Recent Media: Trees, Letters and Siblings

[forestofglory]

Magic Mommas, Trembling Sisters, Puritans & Perverts by Joanna Russ -- I enjoyed reading To Write Like a Woman despite it being strange time travel enough to check out another book of Russ’ essays from the library. I’ve only read one of these so far but it was much more personal that the essays in To Write Like a Woman which was good but also made for really intense reading.

Hexarchate Stories by Yoon Ha Lee -- a lot of these are backstory of characters in The Machineries of Empire which is fun since I like those characters. Most of these stories are also very short which is nice for dipping into when I don’t have much time. The last story is new Novella but I haven’t gotten there yet. I’m also enjoying the author notes after each story, which talk it about how and when each story was written.

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh This fantasy novella was very much my thing It had tree magic, and coppicing and a bad ass mom! There’s a also a cute m/m romance -- which despite what it looks like in the beginning is not actually tenant/landlord. (Which is good because the power imbalance there isn’t something I’d enjoy)

The Untamed eps 43-50 I finished this! I enjoyed the whole thing, including the ending. The sibling stuff that I was enjoying so much continued to be interesting and dramatic right until the end. As I’ve said in earlier media round ups this was very swooshy. I loved the aesthetics of it -- there were pretty costumes, pretty scenery and pretty sword fights. I also really liked the characters frith_in_thorns described the main character Wei Wuxian as being like Miles Vorkosigan and I think that's super apt.
(Content note: gore, zombies, bad things happening to kids and teens)

Nirvana in Fire eps 28-32 R was traveling over labor day so we have not gotten to watch very much of this. The angst level has really increased in the last couple of episodes!

Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty -- so I was complaining about dead moms in YA on twitter again and one of my friends recommended this book. It was really good and sweet! It’s an epistolary novel, focusing on letters between two girls in Australia one who goes to a private school and one who goes to public school a few blocks away. But there are also letters from other people and form things like “the society of teenagers”. (I’m not quite sure where these are coming from -- you just have to accept them as some type of fabulism). I really enjoyed the focus on friendship and the mother daughter relationship. (content note: animal death, attempted sucide)

Comments

[alchimie]

Oh my goodness I love Jaclyn Moriarty -- I liked Feeling Sorry for Celia lots and I liked The Year of Secret Assignments more, but my very very favourite is her fantasy trilogy The Colours of Madeleine which has letters exchanged between a character in our world (Madeleine) and a boy in a very unique fantasy world, and plot spinning out from both of their situations. There are some missing fathers but lots of good moms if I recall right.

[forestofglory]

The Colours of Madeleine was great! But I hadn't relised the author wrote other things until a friend rec'ed me Celia -- now I'm going to have to read he Year of Secret Assignments as well based on this rec!

[alchimie]

I think you may be the only other person I've encountered who has read The Colours of Madeleine!

[forestofglory]

Now I wish I could introduce you to the person who rec'ed the other Jaclyn Moriarty book. I think you have similar taste and would get along. They aren't on DW though!