October Recap
Nov. 12th, 2023 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sleepypapercrownsHi friends! It’s time for my October summary. I can’t wait for the end of the year to do some stats on my reading - fic and books, hehe.
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023, adventure/fantasy)
I watched this on a plane, but I was getting sick at that point and had a really hard time concentrating without a fidget toy. It was fun though!! I would love to play dnd myself one day but knew enough to have a good time with it. Would recommend!
Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021, action/sci-fi)
Look, I was sick, this was silly but also pretty bad. I can’t remember much of it.
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021, action/adventure)
Watching a Marvel movie with H always ends in me explaining half of the plot and all the little references because he forgets everything!! No, but it was fun to experience his first watch of this movie. He was so happy and nostalgic about seeing Tobey Maguire as Spider-man again. This movie is fanservice and I love it for that!
And then I watched these all in one weekend:
Twilight (2008, romance/fantasy)
New Moon (2009, romance/fantasy)
Eclipse (2010, romance/fantasy)
Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011, romance/fantasy)
Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012, romance/fantasy)
Yupp. I have been listening to the podcast Three Books One Plot a LOT lately and when the first season and their discussion about Twilight ended, I wanted to watch the movie. That somehow turned into watching all of them which was honestly a fun and infuriating time! It’s a good fall vibe!
(Now, does anyone have any podcasts recs? I need a new one to hyperfocus on now that I am caught up on this one.)
Winter’s Orbit and Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell (2021/23, sci-fi/romance)
I’ve heard a lot of good things about these books, so I downloaded the first one for my holiday and when I finished it, I needed more! (I read 80% of the second on my plane flight back.) These were soooo good. I didn’t realise how … serious these were going to be in the sense that there’s political intrigue in this! Interesting intrigue at that!! I think political intrigue + sci-fi is actually one of my favourite genres (which we will come back to later). Anyways, I was expecting fanfic-y romance, which I got, but also such an interesting plot on top of that. I liked the second couple and especially the beginning of the book a smidge more, but both were EXCELLENT.
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa (2003, literary)
A thing about me is that I loved maths in school. It just came so easy to me, had a certain number of steps you had to follow and the result was satisfying to discover! I know this might not be everyone’s experience but it was exactly what made me like this book. On top of showing an extremely lovely relationship between the older man and his caring housekeeper and her son, it was about maths!! About how to find delight in discovering connecting numbers even if you think you’re bad at maths. It’s very quiet and slow in the way that I find translated Japanese fiction often is and I enjoyed that at times and found it too slow at others. All in all an enjoyable read.
Delicates by Brenna Thummler (2021, graphic novel)
Delicates is the sequel to the graphic novel Sheets in which a girl who lost her mother gives a family of ghosts a new home in her family’s laundromat. This one hits much harder and I would recommend checking content warnings before diving in. It’s about our main character’s experience not fitting in at school and yet desperately trying to and about a new friend who is bullied and can’t be herself at all. It was quite a hard read to be honest, but I love the message and the art style so much.
A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine (2021, sci-fi)
Back to political intrigue and sci-fi! See? Somehow this was a theme and if you have more recommendations in that vein then please do share. This is the sequel to A Memory Called Empire and again deals a lot with colonialism, losing your culture and yet loving other cultures, poetry, and the flawed mechanisms of an empire. I LOVE this duology by Arkady Martine, I would gladly press this into the hands of everyone I know. I just want all of my fantasy/sci-fi to include queer relationships, because I positively melted when Mahit called Three Seagrass Petal. PETAL!!! ACK!
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (2023, fantasy/romance)
Alright, so, don’t judge. I just needed a book to take me out of my bad brain soup and this one delivered!? I mean it’s not good, but it’s also not unreadable. I finally caved when my friend was so excited about the sequel coming out soon and my library had it as an audiobook ready to borrow. So I just dove in and then basically listened to the first half in two days. I mean this was basically reality tv in book form, it’s bad quality but easy to follow and you do grow attached to some characters while constantly cursing out others. What I did not like was the SMUT, oh GOD the smut… it was horrendous and I had to LISTEN TO IT. Straight people are disgusting (this is a joke, but also not). (Of course I am listening to the sequel right now and it is messy, oh boy.)
Squire by Nadia Shammas and Sara Alfageeh (2022, graphic novel)
This one is written and created by a Palestinian-American woman and a Jordanian-American woman and follows a young girl who leaves her family to train for the war. Extremely apt for the current situation, but I picked it up on “accident”. Storygraph classifies this as YA, but I would recommend this for adults too, since it asks a lot of big questions that a YA reader would maybe not know what to do with. It’s not an easy breezy graphic novel as many of them are, but a really important one. And of course, it has beautiful art, too.
The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings (2022, dystopian/literary/fantasy)
I didn’t really like this one and I am still trying to put my finger on why. A lot of it felt like a big anxiety attack for me even though I ultimately never really felt connected to our main character. This was just too dire of a dystopian for me I guess? Too close to our reality without offering a lot of hope. An unfortunate pass from me.
Femslash edition! Who needs men, anyways.
- i'm your girl? by monster_bookworm (le sserafim, yunjin/chaewon)
- Touch by ninamonday (nmixx, lily/haewon)
- fight to the finish by tullycat (twice, nayeon/jihyo)
Movies
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023, adventure/fantasy)
I watched this on a plane, but I was getting sick at that point and had a really hard time concentrating without a fidget toy. It was fun though!! I would love to play dnd myself one day but knew enough to have a good time with it. Would recommend!
Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021, action/sci-fi)
Look, I was sick, this was silly but also pretty bad. I can’t remember much of it.
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021, action/adventure)
Watching a Marvel movie with H always ends in me explaining half of the plot and all the little references because he forgets everything!! No, but it was fun to experience his first watch of this movie. He was so happy and nostalgic about seeing Tobey Maguire as Spider-man again. This movie is fanservice and I love it for that!
And then I watched these all in one weekend:
Twilight (2008, romance/fantasy)
New Moon (2009, romance/fantasy)
Eclipse (2010, romance/fantasy)
Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011, romance/fantasy)
Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012, romance/fantasy)
Yupp. I have been listening to the podcast Three Books One Plot a LOT lately and when the first season and their discussion about Twilight ended, I wanted to watch the movie. That somehow turned into watching all of them which was honestly a fun and infuriating time! It’s a good fall vibe!
(Now, does anyone have any podcasts recs? I need a new one to hyperfocus on now that I am caught up on this one.)
Books
Winter’s Orbit and Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell (2021/23, sci-fi/romance)
I’ve heard a lot of good things about these books, so I downloaded the first one for my holiday and when I finished it, I needed more! (I read 80% of the second on my plane flight back.) These were soooo good. I didn’t realise how … serious these were going to be in the sense that there’s political intrigue in this! Interesting intrigue at that!! I think political intrigue + sci-fi is actually one of my favourite genres (which we will come back to later). Anyways, I was expecting fanfic-y romance, which I got, but also such an interesting plot on top of that. I liked the second couple and especially the beginning of the book a smidge more, but both were EXCELLENT.
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa (2003, literary)
A thing about me is that I loved maths in school. It just came so easy to me, had a certain number of steps you had to follow and the result was satisfying to discover! I know this might not be everyone’s experience but it was exactly what made me like this book. On top of showing an extremely lovely relationship between the older man and his caring housekeeper and her son, it was about maths!! About how to find delight in discovering connecting numbers even if you think you’re bad at maths. It’s very quiet and slow in the way that I find translated Japanese fiction often is and I enjoyed that at times and found it too slow at others. All in all an enjoyable read.
Delicates by Brenna Thummler (2021, graphic novel)
Delicates is the sequel to the graphic novel Sheets in which a girl who lost her mother gives a family of ghosts a new home in her family’s laundromat. This one hits much harder and I would recommend checking content warnings before diving in. It’s about our main character’s experience not fitting in at school and yet desperately trying to and about a new friend who is bullied and can’t be herself at all. It was quite a hard read to be honest, but I love the message and the art style so much.
A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine (2021, sci-fi)
Back to political intrigue and sci-fi! See? Somehow this was a theme and if you have more recommendations in that vein then please do share. This is the sequel to A Memory Called Empire and again deals a lot with colonialism, losing your culture and yet loving other cultures, poetry, and the flawed mechanisms of an empire. I LOVE this duology by Arkady Martine, I would gladly press this into the hands of everyone I know. I just want all of my fantasy/sci-fi to include queer relationships, because I positively melted when Mahit called Three Seagrass Petal. PETAL!!! ACK!
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (2023, fantasy/romance)
Alright, so, don’t judge. I just needed a book to take me out of my bad brain soup and this one delivered!? I mean it’s not good, but it’s also not unreadable. I finally caved when my friend was so excited about the sequel coming out soon and my library had it as an audiobook ready to borrow. So I just dove in and then basically listened to the first half in two days. I mean this was basically reality tv in book form, it’s bad quality but easy to follow and you do grow attached to some characters while constantly cursing out others. What I did not like was the SMUT, oh GOD the smut… it was horrendous and I had to LISTEN TO IT. Straight people are disgusting (this is a joke, but also not). (Of course I am listening to the sequel right now and it is messy, oh boy.)
Squire by Nadia Shammas and Sara Alfageeh (2022, graphic novel)
This one is written and created by a Palestinian-American woman and a Jordanian-American woman and follows a young girl who leaves her family to train for the war. Extremely apt for the current situation, but I picked it up on “accident”. Storygraph classifies this as YA, but I would recommend this for adults too, since it asks a lot of big questions that a YA reader would maybe not know what to do with. It’s not an easy breezy graphic novel as many of them are, but a really important one. And of course, it has beautiful art, too.
The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings (2022, dystopian/literary/fantasy)
I didn’t really like this one and I am still trying to put my finger on why. A lot of it felt like a big anxiety attack for me even though I ultimately never really felt connected to our main character. This was just too dire of a dystopian for me I guess? Too close to our reality without offering a lot of hope. An unfortunate pass from me.
Fic
Femslash edition! Who needs men, anyways.
- i'm your girl? by monster_bookworm (le sserafim, yunjin/chaewon)
- Touch by ninamonday (nmixx, lily/haewon)
- fight to the finish by tullycat (twice, nayeon/jihyo)
