Crusie, Jennifer - Fast Women

Mmm, I liked this one too, although maybe not as much as the Dempsey ones. I'm also highly appreciative of the fact that Nell and Suze are nothing like Quinn and Darla or Maddie and Treva or Tilda and her family. With Nora Roberts, I can kind of get a sense of mix and match -- fiery rebellious heroine, quiet sweet heroine, bookish heroine, with a few distinguishing traits, quiet hero, alpha hero who is still nice, slick, sophisticated hero. It's no where near as bad as Elizabeth Lowell, who basically just writes the same story again and again, but after reading a lot of her books, it shows. I also loved Nell and Suze. And Riley. I looooved Riley. Half the time with Crusie, I end up being more fascinated by the secondary couple than the first for some reason -- maybe because the first is very well-fleshed, so there's not that much mystery to them. I found the unprecedented moment naomichana commented on, in which there is a development in the relationship that I completely didn't anticipate, although thinking back, it was really pretty clear.

Instead of sad divorced woman trying to pick herself up again, which is what the story seems to be shaping up to be in the beginning, the story is a lot about relationship patterns and how we can ruin relationships ourselves. It's not very heavy handed, imho, and I especially enjoyed how even though Tim was pretty scummy and Jack was pretty freaky, all the fault on the failure of the relationship wasn't laid at their feet as bad, bad, evil men. I liked how both Nell and Suze were smart and confident enough to realize that although they definitely had had the short end of the stick in their marriages, part of it was because they let it happen. Now this sounds suspiciously close to blaming the victim, which I completely do not advocate, and I didn't get a sense of that at all in Crusie's book. I also enjoyed how Nell's son's romance in part echoed her own problems with Gabe (or Gabe's problems with her) and the general feeling that there wasn't going to be a happy ever after, because that would imply complacency. I liked knowing that both Nell and Gabe were on the track to actively thinking about the relationship and about themselves and how they wanted things to go instead of sitting back and saying, hey, we're in love, all is fixed!

More viscerally: Loved the scene with Nell in Tim's office. Loved her eating all the time (I want to try vinegar and fries now). Loved the Nell in the beginning, which felt like a plausible person who was still getting over a divorce, dealing with the sheer inexplicableness of it and later, dealing with the anger of being lied too for her own good. I get that (*cough*Vaughn issues*cough*).

I like how Crusie's romances are frothy and funny but still real and somehow chewy and rather common sensical on romance, something that can be lost in the genre. It reminds me a little of Kinsale's Prince of Midnight, which I love in part because it has the hero questioning what he thinks is love, what is love, how can one determine that one loves someone else?

Links:
- minnow1212's review
- tenemet's review

Delia Sherman, Porcelain Dove; Patricia A. McKillip, Cygnet and the Firebird

I actually finished both of these a few weeks ago, after reading them in bits and pieces over a month or so. For some reason, neither book really caught me.

With The Porcelain Dove, I admired what Sherman was doing, and I liked seeing the influence of the conte de fee (horrendous spelling), but in the end, I had a really, really hard time getting into the book because I disliked the characters so much. I didn't even despise them as characters (like my strange antipathy toward Vaughn, for example). I was just put off by the lot of them -- Adele was a ninny, as was Justin, the older boy was sadistic and cruel, and Adele's husband wasn't much better. So because I was a bit dismayed by Adele's behavior, I never was really able to get into the mind of the narrator, who adores her (with an ability to see her weak points, but adores nonetheless). The only characters I did kind of like were Pompey, who wasn't really focused on, and Linnotte, who Berthe didn't like, which also rubbed off. And then Linnotte (sp) had to do something horrible to free her dreadful family from their curse and ends up being completely exiled!

I think I also had a problem with the structure of the book -- it begins so we know the family and their estate has somehow been removed from the world and time, suspended in some sort of fairyland. And since none of the family seems particularly happy with this arrangement, I guess I started wondering if halfway through the book Berthe would finish her story so they could figure out how to rejoin the world. Instead, Berthe narrates how they got there.

I have a feeling I'm getting more and more sensitive to these things in books -- I find it very hard to read on if there isn't anyone I can identify with. Also, if the worldview feels too bleak or depressing without anything good redeeming it or casting it into a different light, I have a hard time continuing: ex. George R. R. Martin. LotR and Tigana and the Kushiel series and the Assassin series, while dark, still have that spark of good in the human characters despite horrifically dark times, and that's what makes me hang on to the books.

I think this is also the problem I had with The Cygnet and the Firebird. Heh, I feel horrible confessing this, but I'm not that much of a McKillip fan. I loved her Forgotten Beasts of Eld and Winter Rose, but I don't really remember the Book of Atrix Wolfe or this book. Sometimes her lush prose can distance me a little too much from the emotions of the story. Also, sometimes I just get confused in general as to what is going on in terms of action. And while I didn't dislike Nyx or Meg and company in this book, as I did in Porcelain Dove, I didn't have much on them to hook onto. I was also really confused because I hadn't read the earlier book, which I suspect is about Nyx being found by her mother or something.

On the other hand, there were some things that I really did like: that Meg loved the gatekeeper and didn't fall for the mythical firebird creature. I loved the description of the firebird and his despair in not accessing his memory. I loved how McKillip and Meg were able to describe the firebird's cry.

November, Sharyn, ed. - Firebirds

A nice batch of short stories that provided me with a few more names to look out for.

There was usually something I liked about every story. Particularly striking stories for me were:

- Delia Sherman's "Cotillion," an interesting take on Tam Lin in the 60s. I loved the blend of Faerie and music (which is pretty normal) and debutante ball of the 60s (which is definitely not).
- I loved the idea of Megan Whalen Turner's "Baby in the Night Deposit Box" and the details of growing up in a bank.
- Although I didn't fall in love with "Mariposa," the first few lines made me put down the book and giggle: "I've lost my soul?" Aimee repeated, almost losing her usual perfect control. The doctor nodded. "I think so. Probably in early adolescence. It happens more commonly than you might think." It sounds like such a Buffyverse type thing.
- Lloyd Alexander's "Max Mondrosch" creeped me out because that's how I felt during the job hunt, and so I don't think I'll be rereading that one for quite some time.
- Charles Vess is never bad.
- Really loved Patricia A. McKillip's "Byndley," a lovely faerie story that is near-traditional, with gorgeous language.
- I smiled the entire way through Kara Dalkey's "The Lady of the Ice Garden" for the sheer love of it and the weaving in of Japanese myth. IMHO, it's so hard to do Asian cross-over fantasies right, because too often the characters sound like Zen Masters or totally humble: "This unworthy person blah blah blah." Makes me roll my eyes. Technically, it might be a good translation, but I can never get over the awkwardness of it and the feeling of exoticism/fetishization. This lovely little story managed to perfectly weave in The Snow Queen with Heian Japan by only subtly alluding to the culture without having to shove it into the reader's face. And I loved the ending ^_^.
- Garth Nix's "Hope Chest" has been living in my head for a few days, even though (or most likely, precisely because) it scared the hell out of me and I desperately want it out of my head. Good story, creepy as hell.
- DWJ's "Little Dot," highly enjoyable, like all DWJ =). And, great cat voice.

Still very excited about the new imprint ^_^.

Links:
- rilina's review

Childhood reading pleasures

I am now happily in the middle of re-reading Peter Pan, after a hasty and rather desperate library run last night. All the Crusie reading has me hankering after more romance novels.

I'm having a good deal of fun revisiting Peter Pan. In fact, it's not like my normal re-readings, which feel like visiting a comforting friend and finding you still have much in common to talk about. This feels like finding a friend that I had completely forgot even existed (I hope I don't do this with my RL friends!). And so it's absolutely wonderful trolling through the book and every so often thinking, oh yes! That's where I got that from! I love Barrie's narrative voice, even though now I can get a little irked with how smug he is at times. And I find my brain wandering off into why Wendy is immediately vaulted into the position of being mother instead of love interest, and the almost spookiness of her domestic dreamings. These are things I definitely did not consider when I read this as a kid.

***interrupted to add: I was bad again and got sucked into Borders, which is next door to the computer games store where the boy wanted to go. They had nothing I was looking for and nothing that looked all that interesting from a cursory glance, and then, in romance, bam! four or five Connie Brockways! I buckled and bought two. Up til now, I have only found one or two of her in public libraries, one or two of her in my bookstore, and one or two of her in new bookstores (the McClairen isle ones, which I'm not giantly fond of. So now I own My Dearest Enemy, for rereading because I love epistolary (sp) relationships, and A Dangerous Man.**

Anyhow, I love the early 1900s feel of Peter Pan. And small snippets keep coming back to me -- I can hear Mary Martin saying Peter's explanation of how fairies came to be, and the narrator from the play describing what the Mermaid Lagoon looks like. I love the description of how Neverlands are of the same family, and of how Mr. and Mrs. Darling decided to have Wendy. I miss all the digressions whenever I watch a remake of it.

I think a great deal of my childhood reading is around this turn of the century period, except, more often than not, I didn't even realize it. I had a tendency to read things at face value, and it actually took me a while to figure out that Anne of Green Gables was not during the 1980s. Actually, it even took me for a while to figure out that it was set in Canada. This should be fairly unsurprising, considering that I used to read all the unbowlderized versions of fairy tales as a kid and not even realize there was something weird about Sleeping Beauty waking up pregnant.

Neil Gaiman recced a book in his blog a while back on SF/F childhood reading and its influences and said it was scary how he followed the template. I need to hunt down this entry so I can find that book, because I want to compare and see.

( Chronology of reading )