Hello! Today, I hit the mark of having read eight books out of my seventy-five book goal for the year, which doesn't sound all that impressive, but, since it put me over being ten percent towards my goal, I was fairly excited. For the time being, though, that information isn't very relevant.
A few minutes ago, I finished reading Lady Audley's Secret, an 1862 novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Like most of what I read is, it was an impulse download for my Kindle from which I had very little idea of what to expect. In this case, however, I was not disappointed at all. Despite the fact that Lady Audley's Secret seems at times to be way too long, with passages of household descriptions that seem to drag on for pages and pages and enough unnecessary plot twists to fuel a daytime soap opera for months, it's one of the most entertaining books I've read for ages. I'm not sure that anyone would have put it quite this way in the 1860s, but basically, the novel is about a rich slacker who becomes obsessed with his best friend's disappearance and tries to prove that his uncle's spoiled and much younger new wife, the titular Lady Audley, had something to do with it. This very well could have made for a boring book, but I think that what makes Lady Audley's Secret so fun is that it seems to be insane trash. It's full of blackmail, murder, bizarre lies that take hundreds of pages to unravel, secret keeping maids and their drunk husband-cousins (which I realize was acceptable at the time, no matter how weird it seems now), and a lot of snobbery about French novels. It does take a while to get through, but it almost never gets boring. When it does start to drag, however, it's never long before some strange and nearly inexplicable plot twist comes along to break up the monotony.
Because Lady Audley's Secret is from 1862, it is in the public domain and can be easily found as a free ebook. I read the edition available from Amazon.com, since it was convenient to download, but it is also available at Project Gutenberg, where it can be found alongside piles of other novels by Mary Elizabeth Braddon.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
2/6/2013- The Lady Astronomer by Katy O'Dowd
Hello! It's been a while since I've posted here- exactly three finished books- so I feel like I need to do at least one catch up post! Two of the three books I read were Spice and Wolf volumes 5 and 6, a pair of Japanese novels translated into English and set right in the middle of a series, so, for fear of slipping and typing up paragraphs and paragraphs of spoilers, those, for now, are not getting their own posts. They were both very entertaining, though, and I can't wait to read the seventh volume!
For today, my post is about The Lady Astronomer by Katy O'Dowd, which is another book I downloaded on a whim when it was free on Amazon.com. (Currently, it costs $2.99, which also isn't too steep.) It had pretty good reader reviews on the site, but, as it is with most of the books I download when they're free, I really didn't know what to expect from it. I did know it was a steampunk novel, since that was written all over the reviews, and no one was complaining about the spelling or grammar, so that was enough for me.
What I got from The Lady Astronomer was a book that I'd have no problems recommending to a junior high girl that wasn't put off by magic or robots in her reading. It's cute and cheerful, with really cool mechanical stuff littering every chapter and characters that are quite likable. I did think that, at the start, things seemed a little disjointed, with chapters leaving off and picking up at places that seemed slightly random, and the romantic elements that kick in about halfway through seemed forced, like more of an unnecessary subplot than anything else. Once Lucretia, the leading lady, has to go on a trip on her own, I felt like her leaving the supporting cast behind really got the story to pick up, giving it more focus and suspense than the first half of the book had. Still, as a whole, I thought that reading The Lady Astronomer was enjoyable, even if I wasn't exactly the target audience. It reminded me of something that I would have gotten as a surprise from a book order flier when I was in school, and I can easily imagine it being in one of those now.
For today, my post is about The Lady Astronomer by Katy O'Dowd, which is another book I downloaded on a whim when it was free on Amazon.com. (Currently, it costs $2.99, which also isn't too steep.) It had pretty good reader reviews on the site, but, as it is with most of the books I download when they're free, I really didn't know what to expect from it. I did know it was a steampunk novel, since that was written all over the reviews, and no one was complaining about the spelling or grammar, so that was enough for me.
What I got from The Lady Astronomer was a book that I'd have no problems recommending to a junior high girl that wasn't put off by magic or robots in her reading. It's cute and cheerful, with really cool mechanical stuff littering every chapter and characters that are quite likable. I did think that, at the start, things seemed a little disjointed, with chapters leaving off and picking up at places that seemed slightly random, and the romantic elements that kick in about halfway through seemed forced, like more of an unnecessary subplot than anything else. Once Lucretia, the leading lady, has to go on a trip on her own, I felt like her leaving the supporting cast behind really got the story to pick up, giving it more focus and suspense than the first half of the book had. Still, as a whole, I thought that reading The Lady Astronomer was enjoyable, even if I wasn't exactly the target audience. It reminded me of something that I would have gotten as a surprise from a book order flier when I was in school, and I can easily imagine it being in one of those now.
Friday, January 25, 2013
1/25/2013- The Missing Link by Bryan Pedas and Brandon Meyers
Hello! I'm on my second of two days of subbing for high school and junior high band, which has been a lot less traumatic than I initially expected. That really has nothing to do with my post for today, though, as I just finished reading another book, called The Missing Link, by Bryan Pedas and Brandon Meyers. I have a habit of downloading free eBooks from Amazon.com and loading my Kindle with them before I forgot what it is that I downloaded and when I did it. Because of that, I cannot say with any certainty when it was that this book was free. Currently, though, it's $2.99, which also isn't a bad price.
It would take me ages to explain what goes on in The Missing Link, but to be overly simplistic about the whole thing, it's a novel split three ways between a bizarre takeoff on Alice in Wonderland, a pair of misfits road story, and a bunch of homeless people doing some post-apocalyptic demon fighting, all in the face of a worldwide Internet outage. I thought that it went on for way too long, with the chapters set in downtown Chicago occasionally feeling out of place, and at times, I suspect that four-letter words and bizarre comparative language that couldn't be comfortably quoted in polite company were being thrown around just for the sake of their presence. What The Missing Link did have going for it, however, is that it wasn't at all boring and constantly seemed creative. I can't say that I'd recommend it to everyone, and it won't end up on my all-time favorite books list, but it was interesting and, for quite a bit of it, entertaining. It also had several parts that I get the feeling will be very memorable, particularly the next time that my PC's virus protection decides that a game I've been playing for years has suddenly decided to launch the world's most ineffective attack on my computer.
If you have a solid attention span, spend a lot of time online, and aren't easily offended, The Missing Link might be worth checking out. Otherwise, you may want to find a book that's not tailored to such a wildly specific audience.
It would take me ages to explain what goes on in The Missing Link, but to be overly simplistic about the whole thing, it's a novel split three ways between a bizarre takeoff on Alice in Wonderland, a pair of misfits road story, and a bunch of homeless people doing some post-apocalyptic demon fighting, all in the face of a worldwide Internet outage. I thought that it went on for way too long, with the chapters set in downtown Chicago occasionally feeling out of place, and at times, I suspect that four-letter words and bizarre comparative language that couldn't be comfortably quoted in polite company were being thrown around just for the sake of their presence. What The Missing Link did have going for it, however, is that it wasn't at all boring and constantly seemed creative. I can't say that I'd recommend it to everyone, and it won't end up on my all-time favorite books list, but it was interesting and, for quite a bit of it, entertaining. It also had several parts that I get the feeling will be very memorable, particularly the next time that my PC's virus protection decides that a game I've been playing for years has suddenly decided to launch the world's most ineffective attack on my computer.
If you have a solid attention span, spend a lot of time online, and aren't easily offended, The Missing Link might be worth checking out. Otherwise, you may want to find a book that's not tailored to such a wildly specific audience.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
1/23/2013- The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Hello, again! I realize that I just posted here earlier today, but, after a few more hours of uneventful library work, I finished reading The Castle of Otranto, which was written by Horace Walpole. Though I had a better idea what to expect from this novel than I had from Revenge!, thanks to a recommendation from the author of decay-proof record scroll, (who I've known by so many user names that I'm not sure which to use here) after I'd been talking about The Mysteries of Udolpho on Twitter, I really didn't think that it would be as entertaining or quick to read as it was. Though, as late 18th century Gothic novels, they're usually mentioned in conjunction with each other, The Mysteries of Udolpho is an incredibly long and plodding novel about a bunch of people who make bad decisions for hundreds of pages on end, while The Castle of Otranto is the sort of book that begins with someone being crushed to death by a giant helmet and is finished two and a half hours later. It was written over 200 years ago, so the language in The Castle of Otranto may seem dated to some, but in actuality, the plot moves so quickly, and with such bizarre supernatural soap opera plot points, that the dated language isn't noticeable at all.
The Castle of Otranto is the sort of book that, if you're in the mood for something ridiculous and aren't put off by older books, is very easy to recommend. The last time that I checked, it was not available as an eBook from Amazon, which seemed sort of weird to me, but a very nicely formatted and typo-free one is available from Project Gutenberg.
The Castle of Otranto is the sort of book that, if you're in the mood for something ridiculous and aren't put off by older books, is very easy to recommend. The last time that I checked, it was not available as an eBook from Amazon, which seemed sort of weird to me, but a very nicely formatted and typo-free one is available from Project Gutenberg.
1/23/2013- Revenge! by Robert Barr
Hello! It's been a while since I posted here, since I haven't read as much as I should have lately, but, as I'm a substitute teacher in a high school library today, I just finished reading a book! Today's book was Revenge! by Robert Barr, which I knew absolutely nothing about before I began reading it. A few months ago, though, I was impressed by the general loopiness of one of his other books, Jennie Baxter: Journalist, so I didn't see why this wouldn't be worth trying to get through.
Rather than being a more traditional novel, Revenge! is a collection of twenty short stories, which makes it really convenient for placement on an e-reader. None of the stories are terribly long, and since, as you may have guessed from the title, most of them focus on the subject of revenge, there's plenty that happens in each of them. I have to admit that I wasn't very impressed by the two Westerns in the middle of the book, but that's more because I don't like Westerns very well than it is because they were poorly written. If someone is really into cowboys shooting at each other, I'd imagine that they'd be just as bored by the cheerful and cute romantic comedies that are also included in the book, with which I was happier.
Revenge! isn't a perfect book, especially if you, like I did, plan to sit and read all twenty of the stories right in a row. By the last few stories, the stacks of bodies and ruined careers, along with the carefully crafted plans that lead to them, start to get a little boring, but there's just enough humor and stories that stray from the darker parts of the theme to keep it from getting unreadable. Not all of the stories are that memorable, either, but they are good enough to hold your attention as you're reading them.
If you'd like to read Revenge!, it is downloadable as a free eBook both from Amazon.com and the more charitable Project Gutenberg, as are several of Robert Barr's other books.
With this post almost finished, I think that I'm going to try to post here more often, with a post for every book I read rather than one for every four or five of them. Because of that, the posts will be shorter, but hopefully, they'll be a little less irritating to read and to write, too.
Rather than being a more traditional novel, Revenge! is a collection of twenty short stories, which makes it really convenient for placement on an e-reader. None of the stories are terribly long, and since, as you may have guessed from the title, most of them focus on the subject of revenge, there's plenty that happens in each of them. I have to admit that I wasn't very impressed by the two Westerns in the middle of the book, but that's more because I don't like Westerns very well than it is because they were poorly written. If someone is really into cowboys shooting at each other, I'd imagine that they'd be just as bored by the cheerful and cute romantic comedies that are also included in the book, with which I was happier.
Revenge! isn't a perfect book, especially if you, like I did, plan to sit and read all twenty of the stories right in a row. By the last few stories, the stacks of bodies and ruined careers, along with the carefully crafted plans that lead to them, start to get a little boring, but there's just enough humor and stories that stray from the darker parts of the theme to keep it from getting unreadable. Not all of the stories are that memorable, either, but they are good enough to hold your attention as you're reading them.
If you'd like to read Revenge!, it is downloadable as a free eBook both from Amazon.com and the more charitable Project Gutenberg, as are several of Robert Barr's other books.
With this post almost finished, I think that I'm going to try to post here more often, with a post for every book I read rather than one for every four or five of them. Because of that, the posts will be shorter, but hopefully, they'll be a little less irritating to read and to write, too.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
An Attempt at the 2013 Sub-Genre Reading Challenge
Hello! I haven't done too much with this blog yet, other than type into the wild spaces of the internet, but I thought that it might be fun to try some reading challenges for next year! I am not totally sure how to effectively find them, but I saw one on drifting drifting..., a blog kept by fellow cross stitcher Star, and figured that it would be as good a place to start as anywhere. The challenge, hosted by Gina at the nifty looking blog Book Dragon's Lair, is called the 2013 Sub-Genre Reading Challenge! In it, you read two or three books each from a relatively basic list of genres, depending on how ambitious you feel, and and then make sure that each book from those aforementioned genres fits in a different sub-genre. I'm not sure that I'll be able to categorize everything properly as I'm going, but it sounds like it could be fun, so I'm going to try it, and go for the three-book-per-genre level of the challenge, too! Plus, it starts today rather than on January 1st, so if I can figure out where The Mysteries of Udolpho, which I'm currently about a third of the way through, would be categorized, I have a decent head-start on the challenge.
If you'd like more information on the 2013 Sub-Genre Reading Challenge, you can find it in this post from Book Dragon's Lair. I'm really hoping to pass it, since it's only 15 books, so I wish everyone else participating good luck, too! If I can find four more interesting challenges like this before the end of the month, I think that I may be more than set in terms of reading goals for next year.
If you'd like more information on the 2013 Sub-Genre Reading Challenge, you can find it in this post from Book Dragon's Lair. I'm really hoping to pass it, since it's only 15 books, so I wish everyone else participating good luck, too! If I can find four more interesting challenges like this before the end of the month, I think that I may be more than set in terms of reading goals for next year.
Monday, November 12, 2012
A Catch-Up Post for My Recent Reading
Hello! I have been remiss in posting here lately, so this is a little bit of a catch-up post. Since the last time that I posted here, I have been subbing a lot and reading a lot, so I have seven novels and novellas to write about. Because of the sheer amount of books I have to cover, I won't be writing all that much about any of them, but regardless of that, it should be a fairly long post.
Sakuri
Jacob Henzel
This was a book that I found for free on Amazon.com, though I think that it was a special offer that day, and then proceeded to read five or six months later. Though I haven't read any since starting this blog, I really like reading light novels, or usually fluffy Japanese novels that have four or five manga-style illustrations and sometimes get turned into anime. However, none of those have been quite as much like an anime as this Western novel was. To be fair, the sort of anime it resembles is an early to mid-90s hour long OAV, like they'd run on Friday nights on the Action Channel, right down to the quirky characters, gratuituous technobabble, bizarre sci-fi set pieces, and somewhat rushed ending with an odd and vaguely preachy last minute twist, but things could certainly be worse than that. Much like those OAVs, I can't say that this is one of the finest pieces of literature that I've read in my life, and I'm not sure that I'd recommend it to friends who weren't into that sort of anime, either. If Sakuri sounds like it would be up your alley, though, and you can get past a few typos in the Kindle edition, it's an entertaining novel.
The Vampyre: A Tale
John William Polidori
As I'm sitting here and trying to remember all of the stuff that I've read for the past couple of weeks, I am having a lot more trouble remembering this 19th century vampire novella than I am remembering the contemporary homage to sci-fi anime, which I don't think speaks well for the author, who happened to be Lord Byron's doctor. It isn't a bad story, really, but compared to a lot of other vampire stories, even from the 1800s, it's a little boring. It's still worth reading if you're interested in that sort of thing. Since it was the first story of its sort, it has some historical significance, and it's short enough that even if you do get a little bored, you'll be done with it soon. Plus, the foreword and afterword on the Project Gutenberg text of this, which are trying to convince the reader that Lord Byron probably isn't as awful as they've heard he is, are pretty interesting.
Monsters: A Bloody Love Story
S.M. Reine
This was a novella that I found for free on Amazon.com, and my second piece of Halloween reading. I think that the subtitle's classification of it as a love story may be misleading, since, despite the two leads having something of a romantic connection, it's more of an incredibly bloody action story. I certainly don't have any problem with that, and had read that it wasn't a mushy romance or anything of the sort in the largely positive on-site reviews, but I'm not entirely sure that it's a good thing to finish a book and be reminded more of Daybreakers than anything else in pop culture. Still, if you want to read a vampire story with a tough heroine and a vividly described de-gutting, I can't think of anything else that would fit that description.
Flash Gold: A Steampunk Novella
Lindsey Buroker
Like a lot of the other stuff I've been talking about today, this was a free novella that I'd downloaded from Amazon.com. I downloaded it the day that I bought my Kindle and, out of some inexplicable suspicion of free contemporary novels, didn't read it until just the other day. Since I'm not an expert on steampunk literature, I can't really compare Flash Gold to any other examples of the genre, but I can definitely say that it's the most charming novella that I've ever read in which a character has a bag of disembodied heads. It was interesting enough to make me want to read the rest of the series, which I suppose is the best thing that a free book can do, and, if you're also interested in reading it, it was still available for free as of last week.
Doctor Who: The Angel's Kiss
Justin Richards
When I'm doing a reading catch-up post on a blog and the most specifically targeted novel that I'm writing about is not the homage to 90s sci-fi anime, I feel like there may be a problem with my reading choices. Doctor Who: The Angel's Kiss is a fake pulp novel prequel to a book that the Doctor was reading in one episode of Doctor Who, starring a character from the show under a psudonym as she battles enemies from the show that the book never takes the time to explain. If you just read that description and thought, "Oooh, is that a book about River Song fighting the weeping angels?" and don't mind that it takes less than an hour to read, then my recommendation does not matter and you'll probably go and buy it anyway. If you are not a fan of Doctor Who, however, I don't see how this book would make any sense at all. At times, it's very good at emulating the style of pulp novels, and at the very least, it's not boring, but I can't say that I liked it all that much. I read the Kindle edition of this novel, available from Amazon.com.
Zaregoto: The Kubikiri Cycle
Ishin Nishio
Earlier in this post, I mentioned that I was a fan of light novels, which don't get translated into English and sold in stores that often, so when I see them for sale cheaply, I tend to buy and stockpile them, since it's a lot more practical to spend five dollars on a book to get my dork fix than it would be to pay 30 dollars for an anime DVD. Zaregoto: The Kubikiri Cycle was one of those impulse buys, and after my negative experiences with the Book Girl series, I didn't expect much from it. The first three-fourths of the novel, however, were very entertaining, and though the central murder mystery didn't seem to make much sense at all, it moved quickly, seemed to be well-translated, and was full of characters that were likable, interesting or both. In the last fourth of the book, however, things really seemed to stumble. The ending did not really make the murder mystery make a lot more sense, but the explanation of it and the detail that it goes into would make Sherlock Holmes walk into a room, smack the protagonist in the face, and tell him to get on with it so that the readers could get on with their lives. As if it weren't already plodding enough, the initial explanation of what happened is then followed by a second explanation of more stuff that happened and why everything in the first explanation was incorrect. At that point, I almost threw my copy of the book across the library I was sitting in and smacked my head against the desk. Zaregoto: The Kubikiri Cycle isn't a bad book, really, and I'm at least curious about the second novel in the series, but I have never read something that grinds itself to a complete halt quite like this does.
Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings
Annie Hamilton
In a case of complete whiplash, I followed all of the contemporary and not quite critically lauded sci-fi that I'd been reading with a 1916 romantic comedy, though I can't say that the writing quality of Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings was any better or worse than what I'd been reading before it. It does have some entertaining parts, and the lead couple in the novel, which is not a spoiler because it would be nearly impossible to read this and not expect them to get together, fits together very well. The fact that it is sugary enough to make you vomit and unapologetically decisive about what a woman's place is, however, right down to one character complaining that all modern women think about is trying to get their right to vote, makes it very difficult to recommend. If you would like to read it, though, I found it on Project Gutenberg.
I've finally caught up on writing about what I've read here, so I'm done posting for now! Currently, I'm in the middle of reading Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance Into the World by Fanny Burney, so I'll probably write about that in the next few days. So far, it's very enjoyable, but in an 18th century novel, I never can tell what could happen to needlessly infuriate me and cause me to spend several paragraphs of text complaining about it.
Sakuri
Jacob Henzel
This was a book that I found for free on Amazon.com, though I think that it was a special offer that day, and then proceeded to read five or six months later. Though I haven't read any since starting this blog, I really like reading light novels, or usually fluffy Japanese novels that have four or five manga-style illustrations and sometimes get turned into anime. However, none of those have been quite as much like an anime as this Western novel was. To be fair, the sort of anime it resembles is an early to mid-90s hour long OAV, like they'd run on Friday nights on the Action Channel, right down to the quirky characters, gratuituous technobabble, bizarre sci-fi set pieces, and somewhat rushed ending with an odd and vaguely preachy last minute twist, but things could certainly be worse than that. Much like those OAVs, I can't say that this is one of the finest pieces of literature that I've read in my life, and I'm not sure that I'd recommend it to friends who weren't into that sort of anime, either. If Sakuri sounds like it would be up your alley, though, and you can get past a few typos in the Kindle edition, it's an entertaining novel.
The Vampyre: A Tale
John William Polidori
As I'm sitting here and trying to remember all of the stuff that I've read for the past couple of weeks, I am having a lot more trouble remembering this 19th century vampire novella than I am remembering the contemporary homage to sci-fi anime, which I don't think speaks well for the author, who happened to be Lord Byron's doctor. It isn't a bad story, really, but compared to a lot of other vampire stories, even from the 1800s, it's a little boring. It's still worth reading if you're interested in that sort of thing. Since it was the first story of its sort, it has some historical significance, and it's short enough that even if you do get a little bored, you'll be done with it soon. Plus, the foreword and afterword on the Project Gutenberg text of this, which are trying to convince the reader that Lord Byron probably isn't as awful as they've heard he is, are pretty interesting.
Monsters: A Bloody Love Story
S.M. Reine
This was a novella that I found for free on Amazon.com, and my second piece of Halloween reading. I think that the subtitle's classification of it as a love story may be misleading, since, despite the two leads having something of a romantic connection, it's more of an incredibly bloody action story. I certainly don't have any problem with that, and had read that it wasn't a mushy romance or anything of the sort in the largely positive on-site reviews, but I'm not entirely sure that it's a good thing to finish a book and be reminded more of Daybreakers than anything else in pop culture. Still, if you want to read a vampire story with a tough heroine and a vividly described de-gutting, I can't think of anything else that would fit that description.
Flash Gold: A Steampunk Novella
Lindsey Buroker
Like a lot of the other stuff I've been talking about today, this was a free novella that I'd downloaded from Amazon.com. I downloaded it the day that I bought my Kindle and, out of some inexplicable suspicion of free contemporary novels, didn't read it until just the other day. Since I'm not an expert on steampunk literature, I can't really compare Flash Gold to any other examples of the genre, but I can definitely say that it's the most charming novella that I've ever read in which a character has a bag of disembodied heads. It was interesting enough to make me want to read the rest of the series, which I suppose is the best thing that a free book can do, and, if you're also interested in reading it, it was still available for free as of last week.
Doctor Who: The Angel's Kiss
Justin Richards
When I'm doing a reading catch-up post on a blog and the most specifically targeted novel that I'm writing about is not the homage to 90s sci-fi anime, I feel like there may be a problem with my reading choices. Doctor Who: The Angel's Kiss is a fake pulp novel prequel to a book that the Doctor was reading in one episode of Doctor Who, starring a character from the show under a psudonym as she battles enemies from the show that the book never takes the time to explain. If you just read that description and thought, "Oooh, is that a book about River Song fighting the weeping angels?" and don't mind that it takes less than an hour to read, then my recommendation does not matter and you'll probably go and buy it anyway. If you are not a fan of Doctor Who, however, I don't see how this book would make any sense at all. At times, it's very good at emulating the style of pulp novels, and at the very least, it's not boring, but I can't say that I liked it all that much. I read the Kindle edition of this novel, available from Amazon.com.
Zaregoto: The Kubikiri Cycle
Ishin Nishio
Earlier in this post, I mentioned that I was a fan of light novels, which don't get translated into English and sold in stores that often, so when I see them for sale cheaply, I tend to buy and stockpile them, since it's a lot more practical to spend five dollars on a book to get my dork fix than it would be to pay 30 dollars for an anime DVD. Zaregoto: The Kubikiri Cycle was one of those impulse buys, and after my negative experiences with the Book Girl series, I didn't expect much from it. The first three-fourths of the novel, however, were very entertaining, and though the central murder mystery didn't seem to make much sense at all, it moved quickly, seemed to be well-translated, and was full of characters that were likable, interesting or both. In the last fourth of the book, however, things really seemed to stumble. The ending did not really make the murder mystery make a lot more sense, but the explanation of it and the detail that it goes into would make Sherlock Holmes walk into a room, smack the protagonist in the face, and tell him to get on with it so that the readers could get on with their lives. As if it weren't already plodding enough, the initial explanation of what happened is then followed by a second explanation of more stuff that happened and why everything in the first explanation was incorrect. At that point, I almost threw my copy of the book across the library I was sitting in and smacked my head against the desk. Zaregoto: The Kubikiri Cycle isn't a bad book, really, and I'm at least curious about the second novel in the series, but I have never read something that grinds itself to a complete halt quite like this does.
Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings
Annie Hamilton
In a case of complete whiplash, I followed all of the contemporary and not quite critically lauded sci-fi that I'd been reading with a 1916 romantic comedy, though I can't say that the writing quality of Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings was any better or worse than what I'd been reading before it. It does have some entertaining parts, and the lead couple in the novel, which is not a spoiler because it would be nearly impossible to read this and not expect them to get together, fits together very well. The fact that it is sugary enough to make you vomit and unapologetically decisive about what a woman's place is, however, right down to one character complaining that all modern women think about is trying to get their right to vote, makes it very difficult to recommend. If you would like to read it, though, I found it on Project Gutenberg.
I've finally caught up on writing about what I've read here, so I'm done posting for now! Currently, I'm in the middle of reading Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance Into the World by Fanny Burney, so I'll probably write about that in the next few days. So far, it's very enjoyable, but in an 18th century novel, I never can tell what could happen to needlessly infuriate me and cause me to spend several paragraphs of text complaining about it.
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