Shadow of the Fox series (Shadow of the Fox, Soul of the Sword, Night of the Dragon) by Julie Kagawa. A half-kitsune raised in a Japanese monastery flees its destruction with a scroll fragment that the monastery was meant to guard. A ninja wielding a cursed sword in search of said fragment joins her, unaware that she is the bearer. Attracting luck and misfortune wherever they go, they make their way along a path that has been laid for them long before either was born—a path that leads to a fantastic prize: a single wish. Fascinating series. I did not believe some of the interactions or dialogue and I felt like there was some leaning into contrived situations to herd the plot where it needed to go, but aside from that this was a very enjoyable Japanese fantasy novel that works well as a beginner’s guide to Japanese mythology and folklore. Frankly, I wish I’d read this years ago because it would have helped me better understand several things about Mystery Skulls Animated. I could have improved many aspects of the multiple fanfictions I’ve written for it if I’d been more familiar with all this.
The Battle of Betazed by Charlotte Douglas and Susan Kearney. A Star Trek novel that takes place during the Dominion Wars. With her home planet occupied by hostile forces, Deanna Troi is enlisted to break her world’s most despised psychic murderer free to be used as a weapon against invading forces. The book has a great premise and is written pretty well for the most part, but there is a chunk of chapters about 2/3 of the way in (maybe about six chapters?) where no reactions, decisions, or plans make sense. Aside from that, it’s a good read if you are familiar with Next Gen and Deep Space 9.
Confessions by Saint Augustine. This was a difficult book. The truth is, I didn’t understand about half of it. When he started taking apart local, long-dead heresies or misbeliefs, I was completely lost. There’s a term Sergey and I picked up when we tried to read through Mein Kamf (in the spirit of what-did-the-horse’s-mouth-actually-say?), and that is “Too much local politics.” When a writer from another language, culture, and time starts dissecting specific beliefs and tags them with names of popular proponents of that belief, the argument becomes next to impossible to follow. So, there’s a lot of “local politics” in Confessions. There’s also a lot of philosophical reasoning about Biblical texts that I could not follow. However, the other half is about his own life and his wonder at the glory and mercy and beauty of God. The thing that most captures me about this book is the language used to speak of and to God. It is possibly the most passionately reverent text I’ve ever read.
The Lunar Chronicles (Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, Winter, Fairest, and Stars Above) by Marissa Meyer. Brilliant combination of fairytale and cyberpunk with space adventure thrown in. Each book follows a classic fairytale heroine but the overall story builds the tale of a lost princess reclaiming her rightful throne from a tyrannical queen. Very enjoyable from start to finish!
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Yeah, okay, so, I may have chosen this title at this time as a reaction to some remarks online that Rand’s writing was incoherent and borderline illiterate. Untrue, as I suspected. I’m finding fascinating strands of story in here, including a more understandable and condensed version of Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky as a subplot. It’s a brutal examination of two people who pursue the goal of architecture: one—Keating—sells his soul at every step of the way for something he was goaded into to begin with and finds only initial success while the other—Roark—refuses to compromise on the tiniest thing and takes several strolls through hell in true pursuit of the thing he loves most—and ultimately prevails. As I read it, I am reminded of where to set my own sights in regards to the thing I love to do. I suspect Roark’s purity of vision and drive to be an impossible ideal, but ideals are good things to have as guiding stars. I was surprised by the rape scene, and the response of the female character involved. This is not the first time I’ve encountered her type in literature (see The Invisible Man) but I’m still disturbed and surprised by it. She must exist in reality, it’s just difficult to fathom. Having finished the book, I conclude that this book holds up an extremely judgmental ideal, but an ideal nonetheless and one that I think is worth gleaning from. The writing is enviably good, the characters represent real archetypes that can make you hate them or ache with pity. While I do not agree completely with every point made, there were good points made and this is masterclass work.
We Stand Divided by Daniel Gordis. I have long wondered why American Jews seem by and large not to support Israel. This book provides a fascinating and, I do believe, fairly assessed look into the divide between American and Israeli Jews. Gordis points to many factors, but his main thesis seems to be that the Jewish community in each country formed for a different reason and around different ideals, and even reshaped the notion of Jewishness differently in order to survive in that particular environment. This is a very useful puzzle piece in the picture surrounding the discourse on Israel, and a solid answer to my question.
Appetites (why women want) by Caroline Knapp. One of the few college required-reading books I liked enough to keep when I left, Appetites is about one woman’s struggle with anorexia, what is at the root of it that is shared among women, and what she feels society’s hand is in cueing women to suppress or subvert their desires. In my college years, this book made all the sense in the world to me. About fifteen years later, I find myself nodding to only about half of what she says. When things are framed in terms of her personal struggle with anorexia and things that she sees as connections to that in her life, it’s a powerful and compelling narrative full of immersive imagery. When she begins pointing out where in society, her father, or her mother the fault may lie, I find myself frowning or giving short scoffs of disbelief. Boiled down to simplicity, what I hear is that men are allowed to desire whatever they want with no downsides and women’s desires are to be suppressed, and until women can be as uninhibited as men we will be forever seething just under the surface. I cannot buy into this. I am not that woman. I am an argument against that being all or even most women. This is still a beautifully written work and it’s fascinating to see what the seeds of current thought are that were sown a few decades back, but I can’t give this work the same reverence I used to.
The Wingfeather Saga (On The Edge Of The Dark Sea Of Darkness, North! Or Be Eaten, The Monster In The Hollows, and The Warden And The Wolf King) by Andrew Peterson. A tale of lost royalty under the usurping tyranny, a trio of children destined to retake the throne in a land where people can become monsters—and often want to. This was a real roller-coaster that hurt and uplifted in all the right ways. It’s a children’s series that can easily be enjoyed by adults. Its characters have to deal with the consequences of their decisions, and we do lose main characters along the way. It is beautiful. It is stunning. I will definitely return to this, and I am eagerly looking forward to watching its animated adaptation.
Introvert Book Club Reads
Cross Down by James Patterson & Brendan DuBois. With everyone in the nation keyed to a boiling point, seemingly random attacks crop up all over the country. One detective hops off the grid to chase down the source funding all these disparate groups and finds out more than he bargained for. On the one hand, it’s somewhat depressing to see this sort of depictions of possible anarchic/tyrannical states of this country. On the other hand, this was an enjoyable and, yes, “thrilling” read.
Flash Point by Tom Clancy and Don Bentley. Fun spy adventure, centering mostly on surveillance and countersurveillance moves. It's got a good storyline with a newly promoted team lead who has everything go wrong and manages to pull a rabbit out of a hat at the last moment. Kept me turning pages all the way to the end, that’s for sure.
Obsessed by James Patterson and James O. Born. I feel the synopsis was fairly misleading, either that or the synopsizer didn’t read the book properly. It was an okay read for a detective-tracking-down-serial-killer novel, but I found a lot of it unbelievable. Reasonable read, wouldn’t really recommend it.
Suspect by Scott Turow. Courtroom/PI thriller about a PI hired to untangle a female police chief client accused of requiring sexual favors for promotions. A lot of twists all the way to the end, and very well written. Personal preference, I don’t enjoy it when a story has sex and discussions thereof front and center, but it does make sense given the main character’s personality. Even so, good one-time read but not again.
Out of Nowhere by Sandra Brown. At first I was really enjoying the story. After a horrific tragedy, two survivors of a mass shooting begin to spark a romance. However, the killer is still at large, which creates a tense backdrop to the story. I began to like it less when the first intensely detailed depiction of sex took place, and even less when the second one spanned several pages. Somewhere between those two scenes the situations also began to feel like the author was herding sheep to get the characters to interesting setups instead of letting things develop naturally. I started out liking it, ended up disliking.
Movies
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3. I went back to the first one and watched them all to remind myself of all the details. I was a bit excited because I knew we got to see Rocket’s backstory in this one. Disappointment is a familiar taste when watching Marvel Movies at this point. The story is held together with string and used chewing gum—actually it’s held together by bloated fight scenes that look amazing but add little. “Mean humor” is a standard, and even formerly innocent and kind characters are now jerks to each other, but that's fine if it makes viewers laugh. There are so many cliches indulged in during important moments that it saps the weight from them. I like Rocket’s backstory, I really do, but why was it delivered like that??? So much in this story felt lazily written, and unfortunately, that is what I’ve come to expect and why I have trouble rousing myself to watch new Marvel movies anymore.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. I really should have expected that Weird was, much like most things Weird Al writes, a parody of a formula. The movie becomes increasingly absurd as you go on. It was a fun plane-watch for sure. Don’t expect to figure out anything about Weird Al’s life from it, but enjoy watching Harry Potter play Weird Al.