![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
what i'm reading 6/11/2024
Life goes on. I keep reading.
What I finished:
+ Dead Wake, about the sinking of the Lusitania. Like the author, I had the idea that the sinking lead directly to the US entering WWI, which proves I had no idea what year the boat was sunk, since I did know that the US didn't enter until 1917. But no, there was a lag of several years between the sinking and the US joining the war.
Larson is great at creating suspense even when you know what's going to happen, and he does this by focusing on specific people and making you anxious about their fates. Lots of excellent detail, including what it was like in a U-boat (in a word: HELL).
Erik Larson continues to be an excellent writer with an admirable commitment to research. Colleagues who worked with him on his latest book say he is also a very kind person who looooves archives. So. That is nice to know.
I will continue my project to read all of his books, but...maybe later. That's enough death and destruction for the moment.
+ A Matter of Justice, number 11 in the Ian Rutledge series of historical mysteries set in post-WWI Britain. All of these books are basically the same (our traumatized hero investigates a murder in a small British town and uncovers local trauma in the process), but it's a good palate cleanser int hat sense. The books have just enough heft to not feel slight or fluffy, but not so much that they aren't an easy read.
+ Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas. I don't know, y'all. Why do I keep reading romance novels when most of them don't work for me? Because the few that really do work for me, I treasure!
I was drawn to this one because I heard it was a noona romance about an estranged couple and...that's my jam. And there's a lot I dig here: the heroine is a very prickly, traumatized woman who is difficult to love, but the younger hero has been in love with her since literal childhood. YES PLEASE.
But as usual with romance, the execution didn't quite work for me. I was more interested in the stuff I only saw in flashback than in what was happening in the present day. Also in the present day: we're in colonial India. There's no overt racism here or any colonial rahrah-ing, but the drama of the book involves an uprising, and frankly, it is difficult for me not to root for the rebels even though I'm supposed to be rooting for the Raj simply because our leads are trapped in a fort with them and we don't want them to die. I can read a historical novel set in the UK and essentially set to the side all the stuff I know about injustice simply because it reads like a fantasy to me. But I cannot do that when the characters are running around in a colonized zone.
Also, there was a kink thing that I was just not happy about:
That said, it was well-written and would probably be a great read for someone who clicks more with romance novels.
+ Jane of Lantern Hill. This is a reread, but it's one of my lesser-read Montgomerys, so I didn't remember all the details. It's basically the little girl version of The Blue Castle with a Parent Trap twist.
Here's what I wrote about it in the L.M. Montgomery group on Tumblr:
What I'm currently reading:
+ Wild Faith by Talia Lavin. This one has been much-anticipated by me personally, as I am a big fan of Talia in general. I will have much to say when I finish it, I'm sure.
+ The Friend Zone Experiment by Zen Cho. I am reading this because Zen Cho is cool, but I thought it would have fantasy elements a la Black Water Sister and instead it is a straightforward contemporary romance. But it's engaging enough to keep reading, so we'll see if I end up bouncing off of it as I do virtually every contemporary romance I read or if it mysteriously works for me.
What I finished:
+ Dead Wake, about the sinking of the Lusitania. Like the author, I had the idea that the sinking lead directly to the US entering WWI, which proves I had no idea what year the boat was sunk, since I did know that the US didn't enter until 1917. But no, there was a lag of several years between the sinking and the US joining the war.
Larson is great at creating suspense even when you know what's going to happen, and he does this by focusing on specific people and making you anxious about their fates. Lots of excellent detail, including what it was like in a U-boat (in a word: HELL).
Erik Larson continues to be an excellent writer with an admirable commitment to research. Colleagues who worked with him on his latest book say he is also a very kind person who looooves archives. So. That is nice to know.
I will continue my project to read all of his books, but...maybe later. That's enough death and destruction for the moment.
+ A Matter of Justice, number 11 in the Ian Rutledge series of historical mysteries set in post-WWI Britain. All of these books are basically the same (our traumatized hero investigates a murder in a small British town and uncovers local trauma in the process), but it's a good palate cleanser int hat sense. The books have just enough heft to not feel slight or fluffy, but not so much that they aren't an easy read.
+ Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas. I don't know, y'all. Why do I keep reading romance novels when most of them don't work for me? Because the few that really do work for me, I treasure!
I was drawn to this one because I heard it was a noona romance about an estranged couple and...that's my jam. And there's a lot I dig here: the heroine is a very prickly, traumatized woman who is difficult to love, but the younger hero has been in love with her since literal childhood. YES PLEASE.
But as usual with romance, the execution didn't quite work for me. I was more interested in the stuff I only saw in flashback than in what was happening in the present day. Also in the present day: we're in colonial India. There's no overt racism here or any colonial rahrah-ing, but the drama of the book involves an uprising, and frankly, it is difficult for me not to root for the rebels even though I'm supposed to be rooting for the Raj simply because our leads are trapped in a fort with them and we don't want them to die. I can read a historical novel set in the UK and essentially set to the side all the stuff I know about injustice simply because it reads like a fantasy to me. But I cannot do that when the characters are running around in a colonized zone.
Also, there was a kink thing that I was just not happy about:
Both of these characters keep having sex with each other when the other one is asleep! And they have not talked about it before time! But the story doesn't seem to think this is rape even though it objectively is!
I get that romance novels are for sexual fantasies, and I am not judging people who are into the whole somnophilia thing. But it is not for me!
I get that romance novels are for sexual fantasies, and I am not judging people who are into the whole somnophilia thing. But it is not for me!
That said, it was well-written and would probably be a great read for someone who clicks more with romance novels.
+ Jane of Lantern Hill. This is a reread, but it's one of my lesser-read Montgomerys, so I didn't remember all the details. It's basically the little girl version of The Blue Castle with a Parent Trap twist.
Here's what I wrote about it in the L.M. Montgomery group on Tumblr:
I'm rereading Jane of Lantern Hill for the first time in a long time, and a friend just read The Blue Castle for the first time, and it has occurred to me that L.M. Montgomery was really most interested in telling the story of someone who has lived a small, cramped, starved life going somewhere full of abundance where people love her and she can learn to be happy. She's so very good at recreating the stifling feeling of that cramped life that it's cathartic when the landscape finally opens up around the character and both you and she can start to breathe. Her stories are wish-fulfillment, but they always feel earned because the closed-off beginning feels so realistic and because the transformation into new life doesn't happen in one fairy-tale moment but instead takes its time in unfolding.
And the new life, full of abundance, is not without its suffering. But it's mostly a straightforward kind of grief or loss that comes to everyone just because of the nature of life and death. It contrasts greatly with the artificial feeling of smothering resentment and deprivation that preceded it. When combined with Montgomery's descriptions of the beauty of the natural world, the abundant life feels like the natural (in the Romantic sense of oneness-with-nature) and the cramped world feels manufactured, with everything that word connotes.
Anne and Valancy and Jane all walk this same road. So do some of the supporting characters like Leslie Moore. It's a story I never get tired of.
Also another similarity between Jane and Valancy is the hated cousin who fits into the world of the family perfectly and who constantly reminds our heroine that she's not what the family wants. And it stings...even though our heroine doesn't want to be who the family wants her to be. She has to leave the family's expectations and demands behind to find a life that fits her. She's been made to feel as though she is the one who is wrong and that's why she doesn't fit in, and she discovers that that world was simply wrong for her, and placed in another context, she fits perfectly.
As the rainbow polka-dot sheep in my family, that is a major Mood.
#birth families as a place of constriction feels very queer to me#i know lmm's depiction of birth families is more complicated than that#there are certainly other ways she frames them#but this one rings particularly true for me
What I'm currently reading:
+ Wild Faith by Talia Lavin. This one has been much-anticipated by me personally, as I am a big fan of Talia in general. I will have much to say when I finish it, I'm sure.
+ The Friend Zone Experiment by Zen Cho. I am reading this because Zen Cho is cool, but I thought it would have fantasy elements a la Black Water Sister and instead it is a straightforward contemporary romance. But it's engaging enough to keep reading, so we'll see if I end up bouncing off of it as I do virtually every contemporary romance I read or if it mysteriously works for me.
no subject
no subject
no subject
I don't like saying "well the author went through X so clearly that's why the characters go through X," but man! Reading her biography sure cast a lot of new light on her writing!
no subject
But yes, I absolutely agree that she was writing her own fantasies into existence, and honestly I love her for that.
no subject
Because . . . yep. That's depression! And she had professional affirmation in ways that most of us will never come close to, but even that didn't help.
no subject
no subject
Re: The Friend Zone Experiment I actually think the cover and marketing it as a contemporary rom-com does it a disservice, because the book is quite a bit darker and more serious than what they lead one to expect. I did end up liking it, but I had to readjust my genre expectations.
I really should start reading more Montgomery! (Have only read The Blue Castle and the Anne series).
no subject
Thomas is a good writer! I can see why people adore her! I like a lot of what she's doing! But the stuff I don't like...I really don't like!
because the book is quite a bit darker and more serious than what they lead one to expect. I did end up liking it, but I had to readjust my genre expectations.
Good to know!
You should read more of her! READ EMILY!!!
no subject
I do think you might like some of the other books much better! Ravishing the Heiress for example, also had a heroine I loved and amazing flashback/dual timeline sections but in a really well done arranged marriage slow burn allies-to-friends-to-lovers with no icky colonialism, if you're willing to give her another shot.
READ EMILY!!! Moving it up the tbr!
no subject
I really think you'll love Emily. She's one of my beloved fictional characters.