J/D Ficathon

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin is probably the book that's been on and off my wishlist the most over the years. It kept getting recommended to me in various ways but then I would keep getting put off it for various reasons and never actually reading it.
This month, the time finally came to give it a try - but I only got about 25 pages in before I gave up, so now it's off the wishlist for good, unfortunately.
It may have been the wrong time for me to try and read it - but I found it almost incomprehensible. There was a lot of discussion of various aspects of an alien world and culture in the opening chapter, but with very little context and almost no explanation of anything. And some of the wording was so unfamiliar and dense that I had to read some sections several times and still couldn't quite work them out.
I wasn't engaged by the first-person protagonist, the story didn't seem to be going anywhere, and the whole of the second chapter was a rather dreary and unpleasant folk tale, which isn't my favourite thing at the best of times.
I was also confused by the internal inconsistency. The protagonist stated that the natives of the planet he was visiting shouldn't be gendered but that he automatically did so, because it was what he was used to. But they also called their leader 'the king', which is a gendered title, and referred to that leader as 'he' and 'him' when discussing him in direct dialogue, so the society didn't seem to follow its own rules.
Anyway, I'm sure I'm more at fault than the book here - just not for me.

I loved the TV show of Tipping the Velvet when I first saw it in the early 2000s, and have watched it several times since, as well as seeing an excellent stage version quite some years ago. So, when I spotted the book in a charity shop recently, I snatched it up eagerly. And it's very well written and engaging. The problem was, the TV show is such a good adaptation, it was almost a bit boring reading the book because I knew almost every detail of what was going to happen. It was all a lot more intense in text - though I liked Nancy less as a protagonist after spending nearly 500 pages in her head. And Kitty was much less of a real character because we only got to see her through Nancy's eyes and unhealthy obsession. And it did all seem a lot more unhealthy than I remember from the TV show somehow - and I wasn't sure until right before the end whether I would feel Nancy had redeemed herself and deserved a good outcome. But it totally got me by the end, and - life-changing TV show aside - it's a very good book.

I had high hopes for I Know It's You by Susan Lewis, as I loved the other book of hers I read earlier this year and this one was about writers and publishers which is always a draw for me. And it was certainly compelling for the most part. It follows Marina, a senior editor at a publisher, who starts receiving instalments of a book by an anonymous author, the story of which closely resembles a rather dramatic time in her past that she'd rather not revisit. The main problem was that the 'book within the book' really wasn't very good... And Marina actually points this out multiple times in some blatant lampshading - which I guess is fair enough, but it doesn't explain why the agent who brings it to her didn't just reject it immediately! And it also means we, as the reader, have to wade through an awful lot of not very good prose to find out the most pertinent aspects of the story! I will say the book does a very good job of portraying how Marina gradually spirals into desperation and paranoia, and the way she ends up questioning her own memory of events is very relatable. But the police procedural aspect of the story is absolute nonsense - the case would never have developed in the way it's described... The other Susan Lewis book I read was sharply observed and emotionally impactful, but this one is all melodrama. I was engaged throughout most of it (to the extent of shouting at the book multiple times as I was reading it!) but the ending was very disappointing and rather ruined the overall experience.


Miss Percy's Travel Guide to Welsh Moors and Feral Dragons by Quenby Olsen continues the story almost exactly from where the first book left off, and I was very happy to be back in this world with these characters. The audiobook narrator is very good, so it was a pleasant listening experience overall. But it did feel rather dragged out, with not an awful lot happening for most of the book. I did love the continuation of the commentary on language and the meta aspects of discussing the book itself. But I felt the reintroduction of the 'bad guys' was a bit weak - though the eventual climax was pretty exciting and leads very well into the final instalment of the trilogy. So, I will finish the series before too long, but I didn't enjoy this middle book as much as the first one.

These are the remaining reviews for the books I read while on retreat last week.

The Imaginary Corpse by Tyler Hayes:
This one broke me. Admittedly, it was perfectly designed to hit me with all of the trauma and all of the feels. It's set in a realm called the Stillreal, where abandoned concepts and outgrown imaginary friends end up when their humans suffer some kind of event that changes their worldview and forces them to give up their Ideas. We follow Tippy the triceratops, who is a private detective in this realm - and who is plunged very much into the deep end, when a newly arrived Idea starts killing Friends - permanently... There is so much trauma in this book (on the part of the humans and the Ideas), so much pain and despair - but also so much love and loyalty and beautiful sacrifice and support. It even made me feel sorry for the bad guy! I wasn't wholly sold on the ending when I first finished it (after it made me cry really hard multiple times and want to hug all my teddy bears at once and never let them go) but, having reflected on it since (and I've been thinking about the book nearly every day for a week now) I've come to the conclusion that it was exactly right. A tough read but an awesome one.


The Defiant Spark by Annie Percik:
Yes, I know I probably shouldn't review my own debut novel - but I've never sat down and just read it in paperback form before - and I really enjoyed it! I'm never going to claim it's high literary art, but it's a fun ride, with characters I'm proud of having created, and it largely holds together! I was surprised I didn't find more to criticise - though there was one very annoying typo I spotted...


Chaos Vector by Megan E O'Keefe:
I remember enjoying the first book in this series - but I unfortunately left it too long to get to this next instalment and I just couldn't remember enough of the plot, characters and concepts to be able to make sense of what was going on. Definitely not the book's fault - very much mine.


The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi:
I only got fifty pages into this before I had to put it down.
The world was very well described and interesting - but it was pretty grim from the start. And what happens to the girl of the title in the first of her viewpoint chapters was very graphically unpleasant. I hope, by the end of the story, she finds a better place to be and comes into her power - but I decided I didn't want to go on that journey with her because it was too distressing.


Fray by Rowenna Miller:
This is the second in a series and I remember the first one very well and definitely enjoyed it. I was glad to be back in this world of magical fashion and social upheaval. I like all the characters, the world was expanded in an interesting way, and the different demands on Sophie's time, loyalties, affections and activism were very well portrayed. A very solid middle instalment of this trilogy.