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juushikaDear Juu: 3 reviews per post does seem logical given the number of book reviews (and relative scarcity of other posts), but perhaps read books with shorter titles?
Title: Beneath the Sugar Sky (Wayward Children Book 3)
Author: Seanan McGuire
Published: Tor, 2018
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 175
Total Page Count: 246,555
Text Number: 785
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review:A girl from a portal world finds her way to the Home for Wayward Children to ask their help. This is less successful than the other novels in the series. It's very plotty, with an unremarkable questing format; it's also very meta. The first book's meta was intriguing but didn't hold up to analysis; here it's more intentionally developed, but unsuccessful in a different way. Interesting questions (how to conceive of or depict true Nonsense?) go unanswered, but what rules it does establish (particularly as regards what worlds exist and how they're connected) are unproductively arbitrary. It demystifies and deglamorizes the portal worlds, but fails to take the next step and interrogate the link between portals, visitors, and residents; between belonging and desiring and free will. This is an especial oversight in a book that so heavily features Kade, the only character we've met to reject their portal world.
This still reads quickly, it's inventive and irreverent. But it's not as profound as the first book or as aesthetically engaging as the second; and, while the concerns it flirts with are intriguing, it fails to follow through (and Valente's Fairyland series does it better).
Title: The Tempering of Men (Iskryne World Book 2)
Author: Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear
Published: Tor, 2011
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 310
Total Page Count: 246,865
Text Number: 786
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: With the troll threat extinguished, the trellwolves and wolfcarls must determine their future role in Iskryne society. This sequel widens its perspective considerably to three PoV characters and as many overlapping plotlines—also to the larger world, and other human cultures, of its setting. It's rewarding to see Isolfr, protagonist of the first book, from an external perspective; the characters and relationships here have convincing nuance. But the slice-of-life feel of this can't rival the intense personal investment or id-level payoff of the first book. It remains surprisingly likeable, readable, engaging; but the first book is more than likeable, it's striking, and this can't compare.
Title: The Taming of the Shrew
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1623
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 246,965
Text Number: 787
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: It's startling to read this immediately after The Two Gentlemen of Verona (I'm participating ia a year-long readalong all of the plays in chronological order, in case that wasn't obvious)—it's an infinitely more complex work. I don't have anything of significance to add to the debate around its sexism (except that it can of course do both—can acknowledge and belittle, criticize and reinforce, a misogynistic society. It's easy! Media everywhere does so all the time!). But I love how Taming of the Shrew contrasts appearance and reality: the frame narrative and numerous of disguises; the density of the wordplay; Bianca's characterization, Petruchio's assumed love-madness, and of course Katherine's character arc and final speech. It's an engaging and memorable play, certainly quotable; and controversial, but in a way which (intentionally or otherwise) compliments its themes.
Title: Beneath the Sugar Sky (Wayward Children Book 3)
Author: Seanan McGuire
Published: Tor, 2018
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 175
Total Page Count: 246,555
Text Number: 785
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review:A girl from a portal world finds her way to the Home for Wayward Children to ask their help. This is less successful than the other novels in the series. It's very plotty, with an unremarkable questing format; it's also very meta. The first book's meta was intriguing but didn't hold up to analysis; here it's more intentionally developed, but unsuccessful in a different way. Interesting questions (how to conceive of or depict true Nonsense?) go unanswered, but what rules it does establish (particularly as regards what worlds exist and how they're connected) are unproductively arbitrary. It demystifies and deglamorizes the portal worlds, but fails to take the next step and interrogate the link between portals, visitors, and residents; between belonging and desiring and free will. This is an especial oversight in a book that so heavily features Kade, the only character we've met to reject their portal world.
This still reads quickly, it's inventive and irreverent. But it's not as profound as the first book or as aesthetically engaging as the second; and, while the concerns it flirts with are intriguing, it fails to follow through (and Valente's Fairyland series does it better).
Title: The Tempering of Men (Iskryne World Book 2)
Author: Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear
Published: Tor, 2011
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 310
Total Page Count: 246,865
Text Number: 786
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: With the troll threat extinguished, the trellwolves and wolfcarls must determine their future role in Iskryne society. This sequel widens its perspective considerably to three PoV characters and as many overlapping plotlines—also to the larger world, and other human cultures, of its setting. It's rewarding to see Isolfr, protagonist of the first book, from an external perspective; the characters and relationships here have convincing nuance. But the slice-of-life feel of this can't rival the intense personal investment or id-level payoff of the first book. It remains surprisingly likeable, readable, engaging; but the first book is more than likeable, it's striking, and this can't compare.
Title: The Taming of the Shrew
Author: William Shakespeare
Published: 1623
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 246,965
Text Number: 787
Read Because: co-read with my mother
Review: It's startling to read this immediately after The Two Gentlemen of Verona (I'm participating ia a year-long readalong all of the plays in chronological order, in case that wasn't obvious)—it's an infinitely more complex work. I don't have anything of significance to add to the debate around its sexism (except that it can of course do both—can acknowledge and belittle, criticize and reinforce, a misogynistic society. It's easy! Media everywhere does so all the time!). But I love how Taming of the Shrew contrasts appearance and reality: the frame narrative and numerous of disguises; the density of the wordplay; Bianca's characterization, Petruchio's assumed love-madness, and of course Katherine's character arc and final speech. It's an engaging and memorable play, certainly quotable; and controversial, but in a way which (intentionally or otherwise) compliments its themes.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-17 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-22 01:44 pm (UTC)It absolutely also does hugely relevant things with portal fantasy and & whether visitors/residents belong there, and personal ownership & deserving, and desire & consent. Palimpsest is all about obsessive wanting, and then interrogates the validity & health of that want, how it functions in others, whether it's enough or should be—and whether any of that is a deterrent.
The Fairyland books I think are a better comparison to what McGuire (doesn't) engage in Sugar Sky partially because of overlapping age demographic and tone/premise, and also because the September/Halloween/Marquess/Maud/Mallow dynamic so well encapsulates the entire conversation that Sugar Sky fails to have. What separates the Wayward Children books is the meta, is the portal-for-each-person—which means I really want a conversation about the person/portal relationship; and Sugar Sky's (literal) rebirth-via-portal-world is almost it—but also decentralized & without emotional investment, where Fairyland's central conflict literally exists between aspects of/foils to self, of protagonist, as (re)created by the portal world.
(In retrospect, of course, November/Casimira is also this, but: less iterated, also the question of worth where the answer may be no exists in the subplots/larger world moreso than in November, who is a pretty consistent yes; and Sugar Sky wants to engage a possible no, and Fairyland looks a lot at no.)
Not that any of the texts are especially in conflict, nonetheleast because Valente and McGuire are friends! But I really want this series to hit its meta out of the park, since that's what sets it apart; yet all it really inspired was a longing to relive the highlights of the Fairyland series.