Books I've Read: May 2024
Jun. 6th, 2024 11:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjDon't Want You Like a Best Friend by Emma R. Alban (text)
Amusingly, I ended up picking this up in three formats -- ebook, text, and audio. Ebook, because that's almost how I "bookmark" things for TBR. Audio, because I was interested in reading this one and figured that was how I'd get to it. But then I was in the Book Passage bookstore at the SF Ferry Building when I did a jaunt over there, spotted the book in hard copy, and decided to make it my paper reading project. That was in January, so you can see how my hard-copy reading tends to be more episodic and drawn out than my audio. I had some interesting observations about the differences in how I read on paper versus ebook. I feel like I can read more quickly on paper -- it's easier to skim and not feel like I'm missing anything. But my hard-copy reading tends to be assigned to my Saturday morning bike-and-brunch jaunts, so often it's only a couple chapters at a time. Anyway...
This is another cornerstone of the think-piece I'm digesting on what I think of as "cosplay historicals" (and I've seen described elsewhere as "wallpaper historicals") where historical trappings are laid over a story and characters that are, in many essentials, contemporary. But that think-piece isn't so much about critiquing the flavor, as thinking about why *some* of them work for me and some don't.
I was strongly attracted to this book because the advance publicity felt like "major press tackles fluffy sapphic historical romance" and I was interested to see what that looked like. My conclusion on that question is that small/indie sapphic historicals don't need to worry about being shut out quite yet, because this falls short of scratching the itch satisfactorily.
In point of fact, I definitely enjoyed this book, but only after I’d shifted gears and stopped reading it as a historical. The story is allegedly set in Victorian England, and is something of a “Parent Trap” take-off in which two best friends (who develop romantic feelings for each other) are also trying to match up their widowed parents, which would completely solve the problem of being expected to get married to men. Evidently (based on reading some Goodreads discussion) there may be some Taylor Swift fannish allusions?
It's definitely fluffy, decidedly fun, but the protagonists are very clearly contemporary teenagers cosplaying their historic setting. I don't know if that was an intentional stylistic choice or because the author doesn't know enough about the era to embed them more solidly.
Travelers Along the Way by Amina Mae Safi (audio)
My initial notes say, "What is it with YA first person present tense?" I think I had that reaction in part because it was also a feature of DWYLABF (above). That combination of voice is very clearly A Thing and while it doesn't particularly bother me, I don't always see the point of choosing it.
While the premise hooked me (Robin Hood-inspired adventure, featuring female leads and set during the crusades, with a slowly-accumulating band of misfits finding adventure and purpose while just trying to survive), the execution felt meandering and episodic. More like narrating a role-playing adventure than a deliberately plotted novel. It was ok? Just didn't solidly grab me. (I also felt a tiny bit misled because the advance copy had hinted solidly enough about sapphic content that the tiny bit it delivered felt like a bait-and-switch. Positive queer content, but minor and not the protagonist.)
The Chatelaine by Kate Heartfield (audio)
(Note: this is a revised version of her book previously published as Armed In Her Fashion. While I had bought the original, I hadn't gotten to it, so this is about the new version only.)
Um...wow. So this is a dense and layered historic fantasy set in the Low Countries in the early 14th century. The fantasy elements are essentially "what if Hellmouth paintings and the fevered imaginings of Hieronymous Bosch were real?" In the midst of that, a bitter, opinionated woman determines to seek justice for herself and her daughter even if she has to petition Hell for it directly. The worldbuilding is vivid and the resolution is both heartbreaking and triumphant.
Postscript: I also listened to T. Kingfisher's Paladin's Grace in May, but since I'm working though all the Saint of Steel romances and will probably review them as a whole, I'll wait on that.
Amusingly, I ended up picking this up in three formats -- ebook, text, and audio. Ebook, because that's almost how I "bookmark" things for TBR. Audio, because I was interested in reading this one and figured that was how I'd get to it. But then I was in the Book Passage bookstore at the SF Ferry Building when I did a jaunt over there, spotted the book in hard copy, and decided to make it my paper reading project. That was in January, so you can see how my hard-copy reading tends to be more episodic and drawn out than my audio. I had some interesting observations about the differences in how I read on paper versus ebook. I feel like I can read more quickly on paper -- it's easier to skim and not feel like I'm missing anything. But my hard-copy reading tends to be assigned to my Saturday morning bike-and-brunch jaunts, so often it's only a couple chapters at a time. Anyway...
This is another cornerstone of the think-piece I'm digesting on what I think of as "cosplay historicals" (and I've seen described elsewhere as "wallpaper historicals") where historical trappings are laid over a story and characters that are, in many essentials, contemporary. But that think-piece isn't so much about critiquing the flavor, as thinking about why *some* of them work for me and some don't.
I was strongly attracted to this book because the advance publicity felt like "major press tackles fluffy sapphic historical romance" and I was interested to see what that looked like. My conclusion on that question is that small/indie sapphic historicals don't need to worry about being shut out quite yet, because this falls short of scratching the itch satisfactorily.
In point of fact, I definitely enjoyed this book, but only after I’d shifted gears and stopped reading it as a historical. The story is allegedly set in Victorian England, and is something of a “Parent Trap” take-off in which two best friends (who develop romantic feelings for each other) are also trying to match up their widowed parents, which would completely solve the problem of being expected to get married to men. Evidently (based on reading some Goodreads discussion) there may be some Taylor Swift fannish allusions?
It's definitely fluffy, decidedly fun, but the protagonists are very clearly contemporary teenagers cosplaying their historic setting. I don't know if that was an intentional stylistic choice or because the author doesn't know enough about the era to embed them more solidly.
Travelers Along the Way by Amina Mae Safi (audio)
My initial notes say, "What is it with YA first person present tense?" I think I had that reaction in part because it was also a feature of DWYLABF (above). That combination of voice is very clearly A Thing and while it doesn't particularly bother me, I don't always see the point of choosing it.
While the premise hooked me (Robin Hood-inspired adventure, featuring female leads and set during the crusades, with a slowly-accumulating band of misfits finding adventure and purpose while just trying to survive), the execution felt meandering and episodic. More like narrating a role-playing adventure than a deliberately plotted novel. It was ok? Just didn't solidly grab me. (I also felt a tiny bit misled because the advance copy had hinted solidly enough about sapphic content that the tiny bit it delivered felt like a bait-and-switch. Positive queer content, but minor and not the protagonist.)
The Chatelaine by Kate Heartfield (audio)
(Note: this is a revised version of her book previously published as Armed In Her Fashion. While I had bought the original, I hadn't gotten to it, so this is about the new version only.)
Um...wow. So this is a dense and layered historic fantasy set in the Low Countries in the early 14th century. The fantasy elements are essentially "what if Hellmouth paintings and the fevered imaginings of Hieronymous Bosch were real?" In the midst of that, a bitter, opinionated woman determines to seek justice for herself and her daughter even if she has to petition Hell for it directly. The worldbuilding is vivid and the resolution is both heartbreaking and triumphant.
Postscript: I also listened to T. Kingfisher's Paladin's Grace in May, but since I'm working though all the Saint of Steel romances and will probably review them as a whole, I'll wait on that.
