May 2024 Books
The Hotel Under the Sand by Kage Baker (reread)
I always enjoy this one. It has a lot of Oz-like charm.
The Master Key by L. Frank Baum (reread)
I was going to try to say some clever things about the ending of this book, but I'm tired, so the short version is that the protagonist is given a series of eletrically powered gifts from the Demon of Electricity (more like a genie, don't let the name fool you), only to get into various misadventures of the type common to turn-of-the-century boys' stories (with a lot of era-typical attitudes toward non-American or -European peoples and cultures that did not age well) and finally give back the gifts and insist that mankind isn't ready for such power and "it's no fun being a century ahead." I wasn't the biggest fan of the protagonist (rather a jerk), and the story was less interesting to me than the historical context and what it demonstrated of perspectives toward technology at the beginning of the twentieth century. Baum has some interesting concepts in this one, but there's a reason that it hasn't really stood the test of time.
Heart of the Curiosity by H. L. Burke (reread)
I did not care for this one. I do not recommend it.
Archer's Goon by Diana Wynne Jones (reread)
I love this book so much, and I needed to revisit it. I love the characters. I love the twists and turns even though I know they're already coming. *SPOILERS* This time I was struck particularly by Torquil and Hathaway's reconciliation--Torquil has been avoiding his brother after a disagreement, expecting animosity, but then when they finally reunite, Hathaway is just so happy to see his brother and invites him to visit anytime and it's like the grievances never happened, and in a family as dysfunctional as theirs, this is a huge step in the right direction and a very beautiful moment.
Unexpected Magic by Diana Wynne Jones
Collection of short stories and a novella. Inventive in the Jones style, but I didn't get attached enough to any of the stories to have any likelihood of picking this one up again.
Pauline by Margaret Storey (reread)
I've been revisiting some books in light of the CEN discussion in the recent paper. This one doesn't really deal with CEN, but it does portray psychological/emotional abuse quite vividly (the antagonist at times reminded me painfully of the professor who tortured me in the Nightmare Class) and point out how damaging it is. There's a memorable scene in which a trusted adult whom Pauline turns to for help mentions to someone that Pauline has been mistreated by a family. "Is he beating her?" the other person asks. The reply: "Not physically." The acknowledgement that psychological/emotional abuse is just as hurtful and damaging in its own way as the physical kind is quite a statement for a book published in the 1960s.
Last month I reread a book also published in that decade that openly acknowledged the problems with CEN and how it's a cycle that runs in families, and I'm starting to think that that era was a point when some people were starting to more clearly see the negative effects that the likely prevalence of CEN in previous generations especially in particular classes (e.g. upper-class Victorian/Edwardian upbringings) had had. I don't know what to do with this theory, but I will continue to mull it over.
Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr (reread)
This book isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, but I do love it a lot and I'll probably be yelling about its adaptations at some point.
All Systems Red by Martha Wells (reread)
Listen, I love Murderbot but 90% of the time I have no idea what's going on in these books since sci-fi jargon is mostly beyond me. But I was given my own copy of this book a while back and reread it, more slowly so I could wrap my mind around it better, and definitely got more out of it.
System Collapse by Martha Wells
I had to take this one slowly, but it was worth it. I love the direction that it took, with Murderbot getting involved in producing a film designed to emotionally appeal to people who are in danger of choosing an option that will result in their being enslaved--Murderbot needs the chance to work on processing its trauma, as reluctant as it is to deal with emotion, and working on the film is a big step toward catharsis.
Mother Carey's Chickens by Kate Douglas Wiggin (reread)
This one does have its charm, although I've always found it short on plot and character development (Wiggin has a habit of telling things that should have been shown, beyond the typical style of that era), but this time I had some issues with authorial favoritism toward certain characters, which you've probably already heard the rant about.
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Hello, french anon here. For so many years, I have told you that I needed your wisdom and guidance to finally understand trc's ending. At last, we are finally starting to get to the confusion of all confusions. But I am slowly realising that my confusion was partly due to the fact that I know NOTHING about ccs (or any other Clamp's works) and had never seen these characters before. Having trc being my first Clamp's work was in insight, not really the best I suppose ¯\_(. . )_/¯
Also, over the years I have developed a deep hatred of all time shenanigans, because it LITERRALY cause me terrible headaches to try to understand it (is it the autism? the adhd? Am I just stupid? Mystery), so i've avoided going other this arc again. Hope with your explanations i will finally have closure.
Good luck!
~ French Anon
Thank you French Anon! I SINCERELY hope I can make any sense of it whatsoever once we get there. The Confusion is definitely not any reflection on you though - if a manga is infamous for being deliberately difficult to understand, you can never be faulted for not being able to do it on the first try. Or the second. Or ever.
And it IS a limitation of Tsubasa that it's written this way. You can't go to anyone and say, "Hey, maybe you should read Tsubasa! You might like it!" when you have to follow it up with the disclaimer of, "Oh, but wait, have you read Cardcaptor Sakura? You should probably read all of that first - and specifically the manga, and not the anime. Also you have to read xxxHolic at the same time otherwise the plotline of Tsubasa won't make sense. Oh and it would be even clearer if you had also read some other of CLAMP's works, specifically their longest ones, which are much harder to find these days. Read as much of those as possible before even starting Tsubasa."
Like I LOVE Tsubasa dearly and I genuinely think it's the greatest manga I've ever read, but I also think you should NOT have a list of required reading you have to get through in order to understand a book you're reading for fun in your free time.
So no wonder it was confusing! Definitely not a failing on your part at ALL.
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I read a pretty even mix of YA and adult fiction throughout my childhood and adolescence (plus a lot of random nonfiction around the house, mainly self-help and parenting and New Age detritus from the late 1990s). The adult fiction was mostly classics, literary fiction, or chick lit, because my mom didn’t go in for more genre-y or fantastical stuff; the YA was more varied, although I gravitated away from most sci-fi/fantasy as a teen. Which is all leading up to the fact that I don’t believe there’s actually a universal significant difference in difficulty (at least regarding reading comprehension) between YA and adult fiction, at least once you get to books written for teenagers and not younger kids. Which doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
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