Mt TBR Report: February 2018

[calissa]

February was predominantly a month of romance and YA for me. My reading habits have grown in those directions, anyway, but I was also a bit burnt out and I find those genres comforting. Fortunately for me, I was able to take a short holiday and spent a fair amount of it reading.

So, it comes as a bit of a surprise that I missed out on breaking even with my acquisitions this month. At least it was only by one book. And I’m still somehow managing to shrink Mt TBR. I very much hope I can continue this trend for the rest of the year.

Mt TBR Status

Mt TBR @ 1 January 2018: 351
Mt TBR @ 31 January 2018: 343
Mt TBR @ 28 February 2018: 340

Books Read

12. Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire. Fantasy novella, third in the Wayward Children series. Cora is new to Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children and is struggling to make friends. That changes when a mysterious girl falls from the sky into the school’s pond. Cora must team up with the other students on a quest to return Rini to her world and, while there, set things to rights. I loved that this book had a fat protagonist. Not only was this framed as a positive in the world Cora had been taken to, but it also proves important to the story. And Cora defies stereotypes by being fitter than her companions. I also enjoyed Nancy’s cameo, getting to see her in her element.

13. Unearthed by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner. Reviewed here.

14. The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan. Historical romance. A prequel novella to The Brothers Sinister series. After being dismissed by her employer due to the actions of a disreputable duke, a former governess seeks compensation. But first, she has to get past the duke’s ruthless money man. Milan’s work is always very thoughtful and this is no exception, touching on the ways rape doesn’t have to involve physical force. The romance between the two protagonists is very sweet. I appreciated Serena’s grit and Hugo’s kindness.

15. Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin. A nonfiction book about the craft of writing. Contains practical exercises and examples. I can see I’ll be coming back to this one a lot.

16. Beyond Surrender by Kit Rocha. Sci-fi erotica. The final book in the Beyond series. The sectors finally go to war with the corrupt city of Eden… and Nessa finally gets her story. Dallas O’Kayne has built an empire on what Nessa can do with liquor. That’s a lot of pressure for one woman. She finds her match in Ryder, a rebel trained from childhood to be the leader of the revolution. She’s impulsive, he’s cautious. Somehow, they must survive a war and find a way to meet in the middle. A satisfying conclusion to the series.

17. Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman. Review forthcoming.

18. Ashwin by Kit Rocha. Sci-fi erotica. First book in the Gideon’s Riders series, set in the same world as the Beyond series. Super soldier Ashwin is sent by his superior officers to infiltrate the brotherhood of warriors guarding the leader of Sector One. However, he didn’t anticipate the presence of the one woman he can’t forget. You probably need to have read the prior series to get the most out of this. And while I generally enjoyed it, there was some stuff around Ashwin’s perceived lack of emotion and the label of monster with which I wasn’t entirely comfortable. However, the found family elements were wonderful.

19. The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton. Review forthcoming.

20. The Disastrous Debute of Agatha Tremain by Stephanie Burgis. Historical YA fantasy. A super short novelette about a young woman who lives for the unladylike study of magic. One day, Agatha’s overbearing aunt arrives and whisks her away, determined to see Agatha debut and marry well. This was such a charming story. I don’t want to say too much for fear of spoiling it, but I highly recommend it.

DNF Nevernight by Jay Kristoff. Despite its popular reception, this just wasn’t a book for me. Grimdark is not a genre that appeals to me and this one tried too hard to be edgy. I felt the gender dynamics were a bit icky.

Books Acquired

Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire
The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
The Disastrous Debut of Agatha Tremain by Stephanie Burgis
Beyond Surrender by Kit Rocha
The Sisters Mederos by Patrice Sarath
The Silver Well by Kate Forsyth and Kim Wilkins
How to Bee by Bren MacDibble
Murder on the Titania by Alex Acks
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Echoes of Understory by Thoraiya Dyer
Uncanny Magazine, Issue 21

Online Reading

None.

Mirrored from Earl Grey Editing.

Comments

[pantha]

OOooh, bravo on continuing to reduce your Mt. TBR! *waves pompomps*

And yeah, I hear you on grimdark. If you want an antidote to that, there now is an antidote genre (noblebright). Which is amusing because, as far as I'm aware, grimdark as a genre came about as an antidote to the overly twee 1970s and '80s fantasy where the hero was a Mary Sue / Gary Stu who never could die or have anything really nasty happen to them.

But yes, M.C.A. Hogarth is a fab example of noblebright fiction, although I suspect there are other good examples out there. <3

[sweet_sparrow]

there now is an antidote genre (noblebright).

There's two! :D Noblebright and hopepunk. This post discusses hopepunk, and there's an addendum to explain the difference between the two at the end, so either of those will work depending what aspect of grimdark you want an antidote for. :D

[pantha]

Hmmm... I'm not entirely sure I agree with the distinction, tbh. Or, indeed, that Arthurian legends is a good place, full of wise, prudent, caring leaders and everything is fine and perfect (!).

Certainly, if you describe Hogarth's work as noblebright (and she does describe it as such herself), then things most definitely are not all perfect and the people most definitely are not all perfect. They make mistakes, do bad things, screw up. But the main thing is exactly as that article describes for hopepunk - they keep trying, because kindness and goodness is worth striving for. Also (and this is a critical point that I think that post misses) the author depicts kindness and goodness as positive, necessary and worth striving for. The narrative itself is hopeful, even in the darkest bits of the story, and does not represent cruelty or abuse as either a necessary evil or an inevitable fact of life.

...

Not entirely sure if the issue is that Hogarth has mis-classified her writing (I haven't read enough of the genre to really judge that) or that the distinctions between hopepunk and noblebright are not as clear cut as the author of that post wishes to make them (ditto).

[calissa]

Thank you! Hopefully, I can continue to keep it up.

It is a little amusing how the pendulum swings back and forward. I have a couple of books by M.C.A Hogarth on Mt TBR. perhaps I'll bump them up the list.

[calissa]

Thank you for this, lovely.

[pantha]

Yaaaaaasssss. Read aaaaaaalllll the Hogarth! Read it now! XD

[sweet_sparrow]

Not entirely sure if the issue is that Hogarth has mis-classified her writing (I haven't read enough of the genre to really judge that) or that the distinctions between hopepunk and noblebright are not as clear cut as the author of that post wishes to make them (ditto).

I think the issue is more that the post doesn't necessarily do a good job of explaining the difference because there is a lot of overlap between themes and values. It doesn't really help tell the two apart when one of the definitions of hopepunk is something like "If you think it's hopepunk, it's hopepunk". So your response of "Eh, I don't think they're different" is entirely valid by that reasoning. But then you get noblebright authors and hopepunk authors loudly asserting that no they're not the same, so. Yeah.

[sweet_sparrow]

You're welcome. ^_^

[pantha]

Yeah, "if you think it's X, it's X" is never the clearest of definitions! Probably it doesn't help that they're fairly new genres, so people are still probably exploring them and their boundaries.