the_siobhan: (Margaret Atwood)
[personal profile] the_siobhan
I'm almost at the bottom of the Read-And-Get-Rid-Of pile. Just a few books left stacked in the corner of my bedroom. I started this process three years ago with two bookshelves worth of books.


    


Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver


The main character is Codi, a young woman returning to the small southwestern desert town where she grew up in order to make arrangements for her father, who is developing Alzheimers. She has big blank spaces where her childhood memories should be and makes a point of selecting romantic relationships based on how easy they will be to abandon. Once back in the place of her childhood she starts to remember and reforge past relationships.

I love Kingsolver's writing and at one point I made an effort to buy everything she wrote. I still love her prose, and her characters are amazing. Unfortunately I am putting this book in the "no dead sisters" pile.



    


Black Wine by Candas Jane Dorsey


This book starts out by telling three stories in tandem; two women who are running from a terrifying husband, a woman travelling in search for her missing mother, and a forth woman who is a nameless slave. Gradually the plot weaves the women together to make a single narrative.

The writing is beautiful, the story fascinating. It obviously takes place in a world parallel to but very different from our own; they have the technology of brain surgery and same-sex reproduction but the only travel available is by dirigible so the cultures are very distinct and contact between them is minimal.



    


Ashes to Dust by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir


I have no idea where this came from.

Whenever I read a book that was originally written in another language I hesitate the judge the writing too harshly. I tend to blame clunky sentences on the difficulty in translating without losing the original context.

In this case I think it's safe to say the writing isn't very good. There are some weird scenes that don't seem to have anything to do with the plot, and she does that thing I hate where a writer says something like "What she saw shocked her!" and you don't find out what it is she saw until halfway through the next chapter. I found the main character very judgmental and critical, especially of other women. The mystery itself wasn't bad, but it seemed to be solved very abruptly. (And not even by the main character!)

So, not really a fan.

(no subject)

Date: 2017-08-13 03:10 am (UTC)
wild_irises: (tiptree)
From: [personal profile] wild_irises
Mmmmm, Black Wine. I love that book, which is a Tiptree Award winner (hence the icon).

Isn't Animal Dreams the one with the long sequence where the train engineer describes to his condescending girlfriend just how much skill his job takes? I liked the book, but that's the scene that stuck with me.

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