finished reading The Erratics 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑
by Vicki Laveau-Harvie.
Two sisters deal with the aging of their estranged parents, the mother psychopathically unhinged and the father cowed & abused. Morbidly fascinating but scattered and purposeless.
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@WildWoila @wildwoila@wyrms.de
finished reading Howl’s Moving Castle 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑
A young woman gets caught up in magical machinations and is turned old & fabulously crotchety. Great characters and vibe but I lost track of the plot a bit (disclaimer: listened to this as a sleep story), and wasn't really into the romantic ending.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8eOjQ3JrXk&list=PLp6dwtXsi8Pu6G7MT4ajMGB1YrumzQRZ9
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@WildWoila @wildwoila@wyrms.de
finished reading Akarnae 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑
by Lynette Noni.
Fairly derivative YA fantasy: teenage girl crosses into a parallel world, where she becomes a fish-out-of-water at a school for talented students, and discovers she's the only one who can prevent the obliteration of humanity. Some ingrained patriarchy - why do female heroes always have to be hot? Totally needless. Nice enough but nothing special.
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@WildWoila @wildwoila@wyrms.de
finished reading Nervous Conditions 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
by Tsitsi Dangarembga.
Becoming a familiar refrain in African literature: girl fights for education & freedom against patriarchy & colonialism. This one, set in pre-independence Zimbabwe, might be the original (?) and the best, with carefully crafted & evolving characters. Ends very suddenly, though.
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@WildWoila @wildwoila@wyrms.de
finished reading The Man Who Died Twice 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑
by Richard Osman.
More fun times with the crime-solving (& committing!) pensioners. The stakes are higher but doesn't feel so fresh. A bigger role for the inscrutable Bogdan is welcome. Laughs off some pretty substantial abuse of the justice system.
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@WildWoila @wildwoila@wyrms.de
finished reading The Tainted Cup 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
by Robert Jackson Bennett.
A murder mystery fantasy novel - why is this a first for me?! Fairly standard whodunnit which escalates to political intrigue, made distinctive by very cool world-building: an empire built to defend against leviathans attacking from the sea, whose bodily fluids enable a raft of fantastical bio-enhancements. Interesting characters and the potential for more fleshing out give the series much promise.
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@WildWoila @wildwoila@wyrms.de
finished reading The End and Everything Before It 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
by Finegan Kruckemeyer.
A tangled weave of lives lived for love, community, place & simple pleasures. Beautifully written. I didn't quite grasp the ending, worth a revisit.
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@WildWoila @wildwoila@wyrms.de
finished reading The Odyssey 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑
by Homer (trans. Emily Wilson).
Travel back in time for a little insight into the worldview & values of the ancient Greeks. Fickle meddlesome gods, male honour, rampant war and liberal violence, slavery & female subjugation. Easy flowing translation, though I sometimes lost the rhythm.
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@WildWoila @wildwoila@wyrms.de
finished reading Sleeping Giants 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑
by Sylvain Neuval.
An alien artifact triggers a race to harness its immense power. Told mostly via interview transcripts, which kinda works (I liked how the interviewer gradually becomes more of a protagonist, and more invested in the interviewees) but doesn't do justice to the action sequences. Smoking Man X-Files vibes.
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@WildWoila @wildwoila@wyrms.de
finished reading The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑
by Sangu Mandanna.
A lonely witch finds family & love when she is sought out to tutor three young witchy girls. A cosy romantic fantasy. Some enlivening characters and fun use of magic. Very 'House by the Cerulean Sea'.
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@WildWoila @wildwoila@wyrms.de
finished reading The Mark 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
by Frida Isberg.
An attempt to enforce empathic behaviour creates stark divisions at all levels of society. Very effectively conveys the ambiguous ethics and the entrenched positions taken by opposing sides. Strong parallels with toxic masculinity and vaccination.
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@WildWoila @wildwoila@wyrms.de
finished reading Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
by Tim Harford.
The importance of randomness & spontaneity in creativity & problem-solving. Plans, order & rationality are often counter-productive! So don't beat yourself up about meeting simplistic measures of performance. The tech discussion is a bit dated, but the principles are extremely relevant to AI. Ginormous gender blind-spot.
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@WildWoila @wildwoila@wyrms.de
