![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Weekly Wednesday Reading meme
Jul. 24th, 2013 03:26 pmWhat are you currently reading
Legend of the White-Haired Demoness by Liang Yusheng, ch 7-8: Mostly a couple of fun side adventures in these chapters, but nothing I feel the need to offer much comment on, aside from appreciation for "no, coming back with an apology and a title 20 years later will not make me swoon in your arms, go away" with a couple supporting characters.
What did you recently finish reading?
Call the Widwife; Farewell to the East End by Jennifer Worth. The last of Worth's 3 memoirs about her time as a midwife (though there's another memoir about when she was a nurse working for the elderly) focuses on women in less conventional situations, and women on the receiving end of sexual abuse and who were victimized by the legal system. The writing style is as straight-forward and easy to read as the other books, but parts are even bleaker than in In the Shadows of the Workhouse, and the sections where she discusses surgical rape (a practice thankfully done away with by Worth's time, but recent enough for her to hear accounts of it) and backalley abortions were particularly harrowing, though it also has its fare share of lighter moments and anecdotes. Overall, I think this may be the tightest of the books and the one where Worth seems most willing to comment of the culture of the times and how things have and haven't changed, but it's certainly not the lightest read of the bunch.
The Treachery of Beautiful Things by Ruth Frances Long. YA fantasy loosely based on Tam Lin and Thomas Rhymer which also incorporates some bits of fae mythology that doesn't usually make it into the YA books (not sure when the last time was that I read a YA in which the heroine was in danger of having her heart literally eaten). When she was a child, Jenny was almost stolen by a creature made of plants, but her older brother, Tom, was taken instead when he intervened, and Jenny was later dimissed as delusional when she tried to tell people what happened to him. Years later, she returns to the spot where Tom disappeared before leaving for university, and hears him in the woods. Being Our Heroine, she naturally dives right in and soon learns that Tom is the queen's slave, and intended tithe, and sets off to rescue him, having a series of adventures and learning why the plant creature wanted her in the first place. Towards the middle, the book almost branches off and becomes about Jenny's Obligatory Mysterious Cute Fae Boy Love Interest, but remembers that it's Jenny's story before too long. I enjoyed it a lot.
Deep Down by Deborah Coates. Sequel to Wide Open, about a veteran who sees ghosts thanks to being dead for 7 minutes who returns home to solve her sister's murder. In this sequel, Hallie chats with Death, gains an undead dog for a sidekick, and hunts for a rogue grim reaper. I didn't enjoy this one as much as the first-but was happy that the book's blurb, which made it sound like the book would be about Hallie's love interest, boys, was misleading-as it shies away from Hallie's PTSD and the mystery plot is less directly related to her, but I still enjoyed it, even though I can't quite figure out if the series would be considered urban fantasy, or a mystery series with supernatural elements.
What do you think you'll read next?
Most likely Adaptation by Malinda Lo or Lost in Translation by Margaret Ball, since the library wants them back.
Legend of the White-Haired Demoness by Liang Yusheng, ch 7-8: Mostly a couple of fun side adventures in these chapters, but nothing I feel the need to offer much comment on, aside from appreciation for "no, coming back with an apology and a title 20 years later will not make me swoon in your arms, go away" with a couple supporting characters.
What did you recently finish reading?
Call the Widwife; Farewell to the East End by Jennifer Worth. The last of Worth's 3 memoirs about her time as a midwife (though there's another memoir about when she was a nurse working for the elderly) focuses on women in less conventional situations, and women on the receiving end of sexual abuse and who were victimized by the legal system. The writing style is as straight-forward and easy to read as the other books, but parts are even bleaker than in In the Shadows of the Workhouse, and the sections where she discusses surgical rape (a practice thankfully done away with by Worth's time, but recent enough for her to hear accounts of it) and backalley abortions were particularly harrowing, though it also has its fare share of lighter moments and anecdotes. Overall, I think this may be the tightest of the books and the one where Worth seems most willing to comment of the culture of the times and how things have and haven't changed, but it's certainly not the lightest read of the bunch.
The Treachery of Beautiful Things by Ruth Frances Long. YA fantasy loosely based on Tam Lin and Thomas Rhymer which also incorporates some bits of fae mythology that doesn't usually make it into the YA books (not sure when the last time was that I read a YA in which the heroine was in danger of having her heart literally eaten). When she was a child, Jenny was almost stolen by a creature made of plants, but her older brother, Tom, was taken instead when he intervened, and Jenny was later dimissed as delusional when she tried to tell people what happened to him. Years later, she returns to the spot where Tom disappeared before leaving for university, and hears him in the woods. Being Our Heroine, she naturally dives right in and soon learns that Tom is the queen's slave, and intended tithe, and sets off to rescue him, having a series of adventures and learning why the plant creature wanted her in the first place. Towards the middle, the book almost branches off and becomes about Jenny's Obligatory Mysterious Cute Fae Boy Love Interest, but remembers that it's Jenny's story before too long. I enjoyed it a lot.
Deep Down by Deborah Coates. Sequel to Wide Open, about a veteran who sees ghosts thanks to being dead for 7 minutes who returns home to solve her sister's murder. In this sequel, Hallie chats with Death, gains an undead dog for a sidekick, and hunts for a rogue grim reaper. I didn't enjoy this one as much as the first-but was happy that the book's blurb, which made it sound like the book would be about Hallie's love interest, boys, was misleading-as it shies away from Hallie's PTSD and the mystery plot is less directly related to her, but I still enjoyed it, even though I can't quite figure out if the series would be considered urban fantasy, or a mystery series with supernatural elements.
What do you think you'll read next?
Most likely Adaptation by Malinda Lo or Lost in Translation by Margaret Ball, since the library wants them back.