Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Hello,

We're approaching the end of the year and the holiday season. I hope everyone is finding time to read what they want! This past week I did not get in as much reading time as usual. Mostly because my walks have been spent talking to people on the phone instead of listening to audiobooks.

I only have one finish, The Last Baron: The Paris Kidnapping That Brought Down an Empire. I didn't particularly care for this book as I just didn't care about the topic too much. This is for the neighborhood book club. We meet next week to discuss it. I cannot fault anyone as I've suggested books (that the club chose) that people didn't like either.

I'm still reading Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage and still finding it fascinating and educational. This is an important book to exist and all women should read it, IMO.

I'm almost finished with The Sunbearer Trials. Shout out to anyone who read it to add your thoughts to the final discussion thread! I'll add my thoughts once I finish instead of putting too much here.

QOTW:
What is the saddest book you've ever read?

This is hard because I've probably read some that I'm not remembering. But the only one that really comes to mind is The Last Lecture by Randy Pauch. This book came out and Randy succumbed to cancer just a few years after my husband battled lymphoma so it hit all my emotional buttons. His family went through some of the same things we did because my husband was diagnosed in his mid-30s and we had three little kids. So all the "move to be near other family" and other considerations were things we went through. In my case, we didn't need to execute on them because my husband is cured (24 years now). But definitely reading that book hit all the vulnerable spots.

Sometimes I seek out a playlist of "sad songs" so reading a sad book is along the same lines. Sometimes I just want to listen to and deeply feel.

I had a hard time focusing on reading in the last few weeks, so I only have one finish, and a short one at that - The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin. It was a re-read, and one that I enjoyed, but I think it was a little too philosophical for my current frame of mind (which is super stressed).

I've just started The Boys by Katie Hafner which just came in on ebook library loan. I can't remember where I read about the book or who recommended it to me, but it must have sounded good because I went and put it on hold at the library! I'm only a chapter or two in and I don't really know what's going on yet.

I finished reading Anne of Avonlea to the family last night - we listened to most of it on audiobook on our drive to visit family for Thanksgiving and back, but didn't quite finish it in the car. Love sharing old favorites with my family!

QOTW: Two memoirs stand out for me as being particularly sad - When Breath Becomes Air and An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination (although the latter is both extremely sad AND hopeful at the same time).

Plenty of fiction has made me cry. There are certain scenes in the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy that have me bawling every time, even though I've read the books so often that I can pretty much recite them by heart. I know there are others.

Happy Thursday! I don't have too much to report this week. I'm looking forward to the holidays. I have most of the week before Xmas off, so I hope I'll have plenty of time to get everything done that week and get some more reading done.

Finished:
A Snake Falls to Earth - 3 stars - I liked the story when the threads came together, but it took way too long to get to that point.

Tread of Angels - 3.5 stars - This was good, well-written and engaging, but a lot darker than I was expecting. (view spoiler)[The main character becomes more and more difficult to root for as the story goes on and she makes questionable choices out of a sense of familial loyalty to her sister. It turns into a classic tragedy, with the main character in a very bad place at the end, thanks to her own actions. (hide spoiler)]

Kiss Her Once for Me - 3 stars - I just finished this morning. It was a cute premise and I was in the mood for a holiday romance. Sweet, but once again the miscommunication/misunderstanding trope is here to irritate me.

Comics & manga:
The Ancient Magus' Bride, Vol. 16
Love in Focus, Vol. 3
Wonder Cat Kyuu-chan, Vol. 4

Currently reading:
Well Traveled - I guess the library is trying to get me in a romance mood leading up to the holidays! Just barely started this, so I don't have an opinion yet.

Planned:
A Million to One
The Way of Kings - one of the Popsugar prompts for 2023 is the longest book on your TBR, and this is it, so I will probably start it before January 1st.

QOTW:
I tend to get really attached to fictional characters, so I think it's mostly character deaths that make me sad in books.

The first books that I remember making me cry were Mercedes Lackey's Last Herald Mage books. (Specifically (view spoiler)[Book 1 when Lendal dies but also Book 3 when Vanyel dies (hide spoiler)])

I actually took a few days off to use up vacation time, so I should still have reading time for now. The week before Christmas, maybe not.

The Red Right Hand - There is a lot of praise for this, and it has been described as a fully clued mystery novel written more like a noir. I was worried it would be too tense for me, but instead it was incredibly tedious. The clue obfuscation is accomplished by having the narrator tell the story all out of order with a bunch of repetitions (of both the events and of things like, "I can feel that the murderer is close to me right now!"). The solution is reasonably clever, but it relies on a bit of coincidence, and the red herrings rely on a LOT of coincidence. I did find some reviews that agreed with me, but many people seem to really like it (sometimes explicitly despite the prose, though).

I Am Quiet: A Story for the Introvert in All of Us - I saw this on the Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Choice Awards (which it has since won) and knew I had to read it in honor of Past Me. I would recommend this book for children who are quiet rather than shy, or for throwing at adults who say things about coming out of shells.

QOTW: I don't really read sad books, I guess. Actual crying tends to come more from sort of cathartic sweet things, like Monk and Robot or a sappy romance moment. All I can think of at the moment is something like Where the Red Fern Grows, but I don't really remember being sad when I read it.

Checking to see what I read since my last post, and think I must have written some stuff and forgot to hit post.
Most recent was Stephanie Plum #29 Going Rogue. Fine, but no zinger lines this time. When a kid, I always liked Trixie Belden better than Nancy Drew because it frustrated me that Nancy Drew was 18 in every book and never aged. Realizing Stephanie Plum doesn't really age either, although society is advancing around her. I guess the term for this is "current now"; I learned it from one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Peters, when she wrote another book in the Vicky Bliss series 14 years after the previous one and sortof apologized for using the current world without aging her characters. Janet Evanovich is just ignoring it...
Read and liked The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie which is a mystery set in 1950s England featuring a precoucious 11YO girl who loves chemistry as the protagonist. Will give the series another try, although if you think too hard, an 11YO amateur sleuth is as unlikely as wizards living among us.
The The Fire in the Glass was one of those Story Bundle books I keep not resisting. Liked it and will try another in the series, which features "Charismatics" who have different types of powers (predicting future, speaking to animals.) Shades of X-men set in post WW1 England.
QOTW. Also try to avoid books that people describe as "It was so sad." I read When Breath Becomes Air because son who hardly reads suggested it, but at least you knew a book published post-mortem written by a doctor who was terminally ill was going to be sad. The one I unexpectedly ugly-cried (during a bout of insomnia so didn't help me get back to sleep) was Under the Whispering Door. But the whole thing wasn't sad.

Kathy wrote: "The one I unexpectedly ugly-cried (during a bout of insomnia so didn't help me get back to sleep) was Under the Whispering Door. But the whole thing wasn't sad."

Pretty sure I ugly cried at the same point as you. I loved that book so much.

Well now I need to go get Under the Whispering Door from the library. It has been on my TBR list since reading The House in the Cerulean Sea.

Susan wrote: "Well now I need to go get Under the Whispering Door from the library. It has been on my TBR list since reading The House in the Cerulean Sea."
Just to give you a heads up. I tried some earlier stuff by TJ Klune and it was quite different. I read the whole thing (The Lightning-Struck Heart)because it was hilarious, but it was among the raunchiest books I've read.

Whispering Door is a lot like Cerulean Sea, though. I can't say anything about the earlier stuff :)

I will agree, I sobbed all during the last quarter of Under the whispering door. Loved it, but sobbing

Sheri wrote: "I will agree, I sobbed all during the last quarter of Under the whispering door. Loved it, but sobbing"

Me, too! That book definitely got me.