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Reading Wednesday
Just finished: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. I don't know what to make of this, and will definitely be checking out the Wizards vs. Lesbians episode on it (not that I always agree with them, but they do raise perspectives that are interesting). I would say overall the prose and characters carried it. I got to know these people, I fell in love with them in the same way that the narrator did. It was compelling, as the kids say.
But I don't think the ended quite landed and I'm struggling to think of why. In part (and this is confirmed a little in an interview that follows the book), it's hurt a bit by the first-person narration. Bradley is telling a much bigger story than the narrator sees, and while that thankfully rescues it from being a didactic Message Book, it might have swung too far towards the other direction where I'm not exactly sure what it was trying to say. It's one of those books that straddles the literary and genre, and I tend to prefer genre in a literary style than literary fiction exploring genre.
That said, it was so relentlessly well-written that I feel like my ill-defined issues with it are kind of irrelevant because I highly enjoyed it.
Currently reading: Bad Cree by Jessica Johns. I'm almost done this one. It's almost the reverse—protagonists figuring out genre solutions to literary fiction problems. I was given a warning about this book and I'm yet to figure out why.
What Feasts At Night by T. Kingfisher. I didn't read the first novella in this series (What Moves the Dead) despite it having my favourite cover the year it came out. So it's taking some getting used to. On the plus side, the opening is suffused with so much gothic horror that I find myself turning into a young woman fleeing in a white gown across the moors, holding a candlestick.
But I don't think the ended quite landed and I'm struggling to think of why. In part (and this is confirmed a little in an interview that follows the book), it's hurt a bit by the first-person narration. Bradley is telling a much bigger story than the narrator sees, and while that thankfully rescues it from being a didactic Message Book, it might have swung too far towards the other direction where I'm not exactly sure what it was trying to say. It's one of those books that straddles the literary and genre, and I tend to prefer genre in a literary style than literary fiction exploring genre.
That said, it was so relentlessly well-written that I feel like my ill-defined issues with it are kind of irrelevant because I highly enjoyed it.
Currently reading: Bad Cree by Jessica Johns. I'm almost done this one. It's almost the reverse—protagonists figuring out genre solutions to literary fiction problems. I was given a warning about this book and I'm yet to figure out why.
What Feasts At Night by T. Kingfisher. I didn't read the first novella in this series (What Moves the Dead) despite it having my favourite cover the year it came out. So it's taking some getting used to. On the plus side, the opening is suffused with so much gothic horror that I find myself turning into a young woman fleeing in a white gown across the moors, holding a candlestick.
no subject
Do you think more was supposed to come through than actually did?
Well, I kind of love that.
I was just admiring this cover 10 seconds ago when it was being suggested to me as something I as a (new) reader of Samatar might like.
I will just leave this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF0VaBxb27w
no subject
Both books were better than they had any right to be. I mean. The number of dream sequences in Bad Cree. I should have hated that. It was instead quite cool.
With Ministry of Time, my sense was that she started out trying to say less and write a silly story about romance and time travel but her own positionality made it smarter than she meant to make it.
I will just leave this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF0VaBxb27w
Ahahaha yes truth.
no subject
The best version.