book report
Aug. 13th, 2023 09:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ehydeI ended up giving up on Lie Huo Jiao Chou (Drowning Sorrows in Raging Fire, by priest). I think a lot of it had to do with the translation quality but ehh... not all of it. It just felt--disjointed? Stuff kept happening, but not the stuff that I cared about, nor the stuff that felt important? Something just wasn't clicking. And to be completely honest the main couple was not doing it for me. Well. Actually their backstory was *excellent* but then--anyway it was frustrating, I wanted to care about the characters and the book a lot more than I actually did. If the other translation (that stopped around ch70) ever picks it up again (or if it turns out they stopped because they're working on the official, or something) then I miiight pick it up again but until then, probably not. It's annoying because this is the second priest novel I read and Tai Sui was so good and I think I just kept--expecting there to be more here than there was. Anyway, I was going to read SPL next, but I decided to take a break and read some other stuff first.
I figured out how to, uh, copy library ebooks, so now there's no due date guilt hanging over me! I browsed their currently available sff and read "Light from Uncommon Stars" by Ryka Aoki, which was engaging and enjoyable, although it felt like it was trying very hard to be Popular on Tumblr in that like, hopepunk way, which could get a little too much at times. The story centers around Katrina, a young violinist who has run away from her transphobic family, and the teacher who takes her in--who has made a deal with hell to offer up the souls of seven students in exchange for her own freedom, and Katrina is the seventh. There are also aliens.
After that I picked back up a different cnovel that I had put down for a while, Mr Melancholy Wants to Live a Peaceful Life, which is a double secret identity story where one half of the married couple is secretly a transmigrator who has defeated thousands of worlds, stolen power from the System, and just wants to have a quiet retirement, and the other half of the couple works for a secret organization that keeps transmigrators from wreaking havoc on their world. There were a lot of things I liked here, and several things I didn't like. Mostly, the one-sided reveal--where one knew the other's identity, but the other didn't know his--lasted way too long. And I honestly wasn't really enjoying the main couple's dynamics, although that greatly improved once they both knew each others' identities (I really really don't like jealousy plots, and there was some of that there). But I did really enjoy the plot (the System, transmigrators, saving not just one but several worlds). There were no female characters. Zero. None at all. Which was strange because I think Cyan Wings can write female characters just fine? idk, it was weird. The first two extras were also weird and fatphobic and added nothing. I realize I'm not doing very much to sell this book but I do want to say that the parts I liked, I liked a lot.
Anyway, now I have promised my sister I will read at least one Dorothy Sayers.
I figured out how to, uh, copy library ebooks, so now there's no due date guilt hanging over me! I browsed their currently available sff and read "Light from Uncommon Stars" by Ryka Aoki, which was engaging and enjoyable, although it felt like it was trying very hard to be Popular on Tumblr in that like, hopepunk way, which could get a little too much at times. The story centers around Katrina, a young violinist who has run away from her transphobic family, and the teacher who takes her in--who has made a deal with hell to offer up the souls of seven students in exchange for her own freedom, and Katrina is the seventh. There are also aliens.
After that I picked back up a different cnovel that I had put down for a while, Mr Melancholy Wants to Live a Peaceful Life, which is a double secret identity story where one half of the married couple is secretly a transmigrator who has defeated thousands of worlds, stolen power from the System, and just wants to have a quiet retirement, and the other half of the couple works for a secret organization that keeps transmigrators from wreaking havoc on their world. There were a lot of things I liked here, and several things I didn't like. Mostly, the one-sided reveal--where one knew the other's identity, but the other didn't know his--lasted way too long. And I honestly wasn't really enjoying the main couple's dynamics, although that greatly improved once they both knew each others' identities (I really really don't like jealousy plots, and there was some of that there). But I did really enjoy the plot (the System, transmigrators, saving not just one but several worlds). There were no female characters. Zero. None at all. Which was strange because I think Cyan Wings can write female characters just fine? idk, it was weird. The first two extras were also weird and fatphobic and added nothing. I realize I'm not doing very much to sell this book but I do want to say that the parts I liked, I liked a lot.
Anyway, now I have promised my sister I will read at least one Dorothy Sayers.
