mouse started reading Translation State by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch)
Qven was created to be a Presger translator. The pride of their Clade, they always …
So pleased to be here
Reviews and Comments
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mouse finished reading The thin man by Dashiell Hammett
The Thin Man (1934) is a detective novel by Dashiell Hammett, originally published in the …
The movie is better.
mouse reviewed The English Understand Wool by Helen Dewitt (Storybook ND)
Raised in Marrakech by a French mother and English father, a 17-year-old girl has learned …
Just charming
5 stars
Dryly funny and endearing. I read this in one sitting last night and I've been thinking about how fun it was throughout the day
mouse started reading Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Piranesi's house is no ordinary building; its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls …
This is one of the few books I feel like I can re-read forever; this will be my third pass
mouse finished reading Immodest Acts by Judith C. Brown
The discovery of the fascinating and richly documented story of Sister Benedetta Carlini, Abbess of …
Somewhat surprisingly for a book randomly found in a thrift store, this was interesting, accessible, and short (about 130 pages minus appendices). It was a fun way to meditate on ins and out of trying to understand people in history, in general and specifically in regard to morality and sexuality, as a person who can't escape their own subconscious contemporary context and also as a person with a very conscious perspective.
mouse commented on Immodest Acts by Judith C. Brown
The discovery of the fascinating and richly documented story of Sister Benedetta Carlini, Abbess of …
I have now been informed that there is a Verhoeven movie based on this book??
mouse started reading Immodest Acts by Judith C. Brown
The discovery of the fascinating and richly documented story of Sister Benedetta Carlini, Abbess of …
This is really fun so far!
mouse reviewed Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows
Not for me
3 stars
This really didn't do it for me! I think part of that is that I'm not wild about romances and this was a romance. A big complaint for me is that the romantic leads behave so constantly and consistently we've-been-to-therapy correctly towards each other that I found their interactions tedious and didactic. It felt moralizing to me ("observe, this is the correct way to handle an emotion"), but I think it was intended to be more of a wish fulfillment love story ("imagine if you dated someone this emotionally mature"). Also everyone is described as being super hot and I did not enjoy that.
The heroes behaved perfectly in every situation and the villains were over-the-top horrible in every situation, and even though the moral stakes were ones I agree with (don't sexually assault people, don't be homophobic, don't murder people), I was put off by the black-and-white-ness of the …
This really didn't do it for me! I think part of that is that I'm not wild about romances and this was a romance. A big complaint for me is that the romantic leads behave so constantly and consistently we've-been-to-therapy correctly towards each other that I found their interactions tedious and didactic. It felt moralizing to me ("observe, this is the correct way to handle an emotion"), but I think it was intended to be more of a wish fulfillment love story ("imagine if you dated someone this emotionally mature"). Also everyone is described as being super hot and I did not enjoy that.
The heroes behaved perfectly in every situation and the villains were over-the-top horrible in every situation, and even though the moral stakes were ones I agree with (don't sexually assault people, don't be homophobic, don't murder people), I was put off by the black-and-white-ness of the characters.
While the author has put a lot of thought into gender and sexuality, even if I found it ultimately shallow, I found the near total absence of a critique of power and class to be pretty uncomfortable.
That said, it wasn't hard to read, and if you wanted a comforting romance about healing from assault (which, fair warning, is very graphic, though not imo gratuitous), it might be for you. And I really liked that the protagonists spend the whole book trying to solve a mystery and do an absolutely abysmal job at it.
mouse reviewed Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
All her life Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the murder of …
Dark but not heavy
5 stars
This book really stuck with me after reading it. I had to stop reading it before bed because I would stay up too late reading it, which is a trait I cherish in a book and is also hard to pull off in a book with such heavy themes -- brainwashing, abuse, reproductive coercion, war,.... And the characters were so well articulated. I really live for books where characters seem like actual humans who are capable of being really truly horrible to each other and also capable of kindness and growth.
mouse finished reading The Conjure-Man Dies by Rudolph Fisher
When the body of N’Gana Frimbo, the African conjure-man, is discovered in his consultation room, …
I enjoyed this! I wouldn't recommend it if someone was just looking for something to read because wow the language around race does not age well and the plot wasn't super tight, but it's an interesting piece of the history of detective fiction
mouse started reading Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
All her life Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the murder of …
interesting to start a book with the protagonist being the absolute worst!
mouse finished reading Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows
I'm a little grumpy that I predicted the twist at the end early on. This wasn't really my thing, but it wasn't bad?
mouse started reading Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows
I'm not super feeling this but I'm still reading it
mouse started reading Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell
Rich socialite, inveterate flirt, and walking disaster Tennalhin Halkana can read minds. Tennal, like all …
Been a while since I got lost in an escapists sf/f genre read, what a cool drink for me right now
mouse finished reading The Philosophy of Art by Curt John Ducasse
I keep finding that with philosophy or theory books, I find the intro super interesting and then the rest of the book a combination of absolutely impenetrable jargon and excruciatingly detailed debunkings of prior work that I haven't read and means nothing to me. I guess this is why I didn't go to grad school.