Book Logging
Feb. 27th, 2016 03:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckAwkward - I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy this particularly because adolescent life usually isn’t my thing, but I loved these characters and their interactions. I was hopeful because I really liked Chmakova’s Dramacon, but the characters in that were older than the characters in this (my best guess for age here is about thirteen).
Bujold, Lois McMaster. Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen - I’ve gathered that a lot of people are dissatisfied with this book, but it suited me very well in terms of not setting off my anxiety and generally being comfortable. There is, however, a real lack of dynamic conflict in this book. It’s all low key interpersonal stuff and people making decisions with largely personal repercussions. I don’t think that this series has life left in it. The universe might given different characters and a different place and/or time, but I think this particular bit is played out.
Gilman, Charles. Professor Gargoyle - This series is called Tales of Lovecraft Middle School. There are horror elements, but they skew toward the funny over the creepy. I don’t recommend this one for people with a horror of rats as the main character adopts a two-headed rat early on. The book is quite short.
Lumberjanes 2: Friendship to the Max - I’m still loving this comic. I feel like I should have more to say, but my brain is kind of not present right now. I recommend the series very, very highly and suggested book one as a birthday present for one of our nieces (I have no idea if she liked it. We never hear anything back about gifts sent there).
McCall Smith, Alexander. The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine - I didn’t manage to read the book before this in the series, but I quite enjoyed this one. Mma Ramotswe gets pushed to take two weeks off of work, leaving Mma Makutsi in charge. Mma Ramostswe doesn’t have an easy time being on vacation.
Mikalatos, Matt. Sky Lantern - This book made me cry several times but in a good way. I’ve recommended the book to Scott’s mother because I think it would appeal to her. The story behind the book is that the author found the remains of a sky lantern on which someone had written a message for her dead father. That prompted the author to post an online essay talking about what he thinks that fathers in general want to say to their kids but don’t necessarily remember to and, more specifically, what he wanted to say to his own three daughters. The essay went viral. The author mentions prayer a lot, but I don’t think the book is heavily Christian (I might not notice because that is my cultural background) though the author specifies that he is.
Started but not finished:
Andrien, Kenneth J. Andean Worlds: Indigenous History, Culture, and Consciousness Under Spanish Rule 1532-1825 - I didn’t get along with the author’s prose style very well, but I read about half the book anyway. It was an interlibrary loan book, and I hit the end of the available renewals before I finished. I got a little frustrated because, in spite of the title, the text wasn’t so much about what the title claimed it was about. My impression is that that’s because there simply aren’t many sources for more than the most general trends and really big rebellions. The author inferred some things based on the tax records and the efforts the government made to force cooperation with its policies, but that meant a lot about the government and its policies. The native peoples were a weird blank spot or a mass of undifferentiated oppressed folks. The figures on death from imported diseases were pretty thoroughly appalling. I hadn’t realized that 40% survival was a comparatively good level for those communities (some coastal communities apparently only had a 5% survival rate).
Hale, Shannon. Princess in Black - Amazon and GoodReads both recommended this series based on my loving Hamster Princess, but this was not at all on the same level. I found it kind of twee and poorly constructed, prose-wise. I suspect I’d be fine with the series if I was six and trying to read it on my own, but I’m not.
Junior Braves of the Apocalypse. Book 1, A Brave Is Brave - I have no idea what I was thinking to put this on my to-read list. It’s a graphic novel with zombies. I loathe zombies, so I didn’t get very far at all with this one.
Penny Dora and the Wishing Box - I have no idea why I couldn’t finish this one. I kept picking it up, opening it to the middle, and reading a bit. Then I’d put it down for a week or three. I’m very curious about where the story will go if there are future volumes. I just can’t seem to read this one. The art worked fairly well for me, so it’s not that. The author’s afterword explains that the story idea was his daughter’s and that they worked together to figure out what should happen.
Sacred Heart - I really didn’t like the art in this, and the characters and story didn’t grab me enough to get me past that. I’m not sure I can deal with teenagers being teenagers unless there’s something else going on, something else that turns up early on. I did try opening this in a few different places to see if there was more than teens being teens going, and there didn’t seem to be.
The Wicked & the Divine v.1 - I got about halfway through this volume and realized that I didn’t care what happened to any of the characters and that the setting/mythology didn’t intrigue me at all. It’s probably a series that works extremely well for a bunch of not-me people, and I can kind of see the bones of that. It’s just not enough to get me to finish.
Williams, Charles. The Greater Trumps - I read 100 pages and then realized that I wasn’t interested in the prose, the plot, or the characters. There were probably some interesting underlying philosophical and/or religious ideas, but… Trying to find them felt like way too much work. Given that I can only get this author’s works via interlibrary loan, I’m not likely to try something else.
Bujold, Lois McMaster. Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen - I’ve gathered that a lot of people are dissatisfied with this book, but it suited me very well in terms of not setting off my anxiety and generally being comfortable. There is, however, a real lack of dynamic conflict in this book. It’s all low key interpersonal stuff and people making decisions with largely personal repercussions. I don’t think that this series has life left in it. The universe might given different characters and a different place and/or time, but I think this particular bit is played out.
Gilman, Charles. Professor Gargoyle - This series is called Tales of Lovecraft Middle School. There are horror elements, but they skew toward the funny over the creepy. I don’t recommend this one for people with a horror of rats as the main character adopts a two-headed rat early on. The book is quite short.
Lumberjanes 2: Friendship to the Max - I’m still loving this comic. I feel like I should have more to say, but my brain is kind of not present right now. I recommend the series very, very highly and suggested book one as a birthday present for one of our nieces (I have no idea if she liked it. We never hear anything back about gifts sent there).
McCall Smith, Alexander. The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine - I didn’t manage to read the book before this in the series, but I quite enjoyed this one. Mma Ramotswe gets pushed to take two weeks off of work, leaving Mma Makutsi in charge. Mma Ramostswe doesn’t have an easy time being on vacation.
Mikalatos, Matt. Sky Lantern - This book made me cry several times but in a good way. I’ve recommended the book to Scott’s mother because I think it would appeal to her. The story behind the book is that the author found the remains of a sky lantern on which someone had written a message for her dead father. That prompted the author to post an online essay talking about what he thinks that fathers in general want to say to their kids but don’t necessarily remember to and, more specifically, what he wanted to say to his own three daughters. The essay went viral. The author mentions prayer a lot, but I don’t think the book is heavily Christian (I might not notice because that is my cultural background) though the author specifies that he is.
Started but not finished:
Andrien, Kenneth J. Andean Worlds: Indigenous History, Culture, and Consciousness Under Spanish Rule 1532-1825 - I didn’t get along with the author’s prose style very well, but I read about half the book anyway. It was an interlibrary loan book, and I hit the end of the available renewals before I finished. I got a little frustrated because, in spite of the title, the text wasn’t so much about what the title claimed it was about. My impression is that that’s because there simply aren’t many sources for more than the most general trends and really big rebellions. The author inferred some things based on the tax records and the efforts the government made to force cooperation with its policies, but that meant a lot about the government and its policies. The native peoples were a weird blank spot or a mass of undifferentiated oppressed folks. The figures on death from imported diseases were pretty thoroughly appalling. I hadn’t realized that 40% survival was a comparatively good level for those communities (some coastal communities apparently only had a 5% survival rate).
Hale, Shannon. Princess in Black - Amazon and GoodReads both recommended this series based on my loving Hamster Princess, but this was not at all on the same level. I found it kind of twee and poorly constructed, prose-wise. I suspect I’d be fine with the series if I was six and trying to read it on my own, but I’m not.
Junior Braves of the Apocalypse. Book 1, A Brave Is Brave - I have no idea what I was thinking to put this on my to-read list. It’s a graphic novel with zombies. I loathe zombies, so I didn’t get very far at all with this one.
Penny Dora and the Wishing Box - I have no idea why I couldn’t finish this one. I kept picking it up, opening it to the middle, and reading a bit. Then I’d put it down for a week or three. I’m very curious about where the story will go if there are future volumes. I just can’t seem to read this one. The art worked fairly well for me, so it’s not that. The author’s afterword explains that the story idea was his daughter’s and that they worked together to figure out what should happen.
Sacred Heart - I really didn’t like the art in this, and the characters and story didn’t grab me enough to get me past that. I’m not sure I can deal with teenagers being teenagers unless there’s something else going on, something else that turns up early on. I did try opening this in a few different places to see if there was more than teens being teens going, and there didn’t seem to be.
The Wicked & the Divine v.1 - I got about halfway through this volume and realized that I didn’t care what happened to any of the characters and that the setting/mythology didn’t intrigue me at all. It’s probably a series that works extremely well for a bunch of not-me people, and I can kind of see the bones of that. It’s just not enough to get me to finish.
Williams, Charles. The Greater Trumps - I read 100 pages and then realized that I wasn’t interested in the prose, the plot, or the characters. There were probably some interesting underlying philosophical and/or religious ideas, but… Trying to find them felt like way too much work. Given that I can only get this author’s works via interlibrary loan, I’m not likely to try something else.
