jennifer_book_geek

Fruits Basket Vol. 17: It's been so long since I read it that I forgot entirely what this volume was about. I'm still enjoying the manga though and I look forward to finishing it up.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell: I decided to listen to this because I loved the miniseries. I enjoyed the book and I think the comparison between Gaskell and Jane Austen and Charles Dickens is appropriate. I will have to actually sit down to read this book sometime because some of the various readers were very distracting.

Heaven Chronicles by Joan D. Vinge: I prefer Vinge's novels to her short fiction but I did enjoy this. Most of the SFF authors I love have been described as being stealth feminists, but I thought the feminism stood out here. I thought the reasons for group marriage in this made much more sense than they did in Gail Dayton's Luna/Juno series.

The Sharing Knife: Passage by Lois McMaster Bujold: There aren't enough words to describe how much I love Bujold's books. I love that this is a fantasy series that takes place in a world much like frontier America. Bujold's characters are the best. I'm looking forward to the final volume of this series- and anything else Bujold writes in the future.

Searching for Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede: I read the first book of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles several years ago and the reason I never got back to the series until now was that Dealing with Dragons was an average read for me. But I liked Searching for Dragons much better. I'm reading the third book now and I'm enjoying that a lot more too. I think I needed some good YA reading because I've kind of gotten into a reading slump lately. It's not that I don't want to read, but I'm just so tired that I can't manage more than a chapter or two a day in a longer, more complex book. This series is cute and charming and there's dragons and cats, plus competant, strong women.

To Catch an Heiress by Julia Quinn: I like her Bridgerton books better than anything else I've read by Quinn. It's not that I'm wishing her other books were Bridgerton stories, it's that there's something very grating and annoying about Brighter than the Sun, Everything and the Moon, and To Catch an Heiress. I didn't find them as witty and funny as I was supposed to and I found the battle of the sexes aspect tired and infuriating. Caroline does stupid or dangerous things just to be corrected by the (of course) smarter hero and I'm sooooo sick of the virginal heroine and experienced hero trope. I think I should just stop reading romance altogether, but there are a few I love and I want to find more books like those.

A Room with a View by E. M. Forster: This book wouldn't have made me think nearly as much if it had been written by a woman. But the fact that a novel about a woman's search for identity and an equal partner was written in 1908 by a man is pretty mind-blowing to me. Especially considering the sex divide that is currently going on in American entertainment. BTW, I saw the new movie on Masterpiece after I listened to the book, and I hated it!

I forgot I hadn't posted my thoughts on The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett before moving. And now, of course, it's been a while and I had a major life change in the middle, so I can't think of what to say. I liked the book, but not as much as the other two Discworld books I've read. Although I'm glad I didn't read this first, it wouldn't have stopped me from continuing with the Discworld. Rincewind was an okay protagonist, but I enjoyed the characters he ran into more and I loved The Luggage. I liked the humor and I laughed a lot while reading, which I totally needed at such a stressful time. Oh and the Pern parody was great.