Okay. So. Have I been a good blogger recently?
Well. Define "good." And "bad," while you're at it.
Have I been an absent blogger recently? Well...
Barring a weekend sojourn to Canada for an eventful Spring Break touring around Victoria, BC, you don't really have any idea what I've been up to. You have no idea what I've been working on, and more importantly, you don't know what I've been reading.
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry. I've been a... less than forthcoming blogger. But I've got a slew more posts coming your way over the course of this month, and I'm getting all of that other stuff handled as best I can. I mean, I haven't even been able to watch a single episode of Shadow and Bone Season 2 yet! That's how busy I've been!
But for now, let's talk over everything I've been reading for the last few months.
Well. Not everything. But a lot of it. Lay off, okay?
january
A British Gothic classic, in which the penniless orphan Jane Eyre faces off against social expectations and religious doctrine while also battling feelings for her employer, Edward Rochester... amongst other things. A favorite of English teachers the world over.
I had a massive hankering for investing myself in this thick and moody classic, since about October of last year. But because I was subsumed under so many different things, I kept pushing it off. I figured it was a good way to start off the new year instead: a hefty, but not insurmountable, reread, one that would allow me to have fun, while also being intentional about my reading habits in the new year.
I knew I couldn't just throw myself into it without forethought, so instead, I used it as a kind of self-managed care practice: I'd be ready for bed by 10pm, read starting at 10:30pm, and after about three chapters, be tired enough to go to sleep. Not only was this a great habit to start forming, but it gave me a manageable, but not insignificant, chunk to break apart piece by piece. After almost two weeks of reading in this fashion, I successfully made it to the end!
This was a reread that really made me feel my age... not in a bad way. I think I've really fallen into the habit over the years of reading solely for comfort, as a safe way to do some escaping - hence all the Romance and the novellas and the food writing - and not only did this impress on me the value of "difficult" books, but also, how far I've come since the first time I read it, in high school. A new appreciation for rich and dedicated description, as well as really effective word choice, and a retrospective understanding of a LOT of really effective foreshadowing. I also had a better critical perspective on elements of the more problematic or time-illuminated parts of the book, like the casual racism, or dedication to Christian dogma.
Plus, I learned a ton of new words.
All in all, I couldn't have picked a better book to kick off my year!
Television personality and veteran ghost-hunter Amy Bruni discusses growing up with an awareness of paranormal activity, her experiences in the field, and personal perspectives on hauntings she's encountered.
Pretty close to the turn of the year, Mom and Dad decided that - like last year's sojourn to a local state park - Dad desperately needed to spend his birthday weekend somewhere fun. We ended up settling on Port Townsend: close to the water, packed with charming bookstores, and apparently, very, very haunted.
Only an overnight, but still, I needed to be prepared. Dad had lent me this book back in December, when I still thought I'd be able to speed read my way through to Goodreads glory; instead, I read this across two days in January, in anticipation of staying in a haunted castle.
I ended up enjoying myself! (With this read, definitely not the noisy, frustrating castle, which was occupied by both inconsiderate amateur ghost hunters, as well as a very large, very crunchy spider).
Bruni was someone I grew up watching on Ghost Hunters, and my parents are still fans of her and Adam Berry's Kindred Spirits show. It was cool to read this in her voice (while also being able to tell, by its relatively detached and impersonal narrative, that it was definitely not her words alone).
While I loved her perspectives on being a part of the paranormal community and her details from producing both shows, the damper I felt was from my own personal feelings on hauntings: Bruni is a BELIEVER, to the point of having an entire chapter dedicated to her beliefs about aliens and Bigfoot. While I loved her views on the greater status of ghost-hunting shows as a sociocultural reflection, I couldn't quite commit to the same level of full faith that she clearly has.
Also read: What a Dragon Should Know, G. A. Aiken, which you can find on another upcoming Paranormal Romance blog post!
february
An enthusiastic and detailed perspective on the failings of Fyre Fest, as well as the careers and ne'er-doings of other kinds of Internet-savvy fraudsters and falsifiers, like Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Caroline Calloway, and more.
Thanks to our author's attorney background, this book is incredibly well-researched, footnoted to oblivion, and chock full of numerous, credible examples of wrong-doing perpetuated across the Internet and beyond. But because she is a human being who CARES, DAMMIT, parts of his book also carry the unmistakable tinge of emotion, and specifically, frustration: why the hell do these kinds of people keep getting away with it?
So, well-researched? Yes. Well-composed? Not exactly. Chapters are long, and tend to wander down various tangential pathways when tied to other such credible stories; anecdotes are framed with significant bias and open feeling. In some ways, it kind of feels like Bluestone REALLY just wanted to include as much detail about Fyre Fest as possible, but was beaten to the punch by all of the other flashier coverage dedicated to the event, and her editors wanted her to widen her scope. In particular, the Covid chapter didn't feel organically tied to the overarching themes at all, but more like a publishing house request, as if her editor asked her to add an additional chapter after the first set of lockdowns hit.
My overall takeaway from this book was that it was an entertaining, slightly horrifying read, and that all business majors should be placed on some kind of government watch list.
A collection of some of the best short form food writing published in 2019, as selected by chef and Food Lab author J. Kenji Lopez-Alt.
Truly one of my favorite installments, of a book series I've completely fallen in love with over the past few years. This particular edition occupies a strange place in time: all of the articles included in it were published in 2019, but the book itself was compiled and selected within the context of what was happening during the first few months of Covid. As a result, the context of various pieces feel somewhat suspended in time: post-Me-Too, but pre-George-Floyd-riots, pre-Door-Dash-dependency, but also at a time when its writers were completely oblivious to what trials the foot production, retail, and restaurant spaces would look like in less than a year.
Personal favorite essays from this particular grouping:
- an exploration of the weaponization of grits in pop culture and relationships
- a breakdown of the difficulties of simply eating at a restaurant as someone with a disability, and the ways restaurants could make their eateries more accessible to everyone
- a pointed look at Lean Cuisine's marketing reliance on dieting culture, and their adaptation in the face of self-love movements
- separate spotlights on the career dives of media-darling chefs Jamie Oliver and Rocco DiSpirito
- a timeline of the targeted media destruction of New Coke
- a structured and highly-scientific exploration of various supermarket ice cream brands, and where dollar prices make the most sense per consumer experience
- a historical understanding of Prince's Hot Chicken in Nashville
- truly the best and most realistic love letter to the cultural anomaly that is crab rangoon that I've ever read
Also read: When a Scot Ties the Knot, by Tessa Dare, which you'll see on an upcoming Romance blogpost, and Bustin', which you'll see on an upcoming Paranormal Romance blogpost!
march
In a fantasy world where pirates have invaded nearby cities and their locally stationed militia has been brutally taken out by a mysterious outside force, the fate of the empire hangs in the balance held by one single military engineer. The problem is, he barely has any idea as to what he's doing.
Ugh. Can we all just talk about how disappointing it can be when a book turns out to be just... really problematic? Like if you could only excise out portions of the plot, dialogue, or characterization, everything would be fine. I felt the same way about Alan Bradley's questionable Fu Manchu section in The Bottom of the Pie, which colored my otherwise enthusiastic enjoyment of the book. "Just ignore all of these pages," you'd say, handing a book to a friend, "and everything will be fine."
And then there's just the anger when you realize why that can't happen. When the problematic content is the driving force behind the main character, the antagonist's conflict, and the overall organization of the world.
It's easy to be furious at the cruelty of the real world, where people are hideous to each other, where history lays forth in a gnarled and knotted tapestry, of all the ways pain can be inflicted. It's a different flavor of frustrating when confronted with an author who seems to have blindly, misdirectionally, confoundingly, decided to adopt elements of racial cruelty into a narrative, seemingly without considering any kind of an impact that inclusion of those inversions might have on their reader.
But that's just part of the puzzle. This book could have been really good, and really funny... parts of it still are! But truly bonkers choices are made around world-building, characterization, plot development, and even the final 50 pages or so renders the point totally moot.
It could have been better, but it wasn't. And I'm having a truly headache-inducing time questioning why the author made the choices he did.
After fleeing a desperate situation of social upheaval when a confession to a friend goes wrong, Regan finds herself transported to the Hooflands, a wide-spanning world of only hoofed beasts, like centaurs, satyrs, and more. How will she find her way home... and does she even want to?
I knew pretty quickly going into this installment of one of my all-time favorite Fantasy series, that this particular one wasn't going to be my favorite of the bunch.
For starters, I didn't find the main character compelling; if anything, one of her first actions, and the subsequent few introductory chapters, mark her pretty squarely as a conformist, and a mean girl, in a situation where I feel like that wouldn't naturally be the case (she's a relatively well-off, middle-class child, who is demonstrated to have a decent social sphere and a natural intelligence and curiosity, with parents who are incredibly supportive and love her. So why shackle yourself to the meanest person you know, who will obviously one day betray you, who's already betrayed somebody else?). The choice seems to make more sense for plotting's sake, as the book that would naturally follow that kind of a character trait would create a plot driven by the idea of gaining worldly perspective, self-determination, and individual identity... but I don't really think those aspects were pulled off that authentically.
The primary chapters caused additional confusion for me, as they clearly establish one of Reagan's crises of identity as being the revelation that she was born intersex. While it helps serve as a catalyst for primary action, it doesn't play a ton into the overall plot... and while I think that might have been the point of it - normalizing something that's already normal, that many people live knowing about themselves, but isn't really represented in culture or media - it makes for a kind of strange transitionary period at the end of the book. The narrative makes a point of referencing quite emphatically that sixteen years old will be the first time that Reagan has an opportunity to access gender affirming care, but - *spoiler alert* - when she is delivered back into the Real World at this meaningful age, at the end of the novella, it doesn't play into her realizations, inner dialogue, etc. at all. Which, again, maybe the normalization is a part of it, and maybe that kind of healthcare isn't referenced in the narrative because it's no longer something she cares about, but it still feels like it would be more meaningful if that was explicitly brought up. Instead, the plot point just kind of feels like it's left hanging.
I'm not much of a horse girly, so the world of the Hooflands just really didn't appeal to me either. I felt like it was significantly less established or fleshed out than other worlds visited within the series. I thought it was a strange choice for a supporting standalone installment in the larger set. Apparently, Reagan will play a role in the plot of further books in the series, but for a first introduction, it felt like a weird, sideways kind of way to meet her.
The major issue I had, though, was with the major theme or takeaway from the novel: that destiny doesn't matter, that you choose your own path, that you don't have to follow the lead that's handed to you. Reagan learns she can make her own choices, and stand on her own two feet, and that's great. The problem I have, though, is that "destiny isn't real" is a massively strange takeaway for a series of novels that are oriented around the sudden, unexplained appearances of magical doors that transport children to worlds in which major lessons are learned, only to then be thrust out of them again having learned their lessons. Destiny doesn't exist, predetermination isn't a factor... except for those big ol' honkin' doors, though. You should still believe in those.
I've since learned from the Internet that Seanan is a huge My Little Pony fan, which at least explains something.
Also read: Romancing Mr. Bridgerton and The Bromance Book Club, which will both be highlighted in an upcoming Romance blogpost.
SO, that's everything I've read so far this year... almost. I've got a Romance blogpost coming up soon, about the - spoiler alert - disappointing Romances I've been encountering so far this year, and I've got another Paranormal Romance installment in the works, too, with some of my first picks from this year's Big Box of Paranormal Romance Challenge!
What I'm saying is, stick around. Maybe I'll actually start posting regularly again. Wouldn't be the craziest thing to happen so far this year.
What has been your favorite book of 2023 so far? Have you read any on this list? Let me know, in the comments below!
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