Top Ten Tuesday: Things that Make Me Instantly NOT Want to Read a Book

"Top Ten Tuesday" is a weekly bookish shareable, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl!

So, here's the thing: usually I like to start my "Top Ten Tuesday" posts with some kind of prefacing, before we hit the theme. General remarks about how my life is going, what I've been up to, usually why I haven't been reading all that much, the whole shebang. But there's a bit of a problem with that this week... because I also usually write the rest of the post before I write the introduction, similar to how I used to write the body of my papers before I tackled the introductory paragraph (which, if you know how to do this properly, totally streamlines the difficulty of actually getting started writing your paper). 

Which is why I can tell you right now, that this blog post is somewhat inordinately long. 

What can I say? I've got a lot to say. You already saw it at work last week, when the "TTT" theme was a mirrored version of this one: ask me what makes me immediately want to pick up a book, and I'll write about 2K words about it. Ask me about what makes me NOT want to pick up a book? Well... maybe I'll write a little more. 

Maybe I'll write a LOT more. 

And before you get started making your way down the list, let it be known that I'm making a personal judgement call here: I originally tried to draft this blogpost by tackling hard subjects like "Undisclosed Sexual Assault," "Uninformed Interactions with Racist Language," and "Pretty Much Anything from Anyone Involved in Politics as a General Profession But Political Celebrities in Particular," because each of those are, 100%, things that will virtually guarantee I do not even touch, let alone purposefully read, that book. However, in trying to detail my thoughts and feelings, it started making me so angry and upset that I was paragraphs and paragraphs in before I realized that this wasn't a blogpost I even wanted to be writing, let alone would would ever even want to read as a fellow reader. 

So I refined my scope and tried to keep things closer to target for things that were specific, funny or interesting, or at a minimum, less absolutely dire. In the words of Marge Simpson, "Kids, could you lighten up a little?" 

Warning: The Sass Factor was not lost in the rewrites though. I'm still propelled by that feeling of righteous fury, it's just lodging itself into different targets, some of which you might not agree with.

Just my opinions, though. Careful: they're a little... wordy. 

1. Multiple Points of View in the Narrative

Starting out with a bang here! I asked my brother for help writing this list, and boy, did he deliver: "You always complain about Multi-POVs." You sure bet I do!

Mutli-POVs are annoying for those who prefer linear plot, confusing for those who are easily distracted, and are especially agonizing for those of us who have to pick up and put their book down multiple times a day during short breaks. Depending on the size of the cast of characters who form our viewpoint into the world, it might be eons before I swing back to the same person again, and by that point, I will most likely have lost the grip on who they are, what they're doing, and where we were last time I checked in. 

From a slightly more critical perspective, it can also come across as a cheap and easy way to build suspense, especially when your chapters end on Nancy-Drew-style cliffhangers. By chopping up perspectives into fragmented pieces, you're forcing your audience to keep reading to gain understanding, and when it comes in such truncated morsels being switched around like a shuffled deck of cards, your readers run the risk of losing the plot, and it can be hard to jump back in as seamlessly. 

I've straight up thought about reading a book all the way through, one POV at a time, rather than just keep swimming through. That's how much this particular style drives me nuts. 

(That all being said, I do love some Leigh Bardugo. I'll brave it - and more - for her.) 

2. Overly Numbers-Focused or Specific-Detailed Nonfiction

I'm not saying I've ever been diagnosed with dyscalculia, but I'm also not saying that anyone has ever tried. 

I'm all about backing up your information with clear and discernable proof, but at the same time, you could be just putting whatever numbers you wanted in there and I would literally never be able to tell the difference. I don't necessarily want the specifics unless they're in clearly communicated percentages, and even then, feel free to round up to the nearest ten or something. I believe that you know how to interpret data better than I do; just skip to the good stuff and let's get on with it! 

Furthermore, I feel similarly about incredibly detailed lists of names, for both people and places. I'm willing to bet the scholars go crazy for information overload like this, but I am not a scholar, I am just a girl who is considering whether to adjust her position lying down on the sofa because reading like this for too long is making all the blood lazily wander towards my elbows, and now my fingers are numb. 

I do not need to know the specifics, I'm just here for a good time. 

3. Horny Fantasy Fae, in General, but Sarah J. Maas in Particular

Doesn't the whole thing just remind you of the Paranormal tidal wave - of moody black covers, and models with bang-covered faces and mysterious tattoos, and backless ruffled dresses - that overtook the YA shelves of Borders back in, like, 2008? Only now, we're tackling iteration after iteration of thorn-entwined titles, ambiguously described monarchy systems, and all too many discussions about wingspans and tails. 

What remains are the broody, tattooed and angsty poster people. And, as always, descriptions of piercing eyes, be they green or blue (or, occasionally, purple). 

The thing that stings the most is that I was absolutely a fan of Maas, back in the original run of her popularity... approximately ten years ago. For people in the know back when the book blogosphere was a happening place - back when I was too busy resenting the medium shift that was already turning towards YouTube, let alone ever thinking everyone would someday take up future residence on TikTok less than a decade later - I got into a little series called Throne of Glass, the first book of which was published the summer I graduated high school. Have you heard of it? (More importantly, were you one of the people who read all of the novellas when they were still only offered on ebook, long before Assassin's Blade was released?) I only stuck with it through Heir of Fire, but remained interested in Maas' work. 

A Court of Thorns and Roses was published all the way back in the Spring of 2015, and when a friend in the English major asked me "You like Beauty and the Beast retellings, right?" I was ecstatic to borrow her copy. I ended up sticking with the series all the way through A Court of Frost and Starlight, which came out only three short years later, in 2018, before I decided I had had enough, and bailed. Despite the fact that I started reading traditional genre Romance-with-a-capital-R that same year, I really didn't love where I saw Maas' series headed, and had started to get bugged by some of the quirks of her writing style that were only thrown into sharper relief the more I read on. 

Lo and behold, about five years later, I've been tempted to start a drinking game for every time a well-meaning, usually younger friend asks me, "Oh, you like to read, right? Have your heard of ACOTAR?" And while I still absolutely respect the various faeries and their tails of my youth - Hi, Holly Black, I will always love you - I definitely don't pick up that many of those kinds of books anymore. 

4. Men Who Write Under Deliberately Gender-Ambiguous Pen Names So That You Think That Their Women-Centered Novels Were Written By Women, Because Capitalism Works Better That Way

(Important Note: neither transphobia nor prejudice against nonbinary individuals have anything to do with what I'm talking about here. What I'm telling you is that Riley Sager Thrillers - which unilaterally feature female main characters in danger, occasionally placed into gender-specific peril - are written by a man who identifies as a man and writes under male names like Alan and Todd, except when he wants to publish as Riley. I'm talking specifically about Men Writing In the Hopes That You'll Think They're Women In Order to Sell More Copies of Books Where Women Are Usually In Danger, because they know they are writing books that center female main characters, which are primarily marketed towards female readers. Trans and nonbinary authors, on the other hand, are rad as hell.) 

Some of you may be balking at this point, saying "That's not a real thing." Or maybe you're rejecting this based on the principle that it's a double standard, because women have done this for centuries: after all, George Eliot was a woman, the Brontes (Charlotte, Emily, Anne) originally had to publish as the Bells (Currer, Ellis, Acton) to get any kind of eyes on their work, and even Victoria Schwab chose to publish Fantasy under V. E. Schwab, rather than have a more recognizably-female name leading the way in a male-dominated genre.

And some of you, for the first time, are realizing right now that Riley Sager is actually a guy. 

(He's also far from the only one doing this in contemporary Thriller publishing, as was covered fairly extensively in 2017, in The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, in MEL Magazine, and by the Guardian. Some great, more conversational coverage was provided by some of the ladies at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, for an individualized perspective these writeups don't cover.)  

And for the record, yes, I absolutely hated, HATED Final Girls, in part specifically because I hated how the female main character was written, long before I found out she was written by a guy. 

5. Romances When There Are Babies and Kids Involved 

For the love of all that is produced in mass market paperback and has a shirtless man on the cover, I don't want to ever read another Romance novel where kids are involved. There's just too much that can - and depending on the care of your author, will - go sideways. 

For instance, I hate the "surprise baby" trope in all iterations. I also hate the "miracle baby" plot resolution technique. I have heard of, but have thankfully never encountered, the "accidental pregnancy" trope, thank GOD, because I honestly don't think my anxiety can handle it.

I hate the "precocious daughter" who encourages her dad to ask out her pretty music (or dance, or art) teacher, and I hate the "angry teenage son" who the boyfriend has to win over in order to really get with the mom. I hate children who talk like adults, and children who demonstrate abilities and understanding far beyond (or below!) appropriate growth benchmarks for the sake of adding some kind of dimension or humor to lackluster dialogue, and I especially hate when they are used as a tool to push an unnecessary narrative choice on behalf of their parent, only to never be brought up again. 

Do people have kids? Absolutely. Do people with kids deserve romance too? Hell yeah! But then let's have plots where those kids actually act like actual kids, whose lives are actually tied to their actual parents, and don't exist solely to railroad a particular plot direction or generate otherwise bonkers stakes for the couple to be together, or even just establish sympathy for a character (because let's be real, the guy might have a daughter, but that in no way precludes him from being a total jerk). 

I blame my loathing of this entire thing on Hallmark Channel Original Christmas movies. 

6. Escapist-Genre Authors Who Don't Take Their World-Building "Hard Topics" Seriously

Maybe I'm just voicing gripes about world issues here, but I've had a couple of books in the past few years who have really lost points in my eyes, because they couldn't get an appropriate handle on the important subject matter their main characters were engaging with.

If your Science Fiction interacts with the after-effects of warfare that ravages a civilization and displaces a wave of refugees... if your Fantasy involves an enslaved race of peoples subjugated under a tyrannical rule that perpetuates in their daily interactions within social classes... if your Romance deals with severe misogyny or god forbid, some form of sexual violence, I'm going to need you to step the hell up and engage with that kind of plot content seriously. Put your big kid boots on, and get to marching: do the hard work, do right by your characters, and do right by the world you live in. 

If all you can offer up is a general "gosh, I feel bad about that" sympathy shrug from your main characters - oftentimes only to set up the idea that they're the 'good guys' - without any form of meaningful interaction or demonstratable change, or for heaven's sake, if you're just trying to instill it as a kind of backstory quirk to make this character notable or interesting, then why the hell are you putting such content there in the first place?

Maybe just don't trifle around with real life hard issues... if you don't actually care about them? 

7. Straight-White-Male-Dominated Fantasy Worlds (Like, Your World Has Dragons In It, But God Forbid Two Women Talk To Each Other)

It is a major point of difference in the reading decisions of my brother and I, that I do not enjoy the Lord of the Rings novels. I tried it - spent over a month of my freshman year of college attempting to trudge through Fellowship of the Ring, and eventually emerged on the other side so burnt out that I didn't read anything else for about two weeks after I finished it - and I did not like it. 

(As I glibly remarked to my brother recently, in regards to the movies, if I wanted to hear about a bunch of white dudes backpacking through New Zealand, I would have stayed in touch with more of the fraternity guys I knew in college after graduation.)

If I'm actually going to sit down and dedicate my time towards reading a High Fantasy, there had better be at least three or four female (or gender-non-conforming) characters named within the first forty to fifty pages. Not even main characters, just... people! And they've got to be actual people, with motivations and voices and a variety of ethnic backgrounds. I don't care how many Zs or Xs or inappropriately distributed apostrophes their names have; what I do care about is if anyone in your main cast is same-sex-oriented. 

If you can conceive of a Fantasy world, with its own geography and language and cultures and foods, and you're still coming out on the other side with nearly everyone in the entire novel just being a straight white dude whose only distinction is in what weapon they carry and what facial hair they grow, then I don't know what to tell you. 

Maybe just that the world is an exciting place to live in, and you should go meet more real life people before you try writing any more fictional ones? 

8. The Phrase "Whatever God Looks Like to You," or Plenty of Other Couched Religious Thoughts Like It, in Self Help

To defend myself a little here, I was raised Catholic. I read Catholic- and Christian-oriented books with some degree of regularity. But the thing about Catholicism is that... it's not exactly known for being subtle. Chances are, beyond the Spanish Inquisition, you're going to see Catholicism coming from a mile away. 

I don't know what it is about the Self Help genre, but there are an awful lot of religious folks in here. And in particular, there are a lot of Christians who want to couch their religious convictions behind a thin veil of pseudo-secularism. 

It drives me absolutely nuts to see Christian values nestled inside a Self-Help book with the idea that

it's somehow able to be parsed out in your own individualized direction with a flippant note from the author. It's relying too much on the reader to somehow adjust their own perspectives and experience, rather than have the author deconstruct how their own beliefs inform their insights in the first place. 

Notably, the book I have on display here - At Your Best, by Casey Nieuwhof - is an example of the appropriate way to do this within the Self Help sphere: he's literally a pastor, on top of being a motivational speaker and author, and not only does he immediately clarify the role religion plays in his life from the introductory material, but almost no doctrine actually comes up when discussing the Self Help principles he recommends, only in how making these kinds of lifestyle changes affected his own work schedule. Be like Casey. 

9. Fantasy Words That Are Just Straight-Up Corollaries for Previously Existing Countries and Cultures

(Okay, to be very clear, I'm not coming for Leigh Bardugo again. I love her! But again, this is absolutely something she does in her world-building. To the point: recently, I was reading about the war in Ukraine, and stumbled upon a reference to the Russian city of Novosibirsk. I spent about ten minutes puzzling over why that name sounded so familiar, until I realized that Novokribirsk is one of the Ravkan cities adjacent to the Shadow Fold in the Grishaverse.)

I think it's more of a factor in Middle Grade and Young Adult Fantasy - or, like with some movies and television shows, and a whole lot of video games, more of a wider-spanning media phenomenon - but if your only contributions to building out an entirely new world are to muddle up the names a little bit, and just adopt, wholesale, entire cultural touchstones of that particular country without identifying it specifically, then I don't know if you're doing your world a service in its construction. Nor really the people of that real-world country. 

I acknowledge that this is occasionally very intentional (for instance, The Hunger Games deliberately takes place in a post-apocalyptic America, and as such, the Districts operate as recognizable parts of the United States). I just also think this is occasionally very lazy. And occasionally, kinda problematic. 

For more info why, check out this incredibly detailed TV Tropes page on "Fantasy Counterpart Culture."

10. Just Not Really Being All That Interested In Reading It... At Least, Not Right Now. 

This is, by far, my reading habit that most drives my brother up the wall. I am - notoriously, historically, frustratingly - a mood reader, first and foremost. And it can absolutely tank my enjoyment when I try to read something I'm just really not feeling in that moment. 

For instance, I first read Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver when Washington was in the middle of a stretch of snowy days. It was absolutely perfect... because I was in the right mindset to read something wintry and cozy! On the other side, I've had Katherine Arden's The Bear and the Nightingale waiting on my TBR for a while now, sitting around for the right kind of weather forecast, no matter how often my friends have told me to just tackle it on the sooner side. 

Additionally, I am almost never, ever in the mood to read Horror... but one of the few times I do, is during the Summer, when the days are long and I have far less reason to be as afraid of what goes bump in the night as I am during the Winter, when the dark is near inescapable. That's why some of the rare times you'll see me picking up something like Stephen King is in July or August! (And certainly never on a camping trip.) 

It all comes down to how I'm feeling about it. And, you know, the stars. 

What's in YOUR Top Ten? Have any similar vibes to my list? Let me know, in the comments below!

Top Ten Tuesday: Things that Make Me Instantly Want to Read a Book

"Top Ten Tuesday" is a weekly bookish shareable hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl!

So, about a week ago, I was seized by a sudden, desperate, nervous-system-zapping urge to read something. 

Not just anything, though... after all, I had plenty of books on my own shelves already - hundreds of them, even! - holed up in the same room in which I spend most of my waking hours. What I desperately needed, instead, was a library book.

It makes perfect sense to me; I mean, I haven't been back to check out my local branch in several months now, with how busy my Spring has been. And I am very much still in a Buying Ban. So, I set about righting this wrong in several stages. 

First off, I downloaded six books on audio through the Libby app, access granted through my library card, and stored for easy reading on my iPhone. 

Next, I placed about fifteen holds on books stored throughout the library system, with express orders to be shipped to my local branch, so that I could pick them up (squeeze them, hold 'em close to me, reluctantly let them go at the culmination of their agreed check-out period) at my leisure.

Some of these were, of course, ready within the day. After all, I had been cheerfully informed when the holds were placed that some were already available at a "preferred location." (I mean, for me, the preferred location might be found at the edge of my coffee table next to my bed, spawned through some kind of science fiction beam technology, but then I'd miss out on several perfectly lovely conversations about what great weather we've been having with the local library team.)

So, whereas the week before, I had been suffering through some kind of withdrawal, now things are quite different. This week, I am fully cognizant of rapidly approaching due dates, of a personal track record of reading so far this year that amounts to less than what I managed to check out in one day, and a colossal amount of books that do not belong to me, being stored in my room, very, very close to books that very much do belong to me, who are now starting to feel a little neglected.

That's what made this kind of "Top Ten Tuesday" topic so funny to consider. What are some kinds of things that make me instantly want to read a book? Hmm. Well, let's peruse some of the impulsively selected subject matter in the mountainous range that are currently ringing my reading nook, like some kind of summoning circle... 

1. Recommendations from Regan at Peruse Project on YouTube

Okay, so we've all got different definitions for what an "influencer" is, and the role that they play in our social media lives, correct? Well, Regan, from Peruse Project, has genuinely influenced me more times than I can count, when it comes to feeling inspired to pick up a new (or old, for that matter) Fantasy novel. 

It's because of her that I found In Other Lands, by Sarah Rees Brennan, for the first time, and it changed not only my life for the better, but plenty of others I've foisted it on since; numerous titles on my shelves, like Babel, by R. F. Kuang, and The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison, I haven't even read yet, but selected due to her high praise. I mean, I have three books from the Warrior Bards series by Juliet Marillier sitting on my shelves, simply because she said she really enjoyed a completely different series by the same author! 

2. Books About Cooking... Home Cooking, or Culinary School, or Groceries, Literally Whatever.

It may sound like a joke, but something that occupies maybe four to five hours out of every day I spend on this earth, is mentally designing meal plans, grocery lists, food illustrations, and cookbook rankings in my head. Sometimes, when I'm having a hard time sleeping at night, I'll plan out entire dinner parties - we're talking multiple courses here - or I'll rewrite recipes I've attempted recently that didn't turn out up to par. I have a complete notebook full of personally collected recipes, filled cover to cover... and when I finished it, I immediately started a new one. Three of the longest Word docs on my computer include a manuscript for a cookbook, a collection of fantasy grocery lists - with prices included - of budgeted meal plans, and short personal essays on the topic of food writing. 

And you ask me why I'm not dating anyone. Like, who has the time? 

3. Books About Books and Authors and Writing

Similarly to how much I love reading about Food, I also love reading about Books. These two subject matters alone account for maybe fifteen to twenty books a piece occupying my TBR shelves. And it makes sense... after all, I spend a goodly amount of time each day both Cooking and Writing, so. It's always important to keep that mental whetstone handy, right? 

I'm always into a good deep-dive into the sociocultural context of an author's life and livelihood while writing: Romantic Outlaws, by Charlotte Gordon, was a fave from the past couple of years, and followed the lives and connections of literary icons Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, as well as how their relationships with others impacted the kinds of writing they produced. 

My TBR shelves boast the likes of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, by Thomas C. Foster, or The Diary of a Bookseller, by Shaun Bythell, and various works from Didion, Hornby, and Plath, all on reading and writing, while Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living, by Marjula Martin, details some of the financials of what a life in literature looks like. 

4. Buzzy Celebrity Memoirs

It's been a while since I read a whole lot of these in a row... maybe back in 2020, when I was determined to listen to every audiobook available from the cast of Queer Eye? (A challenge I'm still clearly intent on pursuing, being that one of those books I checked out in my recent mad fit was Jonathan Van Ness' Love That Story.) 

I don't have a ton of these stacked up on my shelves these days - they're a fun fling, perfect for vacations or audio or breaking out of a slump, not typically something I hang onto for a long time - but in the past I've really enjoyed Anna Kendrick's Scrappy Little Nobody, Rachel Bloom's I Want To Be Where the Normal People Are, as well as Sara Bareilles' Sounds Like Me. And, of course, if there was any book I hope you read last year, it was Jennette McCurdy's I'm Glad My Mom Died, something I've recommended to all kinds of people, and has received naught but unilateral praise. 

5. Pretty Much Any Novella from Tor Publishing

If there's anything I've learned about myself as an adult and my financial practices, it's that while I consider myself to be a pretty darn frugal person, I'm also more than happy to pay $20 for the slimmest of hardcovers, provided that they have 1. a jaw-droppingly beautiful cover and 2. the words "Tor" or "Tor Dot Com" emblazoned on the lower portion of the spine. 

This line of thinking has only brought me success, with the Wayward Children series from Seanan McGuire, the Murderbot series from Martha Wells, and the Monk and Robot series by Becky Chambers. Truly, truly, nothing but net. Novellas are great because they can be easily consumed in one afternoon, but also occupy ever-increasing amounts of space in the back of your mind that creep into your daily thoughts on the lightest of footsteps and rewrite the ways you view reality. 

Plus, they're usually really pretty to have on your bookshelves. 

6. Swear Words in Titles

What can I say? I have a mug on my desk that says "I have the vocabulary of a well educated sailor," and it stores my scissors, which I like to think are just as cutting as my words. The dream may be to write for a living, but I promise you that I swear simply for the joy of it. I watched a lot of pirate movies in my childhood, and it's manifested itself in my adult life as a penchant for rum drinks and a fondness for a lot of strung-together, creatively-formatted expletives. 

Don't believe me? I literally picked up The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind by Jackson Ford last year based on this concept alone. Have I read it yet? No. Does it make me happy every time I look at it? Oh yeah. 

7. Things that Would Make My Professors Happy

Every time I pick up a Classic novel - be it Woolf, Wharton, or whatever - it's because I'm trying to subconsciously persuade the mental phantoms of my past educators from the English department to tell me how proud they are. Like that one popular internet post says, I will spend the rest of my life chasing the emotional high that getting an A+ in my AP English class gave me. Only for me, it's the 4.0-plus on every single midterm paper that I somehow managed to score sophomore year in college in my "Shakespeare Post 1603" class.

And you've even seen it here, plenty of times before, on this blog alone: for instance, you know that I spent part of January of this year rereading Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, and assembling my own vocab list, all of which I posted about here. Normal people don't do things like that... but recovering English majors absolutely do. 

8. Fave Fantasy Authors: Tamora Pierce, Holly Black, Victoria Schwab, and Naomi Novik, to name a few

I'm a loyal person. I may leave your texts on read for several days in a row, and I might begin our meetings by saying "Okay, so I swear I was going to respond to your email," and I have perhaps been known to go months without speaking to my high school best friend before we start shooting off flurries of messages about how much we've missed each other. But I'm a lost little duckling, and I'm following you, wherever you're headed, because I've imprinted and now I think you're what home looks like. 

The aforementioned Seanan McGuire, Martha Wells, and Becky Chambers all get their kudos here, within their various series, but also, I've read enough Holly Black to know I like her fairy world stories. I know Naomi Novik makes for a magical time. Tamora Pierce - let's be real here - is responsible for the topography of entire segments of gray matter currently stored in my skull. I hadn't even finished with A Darker Shade of Magic before I had already purchased the two subsequent books in the series from V. E. Schwab. 

9. Meta Humor and Genre Commentary

Okay, I know there are plenty of us out there, and I'm blaming growing up on things like British humor, the Shrek movies, one of the greatest comedies of all time, NBC's Community. If you're like me, and you know that a book makes fun of its roots and breaks the fourth wall as often as possible in a genre or setting that you love, it's probably already on its way to your shopping cart.

Seriously, is it such a surprise that John Scalzi's Redshirts, Delilah Dawson and Kevin Hearn's Kill the Farm Boy, Edgar Cantero's Meddling Kids, or Jasper Fforde's complete Thursday Next series are all on my shelves? Obviously not. 

10. Things I Can Give My Brother

(Hi, buddy. I know you're reading this. Good luck in the rehearsal studio today; don't blow away in the high winds you've been getting in that blustery town of yours. Love you.) 

Let's be real, every purchase I've made within the Fantasy genre in the last five years has been informed by how much I love my brother, who is the kind of person who would rather eat gravel than cut out of a Branderson novel in the middle of a chapter. To distract him from the idea of convincing me to try the Mistborn series, I have to focus on continually shoveling recently-published Fantasy reads into his hands like feeding coal into a steam engine, hence why I have a year-round Notes section on my iPhone dedicated to what books to buy for his birthday.

 All told, if I'm buying something for myself, you can bet it's with the expectation that he might be picking up after me... and vice versa. 

What's in YOUR Top Ten? Let me know, in the comments below!

Paranormal Romance Reading Update #1: Temperamental Dragons, Copyright Law Loopholes, Demonic Crime Procedurals, and my First DNF of the Challenge!

What do you mean, it's late May? Last time I checked, we were zipping through Winter at an alarming pace. Don't tell me we're nearly done with Spring, too? 

Yes, yes, the earth is finally waking up, my garden is showing distinct signs of not-dying, and I'm reminded of the fact that the sun exists every morning only a few hours after I've actually managed to go to sleep. 

Just this morning, I realized that in a little over a month, I'd be called upon to be a part of the first family camping trip of the season, and spent a good twenty minutes over breakfast daydreaming about being a private chef in the Hamptons instead, and whether it would be possible to give my own kitchen a much-needed Nancy Meyers makeover, rather than spend so many days in a tent. 

But all of this activity hasn't exactly manifested itself here. And you might be wondering when I was going to start delivering on promises made at the start of the year.

I'm talking, of course, of the 2023 Big Box of Paranormal Romance. 

For those not in the know, back in 2020, my younger brother gifted me a giant box of 20 backlisted Paranormal Romance paperbacks for Christmas. I spent 2021 reading through as many as I could, to varying degrees of success, and the final favorite of the challenge ended up going right back to my brother to read, too.

(He loved it. We reference Judson and his affinity for "guns over psychic ability" often. Including a Paranormal Romance between a psychic investigator and a psychic counselor that was published in 2013 in regular conversation, is fairly par for the course in a family that routinely references Muppet Treasure Island, "Actual Cannibal Shia LaBeouf," and a Danny Kaye medieval comedy from 1955 as often as we do.) 

But fret not, friends: this year's challenge is still alive and well. It's just that this particular box is a very different beast than its predecessor. I think I'm going to have to stop asking my brother to pick out my next upcoming titles for me, because he somehow manages, from several hours' worth of a drive away, to maintain a laser focus on making me read all of the dragon shifter books first. 

So far, in the last five months or so, I've managed to tackle four of the books, three of which I finished and did NOT give 1-star reviews - which, if you followed the last (incredibly problematic) iteration of this challenge, is an absolute miracle - and only one of which I DNF'd (because it was boring, not because it was racist, homophobic, or worse. Again, a very different box than last time). 

Without any further ado, here's what I thought of them: 

What a Dragon Should Know (Dragon Kin #3), G. A. Aiken

"'We have a problem.'

Briec glanced up from the book he was reading and into the face of Brastias, general of Annwyl's armies, and one of the few human males Briec could tolerate. 

Closing his book, he asked, 'What did Gwenvael do now? Do I need to contact my mother? Are we already in war, or is it simply heading our way?'

Brastias, whose scarred face looked grim at the best of times, smiled. 'Anytime I start a conversation that way, all of you ask me the same questions.'

'My brother starts trouble the way horses shit when they walk. And we all know that.'" 

Okay. So. My first title in the challenge, read all the way back in January, and I did not enjoy this book. But I did get through it! And unlike the first title in the last challenge, it did not use the n-word anywhere in its contents, so. Let's take the wins as they come, small though they may be? 

My main issue is that this book employs a sense of faux feminism that is clarified by its 2008 publication date, in a sort of "bikini chainmail" way: if the female characters are loosely implied to be badasses, then they may freely be oversexualized, overemotional, and as oversimplified as necessary. 

(To the point: in the first chapter or so, we are introduced to a battle queen - whose character hallmark is a love of learning, accompanied by a hulk-like war rage that renders her unstoppable in combat - by her bursting into tears at being called fat. She then cries a second time after she gets a half-hearted apology for being called fat. Then gets all giggly when the same person who called her fat compliments her chest size and pretends to peek down her shirt. The person in question is the main romantic Hero of the novel.) 

Women are either prized like cattle in the Northlands, or fair game for abuse down below in the dragon-primed Southlands. At various odds, women are routinely called whores, overprotected - to the point of allowing for regular violence towards their chosen romantic partners, excused by way of "brotherly respect" - and either yelled at or spoken down to, in turns. 

I get the impression the author might not like women a ton, or at the very least, women who weren't of a certain sarcastic, all-suffering, moderately-prone-to-violence type. The vibe was very Disney-Princess-wearing-thick-rimmed-glasses-and-sporting-tattoos thing, if you clearly remember the year 2014. 

Other problematic elements also skeeved me off, including the main romantic couple's predilection for nonconsensual voyeurism, and something that I'm pretty sure was just the communicated threat of homosexuality as a kind of mental warfare. And a ton of gratuitous violence. 

That being said, parts of it were kind of funny. Hence, two-and-a-half stars. 

Bustin', Minda Webber

"The monster ripped off his boxers, sporting a Doric column so big that Sam thought she was seeing things. Now she understood the expression 'hung like an ox,' and Nero wasn't even a minotaur!

'Talk about cock of the walk,' she muttered to herself. No way was that getting anywhere near her. Still, what was a girl to do? She despaired momentarily, caught between the moon, New York City, a werewolf, and a giant gorgon penis." 

At 323 scant pages, this should have been an easy read. But because it was so jam-packed with random pop culture references - especially in regards to Humphrey Bogart's canon of work - I spent as much time googling obscure phrases and movie titles as I did actually paying attention to the plot. 

Distracting though it was, I can honestly say the book would have been significantly more boring without them. 

THAT being said, ignoring this book's quirky delivery makes some structural issues all the more glaring: while the front half is fairly sedate - but spookily-occupied - generic Romance, the second is an about-face, completing changing both setting and theme towards more of a Mystery angle. 

The characters were equally strange. The Heroine spoke in the model of a fast-talkin', Pan-Atlantic moll from Hollywood's Golden Age... and came equipped with some severely anti-Communist sentiments to share, relatively unprompted. The Hero - a gruff Russian, one gold chain short of straightforward stereotype - plays the lover with equal parts malice and apathy, and enacts a revenge plan so jaw-clenchingly awful that its absolutely shocking that the only thing to come out of it is a substandard apology (couched within phrasing that suggests it as the most low kind of ego-sacrifice, and therefore the Heroine's obligation to accept). 

There's a third act reveal that feels like it counteracts other previous sections of the book. There's a movie-referencing final scene involving a piano that wouldn't make nearly as much sense for someone who hasn't a solid understanding of Casablanca. For some reason, the Heroine just cannot shut up about how she always wanted to be a hairdresser. 

At the end of it all, it's almost impossible to parse out what feels strange because it's a pop culture reference, and what feels strange because it's just a bizarre narrative choice. 

But we all know how I feel about making weird narrative choices in these kinds of books. Three stars. 

Never Dare a Dragon (Boston Dragons #3), Ashlyn Chase

DNF @ 17%

"Ryan was actually the oldest - until he'd met with a near-fatal accident at the age of seven. Jayce had been only five, but after witnessing the family secret in action that day, the image was burned into his brain. Literally. Mommy and Daddy quickly explained what was going to happen and dumped lighter fluid on his big brother - then lit him up. Ryan didn't yell or scream. He just sort of went to sleep, and they watched until there was nothing but a pile of ash left. Then the ashes stirred... and the brilliant phoenix arose." 

If you're confused as to why the title references a dragon, while the blurb I chose features a phoenix family, then let me clear some things up for you: there are both. When a Boston firefighting phoenix shifter hits it off with a NYC firefighting dragon shifter, you've got a lot of promises about "heat" and "sparks flying," to live up to... but unfortunately this, for me, suffered from a lack of both character and romantic development. 

Our Hero, Jayce Fierro - eye roll - is bad at communicating emotions, and an awkward mix between obliviously snarky and 2023 levels of chivalric. There's nothing about him that feels believable or human - in a "not an invention" kind of way, rather than a "not a mythological creature" kind of way - like he was constructed from spare parts of a personality that didn't mesh together that well upon application.

Our Heroine, Kristine Scott, lives alone with her single mom, and the two of them are the only ones who know their dragon-shifting secret... so to speak, as within the first 15% of the novel, someone is already using this information against her. She's postured to be relatable and current by the fact that she does things like wear "satin granny panties" on a date, and focus on putting her career first; upon being asked by a work colleague if her erratic emotional behavior is due to getting her period, she screams "You are never, ever, ever allowed to ask a woman that - ever!" while exiting from a parking garage "with more speed than was prudent." 

The Romance part bugged me because they were practically ready to jump each other from their first interaction, which didn't even go well for either of them. Despite this, Jayce decides to travel to New York with what is, essentially, the expressed intention of meeting her again. By the time the two make it on an actual date, both are considering how a real relationship would manage to work itself out, being that they live in two different cities, and would have to manage things long distance. Plus any actual sex scenes that may occur seemed to solely be resolved by way of fade-to-black, which makes the cover's promise of "sizzling heat" feel especially misplaced. And again, this is all within the first 17% of the novel.

Plus, with this kind of narrative subtlety in mind, of course, you knew that once a character who speaks with a pronounced Scottish accent was introduced, she'd turn out to be a leprechaun (I ended up skipping ahead to verify). 

I tried to get into this over the course of weeks - weeks! - to the point where it sent me into a mini-reading slump. 

Dream Chaser (Dark Hunter #13, Dream Hunter #3), Sherrilyn Kenyon

"Of course he was... why should anything in the world make sense? Dear lord, it wasn't like she wasn't sitting beside one of the hottest men on the planet who was a god himself. Or that she had a goofy teenage ghost in her backseat mouthing the words to Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." 

It only made sense that the hottie in the Classics department was a demigod, too..." 

I had been suffering through that dragon book for WEEKS before I decided to just try a little bit of a different tactic, and picked up this title instead. I ended up devouring it completely in less than 24 hours. 

That being said... she's still not great. In fact, I think that the three star rating I'm willing to afford to her is more than generous, and just as reflective of how happy I was to be done with another one of these as it is a commentary on the novel itself. 

I think my primary problems stem from the fact that it is just so completely of its publication year: 2008. Its general format reminds me of any number of crime procedurals, its treatment of the supernatural feels like a bad Syfy movie of my childhood, its humor feels like that kind of snarky-without-bite variety that was so ubiquitous to both genres, personified in the kinds of characters the Internet was obsessed with when I was in middle school... and displaying similar kinds of banter to the ones people tried so hard to emulate, but failed to do so with the same panache. If that wasn't enough for you, how about some more direct references to of-the-time cultural touchstones: Happy Bunny, Hannah Montana, and the Reese Witherspoon movie Just Like Heaven all got a mention. 

There was force-choking, questionable use of mythology as a point of worldbuilding, even worse dialogue, and truly horrendous sex scenes which were (thankfully) over quickly. You could have told me that this author was an expert in Supernatural fan fiction, and I would have believed you. 

My primary points of applause include having female character who actually served as dimensional figures in the context of plot, and the use of diversity in world-building, being that the book itself takes place in New Orleans. Three stars.

(I know this feels like an uneven review, and I acknowledge that I spend a lot of time calling out how goofy this book is. But to be honest, that's where most of my joy in this challenge comes from: after all, my end favorite of the last Big Box of Paranormal Romance challenge was selected because of how bonkers wild it was, too. I don't think Dream Chaser will be my final fave, but I do think it has more in common than not with what I enjoy so much about this project.)

So, those are the first four books I read in the challenge for this year. A meager showing, right? Pretty dismal to only have three titles completed, and one DNF, for all that it's nearly the end of the fifth month in the challenge? I agree.

Plus, with the onset of June just around the corner - heralding the triumphant return of Summer Book Bingo from Seattle Arts and Lectures and Seattle Public Libraries, as well as the Ripped Bodice Romance Book Bingo (careful, these links are both for 2022) - my mind is most likely going to be taken over by other tomes to-be-read, for challenges outside of this one. 

This all feels, of course, like the odds are stacked against this particular personal challenge of mine. But don't fret: being aware of your limitations is the best indication that you'll be able to overcome them. What I mean by that is, I keep stubbing my toe on the giant cardboard box every time I fuss around with my TBR shelves, and every book I take out of it makes the pain a little less. 

I really am planning on making Summer 2023 one slam-jammed with reading, honest. And besides, I personally maintain the second best time of year to read Paranormal is in the sunny months, when the things-that-go-bump-in-the-night feel like more of a novelty. 

Keep a weather eye on the horizon for further deets on my Summer reading plans. For now, though, rest assured that I'm currently suffering through a BDSM-lite Harlequin Romance between a vampire princess and a dragon shifter, and thinking of you fondly. 

Have you read any especially good Romance lately? How about especially bad Romance? Don't tell me there are dragons in it. Let me know, in the comments below!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Recommend to Others the Most

"Top Ten Tuesday" is a weekly bookish sharable, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl!

Let's be real: if there's anything a book lover loves more than a good book, it's trying to convince other people they should also read that book, too, so as to best facilitate additional conversations about how much you love said book. 

It's one of the most enduring reasons book clubs (and, to be honest, English degrees) exist... enjoying a book all on your stony lonesome is one thing, but finding other people to freak out about recent reads with is its own kind of heaven. There's nothing better than clumping up over a cup of coffee, or piling onto someone's sofa, or taking over the back corner of your Lit class, to gab about which character did what. 

There's nothing that's convinced me about this more than a friendly exchange I had a few weeks back. I recently stumbled upon a friend of mine at a local coffee shop, when she interrupted her own Saturday morning routine to come say hello... then found herself unexpectedly embroiled in an hour-and-a-half conversation, about poetry as an act of public witness; and how experiencing a novel is an act of co-creation; and how theater is like a group project between the author, the stagecraft, and the audience, and how that's why I love Shakespearean adaptations so much; and what have you been reading recently? 

She's a gem of a human, and that jewel of a conversation was the perfect way to ornament an otherwise kind of bleak weekend. Clearly, I'm still thinking about it all of these weeks later! 

But that's what the joy of a great conversation can get you. And oftentimes, those kinds of conversations come as a result of really great books. 

Here are a few of the titles I recommend to friends quite a lot: 

someone trying to get into the classics

1. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

There's a reason it's a favorite of high school English teachers everywhere: much like how Shakespeare's themes of love, war, betrayal, and history stand the test of time, so, too, are the human experiences of having family members that drive you nuts, dealing with your friend's bitchy sister on vacation, and watching your bestie settle for a guy you truly cannot stand. May we all someday experience the highs of "finding out the hot guy you know with the nice house and steady income has a total crush on you," but for now, it's one of my most regular recs for someone trying to figure out if British Classics are right for them. 

2. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

I've been called "basic" for this before, but if the self-inflated men I knew in college were allowed to breathe the names "Hemingway" and "Steinbeck" and "Kerouac" every other second without getting tomatoes thrown at them, then I get to talk about why it's still important for young women to read Plath. I fully recognize that poetry isn't for everyone - hell, including me; I read the original, unformatted collection of Ariel all the way through twice last summer and came out on the other side pale and shaking - which is why The Bell Jar provides a more straightforward, though no less harrowing, entry point for Contemporary Classics, especially those interested in vivid description and sociohistorical context for what they're reading. 

3. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster

Listen, and I mean it: sometimes the best way to get into Classics, is by starting at the ground floor, just like everybody else. Most of the time, when someone asks me how to begin reading "real" Literature, I tell them to start with something like Alice in Wonderland, and to really dig into the meat of it; not just the Tea Party side, but the "Charles Dodgson - logic puzzles - chess playing - real life counterpart" side of it. Chances are, if you can read a book intended for children like a scholar, you'll have a better time breaking into Dickens later. My favorite Children's Lit to recommend is, of course, the incomparable Phantom Tollbooth, a perennial classic of kids and adults alike... but of course, "[t]here are no wrong roads to anywhere." 

someone trying to get into romance (like, capital R romance)

4. Red, White, and Royal Blue, Casey McQuiston

I don't think there's a single person of my acquaintance who's read this book, and NOT fallen in love with its snappy dialogue, congenial characters, and alternative history. Truly the highlights are its sense of humor, but there's absolutely no ignoring the steam factor, too. Friends who have told me they don't really like Contemporary Romance in their novels have had their minds totally changed by this book alone... you can't help but be won over by its optimism and heart. (Though I will say, if Politics make you want to dry heave, you might want to sit this one out.)

5. The Duchess Deal, by Tessa Dare 

Tessa Dare, back in 2018, served as one of my own entry points into the genre with the Castles Ever After series; I see no reason she wouldn't serve you well, too. Her characters are compelling, her dialogue is hilarious, her plots are absolutely bonkers, and her books are jam-packed with tropes galore: these are all among the reasons why she serves as an excellent exemplar of Historical Romance. If you have a good time, chances are, you'll have a great time in the rest of the genre. 

unique science fiction and fantasy

 6. In Other Lands, Sarah Rees Brennan

My experiences reading this book have been so overwhelmingly special, that I've since shared it with several people... but only a few. Only the kind, I think, who would really appreciate it, and understand it for what it is. There's not a lot of YA Fantasy novels I would call life-changing, but to give you some personal insight: the first time I finished this book, years ago, I turned the last page crying, not because it was a sad ending, and not even necessarily because I was sad it was over, but because I knew how much this book would have meant to me, had I read it when I was a teenager, instead.  

7. The Murderbot series, Martha Wells

My brother, bless him, hates Science Fiction. The kid will tear through an 800-page Branderson novel like it's the weekend funny pages, but if you ask him to immerse himself in anything set in Space? Not a chance. But you know what he does love? The Murderbot books. They're a crowd-pleaser, for whatever crowd you point them at.

8. The Wayward Children series, Seanan McGuire 

Speaking of Fantasy I wish I had when I was a teenager, I truly cannot recommend the characters of Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children and their myriad adventures enough. Not only is the concept incredible - a boarding school for children returned home from adventures in Fantasy lands they no longer have access to, like if the Pevensies came back from Narnia and all had nervous breakdowns - but each installment in the series of novellas introduces different characters, new worlds, new lessons to have learned. And the covers are among the most beautiful that you can find anywhere. 

personal faves

9. The Gideon Oliver books, Aaron Elkin

I was on a walk one afternoon, during 2021 Covid, with a few friends, when one mentioned that she was using quarantine as an excuse to finally pick up some of the Agatha Christie novels her parents have been recommending to her all these years. As someone who collects them myself, I was overjoyed, but grew nervous when she said after running through so many, she was running out of steam. I told her to take a break from the British, and hop back to our side of the Pond; more specifically, the Puget Sound area, where forensic anthropologist and fellow UW Husky (wink wink) Gideon Oliver has been examining skeletal findings for decades. The next time I talked to her, she had bought three. 

10. House of Leaves, Mark Z Danielewski

Listen, one of the first pages says everything you need to know: there's a great chance "this book is not for you." It's weird, its formatting doesn't make any sense, there's too much left open to interpretation, and who wants to be a part of an underground cult anyways? Unfortunately, not only do I talk about this novel an unhealthy amount, but it's because I experienced it in an ideal format: back in college, I had an entire five-credit class dedicated to solely reading this book and concurrent literary analysis for an entire Quarter. Yet another reason I wish college was free... that way, we could all voluntarily attend ten two-hour lectures to better understand the books we're reading. 

What books do you like to recommend? What kinds of books do you GET  as recommendations? Let me know, in the comments below!