Top Historic and Futuristic Settings

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Thistle

Originally when I read today’s topic, I thought I’d focus solely on futuristic settings. Then, going through some of my favorite books, I realized I had quite as many historic settings that I love in them, despite not really reading a lot of historical fiction. I decided to split my answers into the two categories, and give them equal weight!

walk on earthHistoric
1. Walk on Earth a Stranger by Rae Carson
2. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
3. Germinal by Emile Zola
4. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
5. The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
– Runners up: The Quick by Lauren Owens and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Futuristic
6. The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist
7. The Giver by Lois Lowry
8. the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld
9. the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
10. The Host by Stephenie Meyer
– Runners up: the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer and Nekropolis by Maureen McHugh

What are some of your favorite historic/futuristic settings?

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged | 5 Comments

Sunday Coffee – January

Posted on January 31, 2016 by Thistle

IMG_3869I don’t have much to say in terms of wrapping up January. The month mostly consisted of two things. The first was in my personal life: depression. The second was in books: Brandon Sanderson. It’s this second I want to focus on here, because I have a feeling I’m going to be somewhat obsessed and in multi-read mode over the next couple months.

I didn’t expect Words of Radiance to inflame me so strongly. I’d put off reading the book since it came out almost two years ago. There was no way I could predict just how strongly I would fall in love with the book – the sort of falling in love that makes me obsessively read/listen to it over and over and over again, plus inspires me to revisit all my old favorites by Sanderson. As I said, I imagine this will continue for the next few months.

Really, WoR was really just that incredible. And you know what? I love when the year starts out with amazing books. Last year, it was All Joy and No Fun, followed by Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell – both books that became favorites for 2015. In 2012, I began the year with Howl’s Moving Castle, which (like WoR) I multi-read (about a half-dozen times). In 2011, it was The Host, another year-favorite. Starting the year off with amazing books just sets the tone right for the whole year! And hmmm…I notice a pattern…every single one of these is an audiobook! Audiobooks FTW!

How was your January?

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Shadow Scale, by Rachel Hartman

Posted on January 28, 2016 by Thistle

shadowscaleWar is about to break out between humans and dragons, and Seraphina, as a half-dragon, is in a unique position to help stop the conflict.

Let me start by saying that I don’t really want to review this book. It was not what I was expecting, and not what I’d hoped for. I had a lot of issues with it, but feel bad about those issues, wondering if maybe it was just my mood while reading. I loved Seraphina, the first book in this series. I loved The Audition, a short story prequel with many of the same characters. I thought the writing and characters were just as well written in Shadow Scale…and still, I found myself dissatisfied by the end of the book. Despite continuing to read. Despite staying up late to finish. Despite loving these characters and needing to know what would happen next. That makes this a particularly difficult book to review.

I suppose I should simply express my particular qualms about the book. Perhaps in writing it out, and with some time and distance, I can view the book with fresher eyes and see it more in the light that it was intended. I’ll start by stating what I’d expected the book to be: a book of war, rising conflict, and eventual understanding between groups. In a way, that is what Shadow Scale was, but it was so much more than that:

A quest. A coming-of-age story. Huge swaths of backstory and religion and cultural study. A long exploration into Seraphina’s history with Jannoula. A pointed discussion of gender, sexuality, and race. Psychological exploration. Narrowed focus on a villain who barely existed in the first book. Long periods of the book where many of the main characters would drop out of sight completely as Seraphina drifted from one place to the next.

This, I believe, is the bulk of my reservation about the book – it was just too much. Too much history. Too many storylines. Too many themes. Too many issues. It felt like several books melded into one, like it could have been parsed out into two or three volumes, expanded so that the backstories and histories were less exposition-drop and more integrated. It’s not that any of the stories were bad. It’s that the book started in one vein, then moved to a different one, then another, then another, until an end where there’s a conclusion, but the stories don’t fully wrap up. In the end, I had a difficult time seeing the cohesive thread through the plot, and that was hard for me as a reader.

On the other hand, there were some very wonderful things here. I loved meeting the other half-dragons, and how Seraphina became more self-aware as the novel progressed. I thought Jannoula was fascinating, and wish I could have spent an entire book learning about her powers and psychology. I loved the revelations about the Saints, and the various cultures in this world, and getting to know the different kinds of dragons. As a whole, though, the book didn’t come together for me, and didn’t quite live up to what I’d expected after Seraphina.

Posted in 2016, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Top Ten Unusual Characters

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Thistle

I love when characters break the mold and don’t quite fit the normal parameters you see in books. Here are my favorites of them:

rochester1. Rochester from Jane Eyre – Rochester remains to this day one of my favorite fictional love interests. He’s arrogant, rude, ugly, insecure, jealous, passionate, and full of life, all at the same time. Extremely flawed, but so lovable too.

2. Winter from the Lunar Chronicles – Winter is extremely mentally ill, in part by choice, at is both strong and weak, empathetic and naive. A strange combination for a fictional protagonist.

3. Elisa from the Girl of Fire and Thorns – Elisa is far from the typical hero. She’s overweight, bookish, lazy, quiet, and absolutely does not want the responsibility of being the hero she’s forced to be.

4. Tiadone from Firstborn – Born female, raised male, feels like a female trapped in a male body, while knowing her body is not being cooperatively male…

5. Cornelia from Love Walked In – Effervescent and quirky, Cornelia is the kind of character I would expect to see in genre fiction, but instead makes up a round, deep character with a wide range of emotions.

6. the entire cast of Good Omens – It’s Good Omens. I can’t really explain it better than that. I mean, come on. The anti-Christ, not knowing he’s the anti-Christ, names the hellhound “dog,” and so it becomes doglike in nature. There are hellish orders of nuns and disobedient angels and all the rest. Yeah.

howl7. Howl from Howl’s Moving Castle – Howl is another of my favorite fiction love interests. He’s spoiled, immature, and cowardly, all the while trying (and failing) to cover up kindness, caring, and strength.

8. Pattern from Words of Radiance – It is fascinating to watch a non-human character trying to learn how the world works through humans.

9. the entire cast of City of Dark Magic – Ditto Good Omens, except with different kinds of characters.

10. Zuzana from Daughter of Smoke and Bone – Short, feisty, contradictory, grouchy, dangerous, and almost ridiculously romantic…

Who are some of your favorite unusual characters?

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged | 4 Comments

Sunday Coffee – My Week as a Single Mom

Posted on January 24, 2016 by Thistle

IMG_3859Motherhood has always been difficult for me, but it’s especially difficult in those times when I’ve been the only parent home with my three boys. This was one of those weeks. Jason left for Nashville last Sunday for a week-long conference, with the intention of returning home Friday evening. Knowing that I was struggling with depression and starting on a new medicine, we prepared as best as we could. This involved two things: making sure we had little-to-no appointments during the week, and spending all of last Saturday cooking meals to freeze and reheat while Jason was gone.

Honestly, I felt okay Sunday morning. The new meds were starting to kick in just a little. I no longer felt like a zombie. Jason drove off to the airport, and we settled in for the day. Four hours later, my two younger kids started feeling sick. My oldest went off to a friend’s house overnight, at a few hours after that, the vomiting began.

Most of you know this already, but for those who don’t: I have a major vomit-phobia. Stomach illness is usually Jason’s domain, while I go hide in my room until people are better. No chance of that this time, of course, and so it was up to me to take care of the littl’uns. The good news: they were better by the next day. The better news: My oldest son and I didn’t catch anything from it. The bad news: Or so I thought, until four days later, when my oldest started throwing up. On the only day we had appointments and such scheduled. Sigh.

Honestly, I don’t know how you single parents out there handle this. Trying to run the house, do the chores, keep up with errands, take care of three sick kids, feed everyone, get everyone to school…not to mention all the things that I didn’t have to worry about this week because of preplanning…let’s just say I was really looking forward to having Jason home again. Then that major winter storm started threatening Tennessee, and we began to worry that he’d be stuck in Nashville over the weekend. Thankfully, though, the opposite happened: his company told him he could leave a day early to escape the storm, and he got back super late on Thursday!

And so my week of single momhood is over. Thank goodness…ha!

Posted in Personal | Tagged | 4 Comments

Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman

Posted on January 22, 2016 by Thistle

seraphinaFor nearly forty years, there has been tentative peace between humans and dragons. That peace doesn’t stop prejudice from both human and dragon, and tension builds as the treaty anniversary nears. Seraphina is stuck between two worlds, a half-dragon who can’t let her parentage be known. She tries to stay in the shadows, but she might be the only person who can stop the plot meant to throw the kingdom back into war and chaos.

I first read this book in 2012. I loved it, but never reviewed it, for two reasons. First, I wasn’t really blogging much at the time, and second, I really didn’t know how to express my thoughts on the book. Because I didn’t review it, and because it had been so many years since I read it, I didn’t remember enough from the book to go into the sequel, Shadow Scale, without getting completely lost. Hence, the reread, and the opportunity to finally review this book I loved so much.

Unfortunately, I still have no idea what to say about this book! I still loved it, yes. It was wonderful. I thought Hartman’s dragons were unique and interesting, and I liked the whole variety of reactions both humans and dragons had regarding each other. I loved the idea of dishonesty-as-necessity, because I usually find dishonesty of all kinds distasteful, and Hartman’s approach to the subject was unusual. The love story was gentle and sweet and subtle. The surprises were so well-hidden that I was taken by surprise even through my second read, despite remembering most of the book as I reread. Aaaaand that’s pretty much all I have to say about Seraphina. It was just as wonderful the second time around, and I’m looking forward to finally reading the sequel now!

Posted in 2012, 2016, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Wellness Wednesday #21: Depression

Posted on January 20, 2016 by Thistle

buttonSo you know that metaphor I used, about edging over the peak of a mountain? Well. I kept feeling that way, until ten days ago, when I suddenly fell into a deep crevasse. Dazed, I spent four days just trying to make sense of the situation, before coming to the conclusion: I’m not getting out of here alone. Then I called for a ladder.

Out of metaphoric terms? I’ve been fighting depression for months. The main reason my physician took me off my anti-anxiety meds in September was that they were working too well, causing the depression to worsen as my anxiety sources disappeared. I put up a good fight, but last Monday, I was hurled into the worst kind of depression. The can’t-focus, no-energy, can’t-even-basic-hygiene kind. It took four days of wading through this to capitulate and call the physician. They got me in right away, and back on (a different) medication I go.

True Confessions
I hate medication. I grew up in a family that taught me to strive for absolute, total independence. Dependence on anything, including medication, makes me very uncomfortable. This is the second time in the last fifteen months that I’ve had to surrender and say, Nope, can’t do this on my own! My brain and hormones are completely off-balance, and I have to trust my doctor, therapist, medication, and support system to help me get back to Manda-normal.

I don’t know how long that will take. In the meantime, just to note, I may be a bit more absent from the blog (and social media in general) in the upcoming weeks, depending on how quickly my brain improves. I’m in good hands, though, surrounded by people who love me and will help to rescue me from the crevasse and get me started on my way again.

Posted in Wellness | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Words of Radiance, by Brandon Sanderson (audio)

Posted on January 18, 2016 by Thistle

words of radianceBook Two of the Stormlight Archive, following The Way of Kings. Note: this review will not contain book spoilers, but will contain spoilers for The Way of Kings.

Shallan and Jasnah make their way toward the shattered plains with information they believe crucial to the war efforts there. Kaladin, now freed and working for High Prince Dalinar, struggles with the balance between his duty and his need for vengeance. Dalinar, betrayed by a supposed friend and ally, is still receiving powerful visions that he only barely believes are real. A countdown appears on the walls of the war camp: 62 days until death, destruction, apocalypse.

That is a terrible description of this book. It’s really hard to sum up an 1100-page book in a paragraph like that. It’s also really hard to review this kind of book, so instead of attempting a cohesive, flowing single-review, I’m just going to bullet-point this one with my scattered thoughts.

  • I jumped into the 49-hour audio of this book right after finishing my re-listen of The Way of Kings (hereafter TWoK). I didn’t expect it to grab me so completely from the beginning, but it only took five days to finish the audio. By the time I got to the last 150 pages or so, the audio wasn’t fast enough, so I grabbed the physical copy and raced through to the end. I finished the audio the next day, going back over the crazy jumble of events in those last 150 pages. Then I started listening to the book all over again from the beginning. Yes, it is that good. I had some reservations about the first book. None for Words of Radiance (hereafter WoR) – it was phenomenal.
  • My biggest reservation about TWoK had to do with long periods of the book focused on continuous fighting, and the long drop of Shallan’s storyline. WoR had far more balance to it, which I really appreciated.
  • On that note, it also branched out into viewpoints we hadn’t seen before, particularly into that of the parshendi. One of the things I love most about Sanderson is his ability to set up a world that seems straightforward until he starts shifting the viewpoint around, peeling off layers, showing that everyone’s story has good points and bad points. There are no “bad guys” and “good guys.” Everyone is a different shade of grey.
  • Another wonderful Sanderson thing: I don’t know if he’s ever claimed a particular Hogwarts house, but the man Hufflepuffs sooooo well. This book had me tearing up in places, and not necessarily when people died. It was the great acts of friendship, loyalty, and camaraderie that affected me so much. There’s a scene with Kaladin and Hobber that brought home everything wonderful about friendships…
  • Speaking of death, there was certainly death here. Lots of it. It’s war, after all. Normally, I wouldn’t make comparisons, but I feel one is apt here. There is death, but it is not like Game of Thrones (hereafter GoT) death. None of it felt over the top, or superfluous, or disproportionately too much.
  • Continuing on the compare-to-GoT theme: These are both huge long fantasy series with war and politics and such, but they feel nothing alike to me. When I was reading GoT (before giving it up), it felt like the various plotlines were getting further and further apart, expanding outwards. I worried the same would happen here – especially feeling like Shallan’s story as she crosses the frostlands might end up a lot like Arya’s when she’s making her journey in the third GoT book – but it didn’t. The novel was very tightly woven, with plotlines getting closer together, and new stories introduced whenever too many converged. It was a nice balance.
  • It was fun to see minor characters from the first book come back as slightly less minor characters here. Sometimes it took me awhile to realize who they were. That lent a “small world” feeling without the “amazing coincidence” feeling.
  • It was very hard to read the sections where main characters made really bad decisions. It certainly made for furthering the story-complications (or will, in later books, in the case of late-in-book decisions), but it was still hard to read and made me want to shake certain characters to bring them back to their senses.
  • Which leads me to: These characters feel very real. I get very involved in their world, their mindsets, their viewpoints. This is another area where Sanderson excels. Sometimes, it means I get overly invested in the characters, and honestly I don’t mind that at all.
  • It’s not just the people-characters who are wonderful. Normally, I’m not a fan of sentient other-creatures in books. I have a hard time with familiars and talking pets and that sort of thing. But the spren…they are AWESOME. I especially loved Pattern, Shallan’s spren. I think he made the book so much more than it would have been otherwise.
  • Super-duper minor spoiler (highlight to read): Near the end of the book, an old friend from a different Sanderson book shows up, cheerily asking if a character wants to go destroy some evil today. My eyes just about bugged out. I had a total !!! reaction, and came running out to where my oldest son was sitting, and had to read the section to him and watch his face light up. (He’s read that book.) (end spoiler)

That’s about all I can say without revealing more about the book than I should. As I said before, it was excellent. I can’t wait for the next book, and I’m a bit sad that it won’t come out until 2017!! I’m very thoroughly invested in this series and these characters now, in a way I wasn’t back when I first read TWoK.

Performance: The audiobook was read by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer, and they both did an excellent job. I was particularly enthralled with Reading’s handling of Pattern, the buzzing, humming spren bonded to Shallan. At one point while I was listening, I was home with my younger two boys, and I had the audiobook playing at the table while we ate. It was in a section where Pattern is translating a stick’s thoughts (long story), and the stick simply repeats, “I am a stick!” in a very self-satisfied way. The boys had no idea what was going on in the audiobook, but they loved this so much that they kept listening, and grew interested in the story despite not having any backstory. Now, they periodically they start humming or buzzing like Pattern at opportune moments. Ha!

Posted in 2016, 2017, 2020, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Sick-Reading

Posted on January 17, 2016 by Thistle

IMG_3830When I was young, I discovered that repetitive action carried on too long was often followed by illness. I don’t mean that I would get tired or nauseous or simply not feel well. I mean full-blown, immune-system compromised drawn-out illness. Of course, I can’t say whether the repetitive action caused the illness, or if the upcoming illness caused my brain to tend toward repetitive action. I can only say that over and over, repetitive action came right before strep throat, ear infections, influenza, bronchitis, and the like.

Example: A 14-year-old Manda spends Thanksgiving at her grandmother’s house, playing Mario Brothers with her cousins for hours. By the time she goes to bed, her thumbs are overworked and painful, her dreams are repetitive black-and-white versions of video game clips, and she wakes up with strep throat and fever aches all over. Example: A 15-year-old Manda borrows U2’s Zooropa from a friend and listens to it four times in a row, until her throat is swelling up (no, she wasn’t singing at all, just listening) and her ears are painful (no, it wasn’t turned on loud, or on headphones) and her lungs are congested. She goes to the doctor, where she’s diagnosed with double ear infections, strep throat, and bronchitis. Example: A 21-year-old Manda spends all day studying different models of computer, trying to decide which to buy, only to go to bed that evening and wake up with the flu after black-and-white repetitive dreams of computer specs.

Example: A 36-year-old Manda spends five days listening to a 49-hour audiobook, getting just a little sicker and more congested and more run down each day, until she can barely get out of bed. (And is subsequently diagnosed with bronchitis.)

This, my friends, is what I refer to as sick-reading: the act of reading so fast, so long, and/or so frequently that it consumes you and your body breaks down completely.

Does this happen to anyone else? I don’t have a clue. All I know is that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten much better about reading my body-cues and not getting to the point of full-blown illness during repetitive actions, whether that’s reading or listening to music or crocheting. I’ve also gotten much better at pushing myself just far enough that I only get a little sick (yay Manda!). I allow this with certain books – in particular, with those unputdownable, can’t-stop-reading sorts of books. Sometimes, the sick-reading turns the book(s) sour for me, like when I read/hated The Knife of Never Letting Go. If I barrel my way through a book, it has to be really excellent (or really short) to escape falling prey to sick-reading. Even then, I often wish I’d forced myself to go more slowly by the time I close the book/end the audio.

Really, though – does anyone else experience this, with reading or otherwise?? I’d be interested to know…

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged | 4 Comments

View from the Desk

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Thistle

standing deskThe view from my desk has changed quite often in the last year. Going into 2015, I’d converted to a makeshift standing desk, only to discover over the next six months that 1) standing for long periods of time while trying to write fiction made for very ouchy feet, and 2) I was more likely to disconnect my laptop and go sit on the couch whenever I needed to spend any extensive time on the computer. When I was offered a free desktop convertible desk right before we moved, I definitely took it.

Writing has been difficult for me for the last few years. A big chunk of that has been because of the troubles and struggles during that time. Part of it, though, got a lot worse after we sold our house and moved across the country to Massachusetts. I never did find a comfortable desk setup – sitting or standing – and so I became distracted easily whenever I tried to write. When we first moved back to Texas this summer, I loved settling into the new house, and I loved my new office setup. Only it wasn’t long before we had to rearrange the room, and relocate my office area. And I found that I still had a lot of trouble writing, particularly with getting distracted.

About a week ago, I took a look at my office space. I was situated into a place with a lot of room behind me. The boys deal with all their backpacks in that space, or got onto the elliptical (also behind me). I had the unused fireplace to my right, the boys’ desk to my left, and the dining room and kitchen in front of me. I found myself turning to look out over the living room often, especially out the large front window. The dining room and kitchen are places of chaos and stress for me (long story), and I prefer to look out windows instead of at places of chaos and stress. The whole setup felt wrong somehow, and I decided that now was a good time to change.

IMG_3842Change doesn’t have to be big. This one pretty much involved swapping my desk with the boys’ desk. (Pic is terrible, but gives the right idea.) Now, their desk and the kitchen/dining are to my right, my elliptical and the backpacks are to my left, the fireplace is behind me, and I look out over the living room toward the big front window. I can see all my books from this vantage point, all the crocheted throws covering the couch and chairs, and all the parts of the room I love. My back is protected, so that it doesn’t feel like someone can come up behind me suddenly (this is a PTSD thing).

Will this mean that I can write again? I don’t know. I still have troubles and struggles, and I’m well out of the habit of regular writing. But I think changing the shape of my office area and the layout of my space can really help me to feel calmer and less distracted. Even if it doesn’t turn out to help with the writing, I certainly enjoy the view from my desk a whole lot more now!

Posted in Writing | 8 Comments