It feels like an artsy film student project, all lingering shots of overly-golden wheat fields and white lines flicking past on the tarmac. And it was lovely, even on a second reading while I was ill.
Stay: A Novel, Allie Larkin (reread). One part "ugh I'm ill what else is on my Kindle", one part "hey I'm halfway through rereading this", one part "wow, Best of My Love was bad, let's remember what an enjoyable romance looks like". I like this one. I recommend it.
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen. I'd actually never read this until this week! While ill and flicking through Netflix, I came across the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies film (I have read the P&P&Z book, which I guess is almost like reading P&P...) and decided to fill some time with it. I then got really annoyed at what they'd done to it, and had to go read actual P&P. (They'd tried to action it up and make the zombies the focus of the plot - but in the P&P&Z book I'm pretty sure the zombies are just wallpaper for, well, P&P. Much better.) I'm glad I didn't have to study P&P at school, because I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it then (I was too busy being aggressively anti-femme, which included anti-romance in any and all forms), but I very much enjoyed reading it now. I really want to rewatch the Keira Knightly film, which I sort of saw when it came out, but didn't pay proper attention because I was too sugared-up/determined to dislike it/busy going to the bathroom because of all the Coke I'd drunk. Sadly, Netflix only has the BBC miniseries, and I don't think I can face watching something with Colin Firth as the male romantic lead. (I suspect I am a generation too young to have appreciated Colin Firth as a romantic lead. Or maybe not. Maybe I just don't really like his face. It's probably because I hate Love Actually. Sorry, Colin.)
(This list is weirdly romance-heavy. Apparently it's been that kind of January. All the serious sci-fi books I haven't read are sat on my bookshelf looking very left out.)
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