Set the Goal Low and Miss It!

I'm not sure what I was doing last weekend when I meant to update this blog. Probably sleeping. I seem to be doing a lot of that, just not in the night time. Hmm.

Anyway, we celebrated my sister's birthday with lasagna and cake! And prezzies! Now we are twins for several weeks, until I age up again. Also I went to several book clubs and had a very nice time -- the local library group discussed In Five Years (almost everyone disliked it, but I was in the corner that thought it was fine), and two groups organized through SF conventions discussed Hild and The Lathe of Heaven, respectively. Lots of interesting thoughts on those!

Um, I think I planned stuff and it got cooked? Oh yeah, that delicious lasagna! Also some steak and goat cheese quesadillas, and probably other stuff. Very few trips to the gym, although my excuses muscles are getting quite a workout! 

Next week I'm off on vacation, so I'll probably skip again. Maybe I'll take a picture of something!

 

Winners are out! I approve. 

I'm still at 3 pages of currently-reading on goodreads. I'm down to 36 physical books checked out which includes some picture books and then there are (mumble) some ebooks. 

I will be posting at The Bookdate's It's Monday, What Are You Reading headquarters as well as the kidlit version at Unleashing Readers. 

Completed

Ascendance of a Bookworm, Part 5, Vol 7, Miya Kazuki. OK, the path to a romantic endgame is clear, except for the mortal peril of the dude, and Rosemyne is getting to be ruthless as she organizes the rescue. Let's see what happens! And if it involves any new books...

Winter's Orbit, Everina Maxwell. Reading this while comparing it to the original was interesting. Turns out a lot of the differences were really just having to read it slowly, as the chapters dropped. I see how the SF worldbuilding went through some discussions. 

Farther Than the Moon, Lindsay Lackey. 2023 Cybils Middle Grade Fiction finalist. I was distracted from the character growth by the incredibly awesome space camp, and later by the mom not getting lost in Houston after having been away for over a decade. Maybe the south bit hasn't changed as much? Anyway, great family stuff, fun kids-at-camp stuff, and I enjoyed seeing how families cope with differences, even rather severe disabilities. Or don't cope, in some cases. 

Greenwild: The World Behind the Door, Pari Thomson. Nominated for Cybils. I really enjoyed the protagonist, her introduction to the portal world, and the friendships she makes and the mysteries they wrinkle out together. The other adults were just clueless enough that they were supportive but left the main work to be done by the kids. 

Resurgence, C.J. Cherryh. This was fun and I enjoyed watching the young lord adjust to new maturity and Bren try to catch up with what the heck is going on, but it also felt like a lot of set-up that I expect to pay off very pleasingly in the next one, which I hope to read soon. 

In Five Years, Rebecca Serle. Renton River book club pick. It was interesting how little most of the members liked this one, because it defied their expectations. To be fair, it fooled the library -- it's clearly marked ROM but it's definitely not a romance; in fact the main romance arc is how to figure out when a relationship isn't working. But as a book about friendship and about understanding what we can control it works better.

Bold Spirit, Linda Laurence Hunt. This is both an interesting story of a woman's experience and an overview of the expectations and constraints on women in the late 1800s in America. It is also an examination of what kind of freedom wealth can provide and what are the costs of poverty. 

Simon Sort of Says, Erin Bow. 2023 Cybils finalists (and winner!). Really good! Simon and his family move to a town without internet in the hope of dodging the notoriety that came with being the survivor of a traumatic incident, which is not helping with the recovery from the trauma. There are lots of quirky bits -- the mom is a funeral director, the dad a deacon at an oversized local Catholic church, and the friends he makes have their own stuff going on. And Simon even before the incident tended to just go with the flow, never really saying yes or no, and his development is integral to his character as well as shaped by trauma. 

One in Vermillion, Jennifer Crusie & Bob Meyer. What a great way to stick the landing. I was super pleased with how all the character arcs resolved and with the journey to get there. The action plot was a bit weaker, but still worked and the ways it tied in the character arcs strengthened both. 

Windswept, Adam Rakunas. I see why my brother liked it -- lots of competence from both the goodies and the baddies. I felt the plot circled around a few too many times, and Padma had a bit too much "everything is my responsibility" but I'm glad I came back and finished this. 

What Happened to Rachel Riley?, Claire Swinarski. 2023 Cybils finalist. A much more interior book, looking at how teen social dynamics are shaped by the adults around them, even when the adults have no idea what is going on. Also a good example of how even with adults parrating all the right things about feminism and freedom, kids are very aware of the real constraints and expectations society is showing them. And yet it's also about missing an old neighborhood and a grandmother and learning to stay friends with an older sister and how to make friends without giving away the pieces of yourself you value.  

Started

Definitely a normal amount.  

Ascendance of a Bookworm, Part 5 Volume 8, Miya Kazuki. Ah, there it was, waiting for me. Obviously I've preordered volume 9. Now to make this last...

Simon Sort of Says, Erin Bow.  2023 Cybils finalist. Cybils winner!

One in Vermillion, Jennifer Crusie & Bob Meyer. I hope this lives up to the first two!

What Happened to Rachel Riley?, Claire Swinarski. 2023 Cybils finalist.

Picture Books & Short Stories

Kevin Goes to the Hospital, Liesbet Slegers. A very education-oriented story to demonstrate how hospitals are fun places to go, and also that playing in the backyard is likely to cause concussion. Parents should squint at their children to decide which lesson they will pick up on before launching into the story.

The Skull, Jon Klassen. A lovely retelling of a folk tale that improves greatly on the original. Lots of humor and heroism from the girl and the skull.

Stormy, Guojing. I ordered up all the Guojing I could find and they are all wordless and lovely. Highly recommended for reading with kids who like to talk.

The Snowman, Raymond Briggs. Another wordless picture book; I recognize this one as a book John Scalzi blogged about as breaking his suspension of disbelief when the snowman flew into the sky. Fair enough. I got it from the podcast Even the Trunchbull so it was a fun case of different worlds colliding. 

The Only Child, Guojing. I do not recommend this one to Scalzi; the stag flies. This was lovely and luminous and would be terrifying to read as a parent. 

Doggo and Pupper Search For Cosy, Katherine Applegate. I got this because "doggo" and "pupper" are great to say, but it turns out it was a Cybils Finalist this year! Woot! Whenever I finish making my tracking post I'll be able to mark another one done. Also, I really appreciated the page on the cat's preferred sleeping place: people's feet: too hard. People's middle: too soft. People's heads: just right!

Why?, Nikolai Popov. Well kids, people are terrible and that's why we can't have nice things. We don't need words to express that!

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Ascendance of a Bookworm, Miya Kazuki. Abandoning my reread of Part 3 now since the new one just dropped. I'll get back to it, don't worry!

Cobra, Timothy Zahn. I keep thinking it's done, but then there's another spurt. Into another action scene!

Hild, Nicola Griffith. Foolscap pick. Time to stop savoring and start sprinting through this. 

Jesus and John Wayne, Kristin Kobes DuMez. I'm not sure Christ really believed in "hitting them first and really hard" as a philosophy. 

Outskirter's Secret, Rosemary Kirstein. So many details!

Devil's Cub, Georgette Heyer. For Torches and Pitchforks club, free topic: Red Flags in Relationships. Well, he's leaving a rather large body count in his wake, what with the bandits and the dueling. 

The Olympian Affair, Jim Butcher. For my Tuesday gaming book club. Smoother than his son's writing, but more predictable. 

The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula Le Guin. Audio. For Scintillation book club. I remember none of the characters or the events, but the mood is very familiar. 

Nona the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir. So far I like it!

The Wine Dark Sea, Patrick O'Brien. Don't let my brother see that I haven't finished this yet.

Palate Cleansers

I'm slowly marching through these books.

 

50 Great Poets, ed. Milton Crane (no picture).

Dragon's Breath, E.D. Baker. Instant best-buddies with a dragon! Chance to see some dragon olympics!

The Writer's Stance: Reading and Writing in the Disciplines, Dorothy U. Seyler. (no picture). 

The Road to Mars, Eric Idle. One thing I notice reading Lathe of Heaven is how old-fashioned the gender roles are, but they are the same here. I should check the date. 

The Dark Fantastic, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas. On to Hermione! I was actually very interested in her account of using Virginia Hamilton's magical realism stories as the myths of her Angelina at Hogworts, and how she got tripped up by what was acceptable borrowing in fanfiction, which I agree with her is a more complicated question than people assume. 

Year of Wonder, Clemency Burton-Hill. I'm caught up!

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2023: Working on middle grade fiction. 
2. Early Cybils:  Nothing. 
3. Reading My Library. Music CDs have been displaced by Lathe of Heaven CD. 
4. Looking at Tacoma's Monster challenge for this year. 

Future Plans

I'm putting this at the end because it's complete fiction, but I feel I should attempt some structure. Actually, I've started listing all the bookclubs I'm in, so I hope some actually happens. 

I am reading: 

• Book I own: Into the Broken Lands
• Library Book: Final Acts
• Ebook I own: The Wine Dark Sea
• Library Ebook: After Atlas
• Book Club Book: After Atlas
• Cloudy Book: River of Golden Bones, Last Tale of the Flower Bride
• Foolscap Book Club Book: Mr Penumbra's Bookstore
• Renton Book Club Book: Mad Honey 
• Scintillation Book Club Book: Knight Moves 
• Sword and Laser Club Book: Shadows of the Gods
• Torch and Pitchfork Book: Devil's Cub, Trust the Plan
• Tuesday Book Club Book: Olympian Affair, The Affair, Being Mortal
• Review Book: Back Home 
• Rereading: Outskirter's Secret
• Audio: Olympian Affair
  

Living Up to My Low Expectations

So, last week I made a meal plan and then we completely ignored it, once because we didn't notice that the meal involved several hours in a crock pot until ten minutes before dinner (oops) and once because it was book club night and that means PIZZA. But it all worked out because we made the forgotten meal on the weekend and lasagna makes great leftovers and the other meal could just roll over. Low expectations for the win!

I made it to the gym a few times, and ran part of the distance suggested by my running program. And then I made it to the park with my friend and we greatly exceeded our (low) expectations. Go me!

I read some books, and started some other books, and showed up at most of my bookclubs with most of the books read. I'm in a lot of book clubs, OK?

Oh, Alexander and I went to see Argylle, which we enjoyed a lot. It lived up to the previews and had a few twists we didn't expect and a few we did, so we were both entertained and flattered. 

Winners on Valentines Day! Finalists out now!

I'm still at 3 pages of currently-reading on goodreads. I'm up to 41 physical books checked out which includes some picture books and then there are (mumble) some ebooks. 

I will be posting at The Bookdate's It's Monday, What Are You Reading headquarters as well as the kidlit version at Unleashing Readers. 

Completed

The Shining Girls, Lauren Beukes. This did some interesting things with time loops and unreliable narrators, which made for an interesting discussion. We kept challenging each other about what had happened and what it meant. Why were the girls shining? I argued that nobody was shining -- the killer just liked killing people and they were shining because he had killed them. And that all girls have the potential to grow up to be amazing women, and in fact almost all of them do that. Was the house sentient? 

But in the end it didn't really feel like a science fiction story. No one was interested in "why," and the protagonists didn't figure out what was going on, they just got lucky. It's definitely horror though. And we agreed that the romance was kinda creepy. 

Cultish, Amanda Montell. This was a fun and interesting look at the languages used by cults and near-cult organizations, with a discussion about when they cross the line from building community to dangerous isolation. Groups tend to build their own languages, with catch phrases showing membership and a connection to each other, but when some of the phrases are used to shut down independent thinking and questioning, that's a big red flag. Montell looks at a range of organizations, from clear examples of dangerous cults (Scientology) to pyramid schemes like Amway and the frantic enthusiasm of fitness centers. 

Fox Point's Own Gemma Hopper, Brie Spangler. I enjoyed this middle grade graphic novel. Gemma had a good mix of problems -- at home, at school, with her brother, with her friend group, with her body. I liked how she navigated her height and how she and her brother would clash but also had each other's back, and how they worked out a common solution, which matched how Gemma reached an understanding with her friend even as they had different social ambitions at school. It dealt with the specifics it set up, but also addressed deeper issues of family loyalty and wounds, social anxiety, and the way sports can warp athleticism. 

Spear, Nicola Griffiths. I got this on audio from the library because I thought I had lent my copy to a friend. (Which I had, but he returned it.) Griffiths does a great job reading it, and also she knows how to pronounce all her character's names. I really liked how she played with the legend, taking some bits, upending other bits, making something fresh and new. At the book club we discussed things from who decides for a society, I mentioned how ironic it was to see a horny Percival who was still seen as innocent (a beardless boy -- forever!), what it means that without an heir the coalition is doomed, the mix of the two legends and how they worked together, and other bits. 

Gone Wolf, Amber McBride. This had strong bits among other parts that didn't really click for me. I'm a bit adverse to free verse, and the main character drops into it a lot. She also keeps apologizing for using similes like "the leaves were a blanket on the ground," carefully explaining that she knows they aren't a blanket, but that's what it feels like, which just made me mad at her caretakers for squashing her imagination while trying to help her with her delusions. Also, that's not a simile. The other problem was that the fantasy part turned out to be the story the girl is telling, which makes the heavy social commentary even more rocklike and also means we never hear the end of that story. So I was cranky. But it's got a great dog character, so if anyone is looking for a Black girl/sad dog story I can recommend this one.   

Adia Kelbara and the Circle of Shamans, Isi Hendrix. This was great! I loved the protagonist and her common sense and also terror of her own uncontrolled powers. The goddess was unpredictable and often socially clueless and really fun, the friendships were varied and let Adia work out what was important to her and what lines she couldn't cross. The ending was satisfactory and yet there's room for more, something I am delighted about. 

Started

Is this a lot? Seems like a lot. 

Cultish, Amanda Montell. Torch and Pitchfork book, kicking our our Red Flag year. 

The Shining Girls, Lauren Beukes. Sword and Laser book club. 

Spear, Nicola Griffiths. Audio. For Scintillation book club. 

Devil's Cub, Georgette Heyer. For Torches and Pitchforks club, free topic: Red Flags in Relationships.

The Olympian Affair, Jim Butcher. For my Tuesday gaming book club. 

The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula Le Guin. Audio. For Scintillation book club.

Nona the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir. This series should be something I love. But I hated the first two. I'm trying one more time. 

Greenwild: The World Behind the Door, Pari Thomson. Nominated for Cybls.

Resurgence, C.J. Cherryh. The library took this back before I was done, so I have rechecked it out. 

Picture Books & Short Stories

Dinosaur Vs Santa, Bob Shea. Reading My Library Quest: Renton Highlands Library, Children Holiday. This was fun and exciting and I would have been delighted to read it to my kids when they were small.

A Terrible Thing Happened, Margaret M. Holmes. An earnest example of bibliotherapy, which I am of the firm if untested belief works best if the initial application comes before the problem it is meant to treat. From that perspective, this also works as a general story, if a bit dull, and would work well followed by discussions of how sometimes people acting up are coming from a place of pain, and compassion towards others as well as towards ourselves is never misapplied.  

Papillon Goes to the Vet, A.N. Kang. Not primarily an attempt at bibliotherapy, this is definitely a fun book about a puffy cat who is puffy. I do not recommend this as an example of what happens at a doctor visit, but if a kid has read this before an medical emergency it might help them draw their own comparisons. And the puffy cat is very cute. And puffy. 

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Ascendance of a Bookworm, Miya Kazuki. Abandoning my reread of Part 3 now since the new one just dropped. I'll get back to it, don't worry!

Ascendance of a Bookworm, Part 5, Vol 7, Miya Kazuki. Well, the excitement is high and I'm ready to see Rosemyne kick butt in Vol 8!

Cobra, Timothy Zahn. Still at part 58. Audio books with book club deadlines have been eating into my podcast time. 

Hild, Nicola Griffith. Foolscap pick. Reading this at the same time as Spear was interesting. 

Farther Than the Moon, Lindsay Lackey. 2023 Cybils Middle Grade Fiction finalist. Lots of Houston nostalgia. 

Jesus and John Wayne, Kristin Kobes DuMez. This is not helping me have a compassionate attitude towards evangelical Christians. 

In Five Years, Rebecca Serle. Renton River book club pick. Maybe I will recommend this to my very successful friend. 

Outskirter's Secret, Rosemary Kirstein. Into the Outskirts!

Winter's Orbit, Everina Maxwell. Huh. I did not clearly remember what was in the AO3 version and what was new. 

Bold Spirit, Linda Laurence Hunt. I have ordered up the kidlit version to read when I finish. They are currently in Idaho. 

Palate Cleansers

I'm slowly marching through these books.

 

50 Great Poets, ed. Milton Crane (no picture).

Dragon's Breath, E.D. Baker.

The Writer's Stance: Reading and Writing in the Disciplines, Dorothy U. Seyler. (no picture). 

The Road to Mars, Eric Idle. I liked the mentions of Monty Python. Well played, Mr Idle. 

Windswept, Adam Rakunas. In audio I tend to forget people's names, but then the plot clues me in. But there are sure a lot of people mad at Padma. 

The Dark Fantastic, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas. Why Bonnie rarely got a boyfriend, and why no one was surprised by her sacrifice. 

Year of Wonder, Clemency Burton-Hill. Just a wee bit behind. 

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2023: Working on middle grade fiction. 
2. Early Cybils:  Nothing. 
3. Reading My Library. Music CDs have been displaced by Lathe of Heaven CD. 
4. Looking at Tacoma's Monster challenge for this year. 

Future Plans

I'm putting this at the end because it's complete fiction, but I feel I should attempt some structure. Actually, I've started listing all the bookclubs I'm in, so I hope some actually happens. 

I am reading: 

• Book I own: Into the Broken Lands
• Library Book: Final Acts
• Ebook I own: The Wine Dark Sea
• Library Ebook: One in Vermillion
• Book Club Book: After Atlas
• Cloudy Book: River of Golden Bones, Last Tale of the Flower Bride
• Foolscap Book Club Book: Hild, Mr Penumbra's Bookstore
• Renton Book Club Book: In Five Years, 
• Scintillation Book Club Book: Lathe of Heaven
• Sword and Laser Club Book: Shadows of the Gods
• Torch and Pitchfork Book: Devil's Cub, Trust the Plan
• Tuesday Book Club Book: Olympian Affair, The Affair
• Review Book: Back Home 
• Rereading: Outskirter's Secret
• Audio: Lathe of Heaven