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What I Just Finished Reading
Sleeping Giants – Sylvain Neuvel
Omnipotent, cordially threatening unnamed antagonist with enough influence to cow world leaders into doing his bidding? Check.
Melodramatic love triangle? Check.
Substitution of informed attributes with personal names assigned to them for actual characters? Check.
Shameless author self-insert? More physically badass than a Navy Seal and the most genius-y genius? Check.
Cliffhanger ending visible from two-thirds of the way through the narrative? Check.
This half-assed novel about humanity discovering pieces of a giant, disassembled alien mecha buried across the planet is written as a series of interviews, journal entries, and reports, which at least justifies the constant exposition dumps. It reads like the first draft of a Netflix original series, and—whaddaya know—“I wouldn’t be writing any of this without my movie agent,” says Neuvel in the Acknowledgments. Ugh.
The Hidden Life of Trees – Peter Wohlebellen
This book touches on several fascinating aspects of the interrelation between various species of trees, fungi, insects, animals, and other natural phenomena in forest ecosystems, and I wish Wohlebellen had gone into them in more depth. But if you approach this book as a 101-level introduction to topics you might like to examine more deeply in other resources, it doesn’t disappoint.
What I Am Currently Reading
The Girl Who Drank the Moon – Kelly Barnhill
This books is an extended fairytale about what happens when we try to shield the people we love from sadness by lying to them. The setting is atmospheric, the descriptions magical, and the characters endearing. It’s “for” younger readers but transcends its intended audience.
Intermediate Korean – Andrew Sangpil Byon
Still working on the causal conjunctives.
Japanese Grammar – Keiko Uesawa Chevray & Tomiko Kuwahira
I've made it to the chapter on verbs, which so far has done a good job of laying out the grammar of direct and indirect objects, and verbs of giving and receiving.
Kabbalah – Tim Dedopulos
I’m halfway through the chapter on the 22 paths. “We do not have the room to go into extended information on the Nativoth in this work,” Dedopulos says, openly admitting to phoning this six-page chapter in. On the other hand, as with other similar systems, once you’ve grasped the important concepts, the rest is just noise.
Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot – Lon Milo DuQuette
Crowley’s framework of the Three Aeons is stupid, and as a result, so is his interpretation of The Hanged Man.
Fire Logic – Laurie J. Marks
First, the bad: no matter their age, culture, language, gender, or class, every character Marks writes speaks and thinks in the exact same voice. It’s a shame because Marks does the rest of it so well. She’s created a beautifully diverse world populated with multiple cultures, social milieus, and family configurations.
The Beast’s Heart – Liefe Shallcross
The story opens with the Beast stumbling back into his ruined castle and discovering signs of magic afoot. Other than that, not much has happened yet.
What I'm Reading Next
I’ll probably try to wrap up Saeki’s 神隠し.
これで以上です。
Sleeping Giants – Sylvain Neuvel
Omnipotent, cordially threatening unnamed antagonist with enough influence to cow world leaders into doing his bidding? Check.
Melodramatic love triangle? Check.
Substitution of informed attributes with personal names assigned to them for actual characters? Check.
Shameless author self-insert? More physically badass than a Navy Seal and the most genius-y genius? Check.
Cliffhanger ending visible from two-thirds of the way through the narrative? Check.
This half-assed novel about humanity discovering pieces of a giant, disassembled alien mecha buried across the planet is written as a series of interviews, journal entries, and reports, which at least justifies the constant exposition dumps. It reads like the first draft of a Netflix original series, and—whaddaya know—“I wouldn’t be writing any of this without my movie agent,” says Neuvel in the Acknowledgments. Ugh.
The Hidden Life of Trees – Peter Wohlebellen
This book touches on several fascinating aspects of the interrelation between various species of trees, fungi, insects, animals, and other natural phenomena in forest ecosystems, and I wish Wohlebellen had gone into them in more depth. But if you approach this book as a 101-level introduction to topics you might like to examine more deeply in other resources, it doesn’t disappoint.
What I Am Currently Reading
The Girl Who Drank the Moon – Kelly Barnhill
This books is an extended fairytale about what happens when we try to shield the people we love from sadness by lying to them. The setting is atmospheric, the descriptions magical, and the characters endearing. It’s “for” younger readers but transcends its intended audience.
Intermediate Korean – Andrew Sangpil Byon
Still working on the causal conjunctives.
Japanese Grammar – Keiko Uesawa Chevray & Tomiko Kuwahira
I've made it to the chapter on verbs, which so far has done a good job of laying out the grammar of direct and indirect objects, and verbs of giving and receiving.
Kabbalah – Tim Dedopulos
I’m halfway through the chapter on the 22 paths. “We do not have the room to go into extended information on the Nativoth in this work,” Dedopulos says, openly admitting to phoning this six-page chapter in. On the other hand, as with other similar systems, once you’ve grasped the important concepts, the rest is just noise.
Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot – Lon Milo DuQuette
Crowley’s framework of the Three Aeons is stupid, and as a result, so is his interpretation of The Hanged Man.
Fire Logic – Laurie J. Marks
First, the bad: no matter their age, culture, language, gender, or class, every character Marks writes speaks and thinks in the exact same voice. It’s a shame because Marks does the rest of it so well. She’s created a beautifully diverse world populated with multiple cultures, social milieus, and family configurations.
The Beast’s Heart – Liefe Shallcross
The story opens with the Beast stumbling back into his ruined castle and discovering signs of magic afoot. Other than that, not much has happened yet.
What I'm Reading Next
I’ll probably try to wrap up Saeki’s 神隠し.
これで以上です。
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That said, I already have the third book so I'll probably read the entire series at least once.
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I get it. I've read a lot of books/book series where, yeah, I 'liked it well enough' to read through the whole thing but there was never a magic moment where I really connected to the story. Sort of a step above 'I read a book.' on my internal chart of how I feel about what I read, I suppose...
If I see good reviews on the last book in the series when it comes out, I may see about a re-read.