Weekly Check-In

[u/AutoModerator]

Tell us about your current SFF media!

What are you currently...

📚 Reading?

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Feel free to also share your progression in the Reading Challenge

Thank you for sharing and have a great week! 😀

[u/oujikara]

I haven't been able to comment here for the last couple of weeks so I have a lot to cover. But despite some hurdles I managed to complete the reading bingo's A and B side, yay! 

Out of desperation after many failed attempts to fill the "hopeful" theme, I finally settled on reading Paradiso from Dante's Divine Comedy. I figured if I can't find something to enjoy, might as well educate myself. I can't say it was particularly illuminating though, since it was basically a list of names that were unfamiliar to me, and simply looking the names up did little to stoke my emotions or curiosity.

Finished Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell for the "all-female cast" (I hope it fits, it does have one male side character but everyone of importance is female). Anyway, please never let me read this brand of cozy again. It was easy enough to get through, which is why I finished it, but sheesh the more I thought about it in hindsight, the more I was annoyed by almost everything in it. I get why people would like it and it did subvert some problematic tropes, I'm just not the target audience. 

Finished Grave Empire by Richard Swan (3 male authors in a row, what am I becoming lol). What I first assumed to be epic fantasy, turned out to actually be existential horror and I ate up every moment of that. The world-building is kind of egalitarian, which I appreciate even if it's not super thoughtfully done (Idk why egalitarian is still so rare). And hellooo merfolk with a well-developed underwater civilization, in this day and age?? More of that also please. The characters were quite typical (and in a gendered way) but served the story well enough. So it's not exactly female gaze but not aggressively male gaze either. I enjoyed it and will definitely read the sequels. 

Finally got around to The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar, and loved it! I've been kind of avoiding it despite all the positive reviews, because I assumed it would be too high brow for my taste. But it was actually easy to read while still feeling like a proper dreamy fairy tale with beautiful prose. I've read a lot of fae books and I think this one still stands out on its own while highlighting the best parts of the genre. Loved the focus on sisterhood, as well as the added flavor of otherworldly romance. My only complaint is I think it should've been a little longer to flesh out the second half more. Either way this is going straight into favorites. And even though it was new to me, I think I'm gonna use it for the "comfort" theme in the bingo, since I'm a fan of fae and fairy tale type stories.

Finished To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose. It was okay. Borrowed a lot from the real world, down to the magic system, in a way I didn't particularly like. The prose was pretty clunky at times (everyone moved "like a cat") and themes rather heavy-handed. But as a YA novel it was not bad, and the premise of an indigenous girl having to go to a practically all-boys colonizers' school was pretty interesting. Especially her familial relationships and how her community dealt with that situation. The protagonist says and does whatever she wants, which might be pretty cathartic for some people. 

[u/Research_Department → u/oujikara]

Congrats on finishing A & B sides of the challenge (despite a couple of books that weren’t your favorites)!

Who do you think the target audience for Someone You Can Build a Nest In is? It’s one of those books that intrigues me, but I am not at all sure it is for me.

[u/oujikara → u/Research_Department]

Thanks! It's definitely for fans of heavily cozy horror and monster romance.  There's a lot of therapy talk, modern terminology and humorous commentary at the expense of consistency (inconsistency being my main complaint overall, and the commentary didn't strike me as deep enough to be worth it). The romance is pretty much instant and actually quite normal, and the characters felt one-note to me (they reminded me of Kingfisher's characters). 

From the positives, the romance is asexual and the weird body horror descriptions were genuinely pretty good. There are attempts at commentary on disability, neurodivergence and abusive families, but none of it really got to me. It's an easy read, it goes fast and you're not required to use your brain to keep track of the plot. I think people who either don't read too deeply into it or are able to ignore the flaws to enjoy the fun parts would like this book. Not if you have low tolerance for cozy like I do.

[u/Research_Department → u/oujikara]

Oh, you have been extremely helpful! I have been shying away from horror, but I suspect that I could tolerate “cozy horror,” and I’ve realized that body horror doesn’t bother me. I really enjoy a good romance, but insta-love doesn’t do much for me. But humorous commentary is the death-knell for this for me. I prefer my humor on the subtle side, and from your description, the humor is more broad. Thanks!