recent reading

I finished some books recently:

Tentacle by Rita Indiana

I liked this a lot, but it was fucking weird, and I wish it had been longer. It won a bunch of awards, and to me it felt like a mid-point between magical realism and science-fiction. Like some of the stuff in the book had science fiction explanations for why they were happening, and some of them had more straight up magical realism reasons. I liked it a lot, but I think it would be a lot better book if it was longer? Like, a lot of elements are unexplored, or very underexplored, and I think the book's trying to play that off as ~~literary, but at points it just came off as sloppy. One of the thing I really like is the way that characters merge, as magical realism reasons reveal that characters you thought were separate people are actually the same person - it's very mindfucky, and good. I think it might have lost a little in translation, so if I'm feeling brave (and really missing the DR) I might try and tackle it in Spanish. Would recommend if you like weird, gender-fucky, sci-fi!

Slow River by Nicola Griffith

Another sci-fi. I bought this from the queer bookstore in Glasgow, Category Is... Books (I actually got Tentacle there too, if you're ever in Glasgow you should check it out!) and really really loved it. It's a twisty, tense sci-fi novel about Lore, who is abandoned by her rich family and rescued by a criminal Spanner. The book is about the larger world, which in this future has been hopelessly polluted and the rich profit off cleaning the pollution, and also about the individual family drama of Lore, and her relationship with Spanner, and her efforts to find honest work. It's very very good. It has warnings for every kind of abuse, so ask for warnings and be careful if that's something you need to think about, but the book is honestly very very good, and kept me gripped right until the end.

The Penalty Box by Deirdre Martin

This was super weird. I bought it second-hand from The Ripped Bodice, because it was a hockey romance. The main character has recently returned to her home town to help look after her nephew, and she falls for Paul, a former NHLer who was forced to retire after head injury and has ALSO returned to the town to run the bar. It was weird in the sense that the book seemed to treat the characters very different from what I was expecting out of a romance novel??? Even the main character was never truly likeable, and at times there would be flashes of the characters being likable and then would do something really weird and unpleasant? but the characters were interesting and I kinda wish the author had written like a long "serious" novel about them?? I dunno. I can't in good faith reccomend it to anyone, because I don't think it was good, or even that enjoyable, but I did like reading it? It was weird.

Currently reading:

The Tarnished Lady, a romance novel I bought second-hand from the Ripped Bodice
The Muslims Are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism and the Domestic War on Terror by Arun Kundnani

Other Stuff

how winning is done podfic by growlery. I finished listening to this today and it's soooo good. growlery does a great job with TK & Patty's dynamic, and the humour in the text, and makes so many lines so so funny. big big rec!

LOVE + FEAR new album by Marina (previously Marina and the Diamonds). so so good!! I've been listening non-stop since it came out. Particularly favorite songs are To Be Human, Karma, Enjoy your Life.

feels like a long way down some very cute T rated boy kissing Miro/Roope of the Dallas Stars. Very cute! short and sweet.

I've been feeling a weird combination of great and terrible recently, swinging back and forth between them, because I'm lucky to have wonderful friends, and be in a fandom I enjoy, and have a wonderful boyfriend, and an amazing girlfriend and get to do lots of great things with them, but I also feel very dissatisfied and stressed at work, and am not sure how to get out of that rutt. But I think I'm rounding a corner with that, hopefully. So we'll see. Hope you're all good! <3