I've been deep into Minecraft with friends the past couple of weeks, but I've still made some time for reading. And... attempting to read and deciding I really didn't want to read those books after all! But first, let's start with the positive!
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| "The Games Gods Play" by Abigail Owen |
I read The Games Gods Play for my book group's discussion for October, so it was a quarter of the book each week. I think I need to do a full review on this, because I overall really enjoyed the plot, but I have... complicated thoughts about it. When I try to talk about it, I think of all the negative things I didn't like, while I'm like, "I promise I liked it!" Overall, I rated it 3.75 on Storygraph, because the middle of the book didn't really hit, but I am looking forward to the sequel.
"Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries" by Heather Fawcett
I'm about halfway through Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, and really enjoying it! However, I'm having a weird time with it because even though I'm genuinely really enjoying it, I... never actually want to pick it up and read it. I like both the writing and the story itself, but I have to really convince myself to sit down and read it instead of anything else in my pile. I think part of it is because the writing style is fairly formal (it's a first person journal by an academic), it's not off-putting really but makes my brain be like, "Ehhh, do we really wanna?" I think this is also why I struggle to sit down and read Jane Austen even though I like what I've read! And I don't even not like the formal writing style, just my ADHD brain wants to put up a fight. Anyway, I know I'm going to like it enough by the end of it (whenever that is) that I've already picked up the sequel and am looking forward to that. (For what it's worth, a friend had the exact same experience with this book. Really enjoyed it but never actually wanted to read it. Weird!) I am, however, switching between the print book and the audiobook (while working in the garden... which is over for the year), which has helped a lot. The audiobook is really well done.
But, Emily Wilde isn't a flop, and neither was The Games Gods Play, but these two...
"The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society" by C.M. Waggoner and "Chaos at the Lazy Bones Bookshop" by Emmeline Duncan
I'm sorry to say that I returned both of these to the library today after only reading 30 pages from each. Both were extremely overwritten, something that has been the case with every "cozy mystery" I've tried to pick up. Is that just how the genre is? It's a mystery, leave some stuff up to the imagination! Cozy fantasy doesn't suffer from this (at least the cozy fantasy I've read), so why mystery? I was so disappointed in these and figured that I should return them sooner rather than later since they're brand new and have wait lists.
a page from "Chaos at the Lazy Bones Bookshop"
Seriously, you do not need to tell me the main character's entire history with knitting and other creative projects when introducing a minor character. And while I appreciate spreading knowledge about Libro.fm, it (and other internet references and phrases) just seemed shoehorned in. And yes, I understand the irony of me saying this, as my ADHD frequently sends me off on long tangents and explanations and over-explanations, but that's my unedited self. Writing papers or fiction? This just feels like someone was trying to hit their NaNoWriMo word count. (RIP NaNoWriMo by the way, dead in our hearts after they fully announced support for AI writing.)
Okay, back to the more positive...
Volume 1 of the Animal Crossing: New Horizons manga by Kokonasu Rumba
For fun and a change of pace, last night I started reading the Animal Crossing manga (there are seven volumes in total, but I only have the first four so far). Now, Animal Crossing is my favorite video game series, and I have put thousands upon thousands of hours into each title in the series. I didn't know what to expect from the manga, and... I'm glad I didn't go in with any expectations, because it is not at all what I would have guessed. Whereas the 2006 Animal Crossing movie, Dôbutsu No Mori, is sweet, heartfelt, and honestly heartbreaking at times, this is... not. It is silly, weird, and definitely made for a younger audience than me. Which is fine! It still made me laugh, especially scenes like Raymond's "museum exhibit":
So, this week was a bunch of mixed bag, no 5 star reads but at least some that I've been enjoying. But also, I went to the store yesterday to pick up next month's book group book (Weyward by Emilia Hart) and I walked out with four others, so... here's hoping for the near future! Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? has been on my "to return to" list for 10 years, so it's finally time to return to it! (It's one of the books that were lost when I was homeless.)
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