Belated July Booklog + Other Housekeeping
Aug. 8th, 2015 11:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
netgirl_y2kThe Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins
Dark Places - Gillian Flynn
Three Weeks with Lady X - Eloisa James
Under the Banner of Heaven - Jon Krakauer
Last First Snow - Max Gladstone
The Girl on the Train is being held up by all and sundry as the next Gone Girl, and it's easy to see where the comparison comes from, with the revolving POVs and unlikable female characters. I certainly had a similar reading experience with both books, where I wolfed them down in a sitting or two without ever being sure if I was enjoying them.
The thing I thought that was really well done aboutThe Girl on the Train though, were the scenes where Rachel's drunk, which were cringey and hard to read in the exact way that remembering being that drunk is. I was less impressed with the thing that pushed her from being a drinker into a drunk (I was a bit haunted by the bit where Rachel talks about how easy it is to go from one to the other; there but for the grace of god and all that...) was her infertility. I do lack a bit of natural sympathy for that trope, nevertheless I think it is overdone in the extreme as a way of motivating female characters. (Hi, last Avengers movie!)
Dark Places was about a woman revisiting the murders of her mother and sisters by her brother during the "satanic panic" of the eighties. I may be less impressed by Gillian Flynn's writing than some, but by God, the woman knows how to write a page turner, and how to rock a plot twist.
Three Weeks with Lady X is a regency romance where the bastard son is endeavoring to woo a society lady in order to make himself respectable and instead falls in love with his interior decorator. It's elevated above the generic by the epistolary sections, which are laugh out loud funny. Will probably read more Eloisa James.
I read Under the Banner of Heaven mostly because I wanted to check out Krakauer's writing/journalism before deciding if I wanted to read his book about campus rape. Sorry, but if you're a dude writing about rape culture, I want a taste of your style and credentials on a subject that's less personally fraught. I read this history of mormon extremism cumulating in the murder of a woman and her baby in horrified fascination, and I probably will read Missoula.
I will rec Max Gladstone's Craft sequence to all and sundry - it's a magic!punk world where the Gods were beaten in a series of wars by craftspeople, who are like a cross between magicians and lawyers, and it's awesome - but Last First Snow was not my favourite installment. I think because even though it's the fourth one published it's the first chronologically, and I didn't know that before I picked it up. Also it's been two years since I read Two Serpents Rise and I'm a bit hazy on the plot details, so I spent a lot of this one going, okay, I know I think Temoc's a dick, but I can't remember why I think he's a dick. I do still recommend the series wholeheartedly, though.
I'm currently failing to be gripped by the first Benjamin January novel, which is a shame because I'm in the market for a new long series that I can dip in and out of, but I'm only about 10% in, so I guess I'll give it another fifty or so pages to grab me before dropping it.
*
I have the cast off my broken ankle, another week off work, and instructions to start trying to walk on it. The unexpected boon of not having a desk job. On the up side, I've had five weeks off work in the height of summer; on the down, it's been the wettest Scottish summer since records began, which, frankly, is saying something, and I have a sneaking suspicion that when I do get back I'm going to find myself scheduled for every awkward, antisocial shift from now until Christmas.
*
While I was laid up I binge watched Person of Interest; four seasons of more than twenty episodes apiece in a little over a month.
At first I kept hitting next episode because it wasn't like I was going anywhere, and a by the numbers procedural was just what my tea and painkiller numbed brain ordered. Around about Season Three I got really into it. I kind of admire the showrunners, who probably could have kept the show on the air for ten years as a fairly unmemorable crime of the week show, committed to the AI God War direction. Even if all it nets them is another half a season to wrap things up, I think it was a bold choice.
I was surprised by how much I came out of it shipping Root/Shaw. It was If-Then-Else that really sold me on it, up until then I'd been going: well, I get what everyone else is seeing, but this isn't the sort of show where I ship people or want to consume fanworks... Er, yeah, right.
Basically, I am having many Root/Shaw and I Love Everyone In This Bar emotions, and I would like to soothe my binge watch battered brain with fic, if anyone has any recs?
Thus far I have enjoyed this apocalypse AU and this Mrs & Mrs Smith AU.
Dark Places - Gillian Flynn
Three Weeks with Lady X - Eloisa James
Under the Banner of Heaven - Jon Krakauer
Last First Snow - Max Gladstone
The Girl on the Train is being held up by all and sundry as the next Gone Girl, and it's easy to see where the comparison comes from, with the revolving POVs and unlikable female characters. I certainly had a similar reading experience with both books, where I wolfed them down in a sitting or two without ever being sure if I was enjoying them.
The thing I thought that was really well done aboutThe Girl on the Train though, were the scenes where Rachel's drunk, which were cringey and hard to read in the exact way that remembering being that drunk is. I was less impressed with the thing that pushed her from being a drinker into a drunk (I was a bit haunted by the bit where Rachel talks about how easy it is to go from one to the other; there but for the grace of god and all that...) was her infertility. I do lack a bit of natural sympathy for that trope, nevertheless I think it is overdone in the extreme as a way of motivating female characters. (Hi, last Avengers movie!)
Dark Places was about a woman revisiting the murders of her mother and sisters by her brother during the "satanic panic" of the eighties. I may be less impressed by Gillian Flynn's writing than some, but by God, the woman knows how to write a page turner, and how to rock a plot twist.
Three Weeks with Lady X is a regency romance where the bastard son is endeavoring to woo a society lady in order to make himself respectable and instead falls in love with his interior decorator. It's elevated above the generic by the epistolary sections, which are laugh out loud funny. Will probably read more Eloisa James.
I read Under the Banner of Heaven mostly because I wanted to check out Krakauer's writing/journalism before deciding if I wanted to read his book about campus rape. Sorry, but if you're a dude writing about rape culture, I want a taste of your style and credentials on a subject that's less personally fraught. I read this history of mormon extremism cumulating in the murder of a woman and her baby in horrified fascination, and I probably will read Missoula.
I will rec Max Gladstone's Craft sequence to all and sundry - it's a magic!punk world where the Gods were beaten in a series of wars by craftspeople, who are like a cross between magicians and lawyers, and it's awesome - but Last First Snow was not my favourite installment. I think because even though it's the fourth one published it's the first chronologically, and I didn't know that before I picked it up. Also it's been two years since I read Two Serpents Rise and I'm a bit hazy on the plot details, so I spent a lot of this one going, okay, I know I think Temoc's a dick, but I can't remember why I think he's a dick. I do still recommend the series wholeheartedly, though.
I'm currently failing to be gripped by the first Benjamin January novel, which is a shame because I'm in the market for a new long series that I can dip in and out of, but I'm only about 10% in, so I guess I'll give it another fifty or so pages to grab me before dropping it.
*
I have the cast off my broken ankle, another week off work, and instructions to start trying to walk on it. The unexpected boon of not having a desk job. On the up side, I've had five weeks off work in the height of summer; on the down, it's been the wettest Scottish summer since records began, which, frankly, is saying something, and I have a sneaking suspicion that when I do get back I'm going to find myself scheduled for every awkward, antisocial shift from now until Christmas.
*
While I was laid up I binge watched Person of Interest; four seasons of more than twenty episodes apiece in a little over a month.
At first I kept hitting next episode because it wasn't like I was going anywhere, and a by the numbers procedural was just what my tea and painkiller numbed brain ordered. Around about Season Three I got really into it. I kind of admire the showrunners, who probably could have kept the show on the air for ten years as a fairly unmemorable crime of the week show, committed to the AI God War direction. Even if all it nets them is another half a season to wrap things up, I think it was a bold choice.
I was surprised by how much I came out of it shipping Root/Shaw. It was If-Then-Else that really sold me on it, up until then I'd been going: well, I get what everyone else is seeing, but this isn't the sort of show where I ship people or want to consume fanworks... Er, yeah, right.
Basically, I am having many Root/Shaw and I Love Everyone In This Bar emotions, and I would like to soothe my binge watch battered brain with fic, if anyone has any recs?
Thus far I have enjoyed this apocalypse AU and this Mrs & Mrs Smith AU.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-09 09:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-09 12:27 pm (UTC)I am slightly dismayed by a lot of the Root/Shaw fic I've tried - what is it about the relationship between a sociopath and a God bothering killer for hire that screams fluffy AU? And what with the MCU being such a big thing in fandom, I can't believe no one has done anything with winter soldier!Shaw...
no subject
Date: 2015-08-09 02:36 pm (UTC)Also, winter soldier!Shaw is such a terrific idea! *_* (And now I kind of want to draw it but, ah, I have a tons of other fannish things to do too).
About PoI, yes, it's so fascinating to me to see how the show played with the idea of the AIs being gods, how Harold started out as a father to the Machine only for her to grow up and later be the one to protect him. How between the Machine and Samaritan, the one who's playing for the right side is the one whose name makes you think of Terminator while Samaritan is the bad guy. Ironic, right? How Finch and Reese find so neatly their mirrors in Root and Shaw: the tech genius and the military badass. (Only, of course there's much more to their characters.) And it's so cool that to act as mirrors the writers chose *female* characters. (And, of course, the slashness/femslashness factor gets mirrored too, only in Root/Shaw it becomes explicit which BTW really hits my Finch/Reese sweet spot.) And last thing, Bear! So cuuuute! *_*
no subject
Date: 2015-08-10 05:40 pm (UTC)There have been a few good graphics on the Winter Soldier!Shaw theme of which my favourite is this, but I really want someone to get on that fic before S5 starts.
Bear ♥ You know, if I'd known about the dog (also the found family stuff and dry humour) I would have gotten to this show a lot sooner.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-10 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-09 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-10 05:25 pm (UTC)Cheers for the rec, it certainly looks a little more like what I had in mind. I've read a couple of good character studies of Shaw, so one of Root is very welcome :-)
no subject
Date: 2015-08-10 07:59 pm (UTC)(Um, if you take a glance at my other PoI fic, can I anti-suggest An Item of Mutual Interest. There's a reason that one isn't finished.)
no subject
Date: 2015-08-10 08:25 pm (UTC)(noted, although what a fascinating pairing, and I do love Zoe Morgan. I have a personal rule not to delete posted fic, but God knows there are a few of mine I'd like to tag: not my best work; proceed with caution)
no subject
Date: 2015-08-10 09:53 pm (UTC)Re: An Item of Mutual Interest - in all honesty I can't really view it objectively any more. I started watching PoI when it arrived in the UK, so I was a season and a half behind the US, and fell hopelessly in love with Carter, and liked Zoe Morgan a lot too, and thought they could have fun glancing off each other when I was a little over midway through season 1. Unfortunately I didn't manage to complete the fic before managing to catch up with where the US was and seeing the episode where Carter and Zoe finally interact - with an utter lack of chemistry, which just completely sunk the story for me. I know some people did like it, but...
On the bright side, that same episode did give me the (tragically short lived) ship of Carter/Shaw, who I had never thought would get on quite as gleefully as they did, and I clutch my Shaw/Carter fics to my bosom as the precious. precious babies they are.
Vid recs
Date: 2015-08-09 11:03 pm (UTC)So have some vid recs instead :)
for all of the pain - R/S, love this vidder
Bloodsport - R/S, another excellent vidder
Knockin' on Heaven's Door - R/S, Root-heavy
Skeleton Key - Root
Blood on my Name - Shaw
in the bullpen - Shaw
Time's Up - Carter tribute
S&M - Ladies, Root-Shaw-Carter-Kara
How'm I supposed to die? - Team/show vid
Lonely Souls - Show vid
Re: Vid recs
Date: 2015-08-10 05:23 pm (UTC)Same. I'm having better luck with ensemble/gen fic that just so happens to include background Root/Shaw, which is fine as as previously mentioned I love everyone in this bar, and Reese/Carter would definitely be included in that.
Thanks for the vid recs, I'm going to have fun watching those.
Re: Vid recs
Date: 2015-08-11 03:24 am (UTC)this is one of the first C/R fics I read and it's still one of my favorites.
rose_griffes has written some PoI fic and it ranges from gen to C/R to Zoe/Reese.
lyssie wrote a season 3 fix-it fic that has vague hints of C/R - on LJ