kenjari | Network

I’m doing the Reading Meme one day early this week, as tomorrow is the last day of the year and therefore the day for the Year In Review.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

I am freeeeeeeee of my vow to read Christmas books for Advent, and therefore… accidentally read one more book with Christmas in… Marilyn Kluger’s Country Kitchens Remembered: A Memoir with Favorite Family Recipes, about the farm kitchens she remembers from her childhood during the Depression, not only her own family’s but her grandparents on both sides. Like any good farm kitchen memoir, the book documents the different foods of each season, which means of course a Christmas chapter, but also chapters about the new peas of spring, the corn on the cob fresh cut from the stalk literally minutes before lunch, the frost-nipped persimmons brought in during the Thanksgiving grouse hunt… Good eating and good reading.

But then! Then I truly broke free with Ngaio Marsh’s Spinsters in Jeopardy! Set in summer in the south of France, Inspector Alleyn and his lady wife Troy co-star in a mystery featuring a drug racket run by an erotic murder cult. You know I love a cult! Also featuring their six-year-old son Ricky, a surprisingly well-observed child. A shocking number of writers of adult fiction couldn’t write a convincing kid to save their life.

And I also slipped in my December Unread Bookshelf book by the skin of my teeth: E. Nesbit’s The Phoenix and the Carpet. I got this soon after I read Five Children and It, then it languished for so many years that I forgot why I was putting it off, but as I read it I remembered: I find these children so stressful! They are forever doing things like “setting off firecrackers inside the house,” which is how they set fire to the old nursery carpet which results in the bringing in of the magic carpet.

What I’m Reading Now

I’ve started Rumer Godden’s Thus Far and Now Farther, which so far is what I expected Elizabeth and her German Garden to be: a charming memoir about a woman in an isolated location with her children, her governess, and her vast army of underpriced labor making a charming garden.

What I Plan to Read Next

No plans! Only vibes! Okay, actually I do have plans, but I am contemplating if I ought to jettison them in favor of vibes. Maybe 2026 should be the Year of Vibe Reading? I have been trying to come up with a good New Year's Resolution...

rachelmanija

I read these offline and have not commented on most of them yet on AO3, but I wanted to rec them before reveals because they're great.

Don't need to know canon

"17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future" - Jon Bois. I only know this canon from Yuletide stories, and all I really know is that in the very far future, it's a post-scarcity world where everyone is immortal. It reliably produces lovely stories that feel kind of like the more personal/emotional xckd comics. Here is another one.

What Rock Collecting Will Look Like in the Future. Funny, bittersweet, cool worldbuilding; I was surprised and delighted to learn that fordite is real!

James Hoffman's Coffee Videos (Web Series)/Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft/"A Study in Emerald." All you need to know is that a coffee guy reviews coffee online, and this is him reviewing eldritch coffee.

I'm ranking 5 coffees from beyond this world (literally). "I feel a bit as if the coffee tasted me and not the other way around." Hilarious, dead-on coffee notes, dead-on Lovecraft; makes me want to try some of the coffees despite the risk of growing gills or being possessed by Elder Gods.

Tower Wizard - Hourly updates on the life of a wizard who lives in a tower, like "The little cat plays with a leaf. The wizard carefully checks that it's not a dangerous reagent, then returns it to the little cat." His best friend is an ex-paladin, and they eat a lot of interesting food. That's it, that's all you need to know.

Ruins and Roads. A charming original fantasy story, magical and cozy and bittersweet.

True Detective - season one. All you need to know to read this story is that Rust and Marty used to be cops, and they were both seriously injured when they reunited to investigate a weird case that might or might not have supernatural elements.

burned in kind. An outstanding post-series casefic and get-together with a flawless Rust voice, A+ hurt-comfort, and a creepy maybe-supernatural maybe-not case. If you know the series, this is 100% not to be missed; if you don't, you might still really like it as a standalone spooky mystery with excellent characterization.

World War Z - Max Brooks. You just need to know that there are zombies.

little stone. Zombies in 9th century Latvia! An atmospheric story about grief and loss in a time far from us; the protagonist's emotions are raw and vivid. Note: child death.

Need to know canon

House of Hollow - Krystal Sutherland

You Live in a Hollow House. Creepy, unsettling horror with an excellent use of color and image embeds.

Meeting Halfway. Creepy, unsettling horror with a touch of sweetness.

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

1. Hello, Carolyn: My stepdaughter won’t allow me to see her children, 6 and 8. I bent over backward for 11 years trying to be supportive and generous to her and then her children, but she acts entitled and ungrateful. Last summer I blew it and told her off. That was the end of my loving relationship with her and the grandkids I adore.

I know it is largely my fault for not speaking up sooner on how I would like to be treated. My husband, a dear, won’t get involved in trying to repair the relationship. Of course, I have apologized to his daughter for being so harsh. Please help.

— Anonymous

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****

2. DEAR ABBY: My son died of cancer at 33. It was heartbreaking. My daughter-in-law, "Belinda," had grown distant before his death, and although they had a son through artificial insemination, I have almost never seen him. I helped with the weeding in my son's yard, but any time I came, Belinda always had the baby at the park or someplace else.

Now that my son is gone, she won't answer any phone calls or texts. We do have some contact with her family. They have asked her why she won't contact us, and she has no explanation. My theory is that Belinda was uncomfortable sharing our son, and it has transferred to the grandchildren. I say "grandchildren" because she used his sperm to have another child. We found out by accident that a baby girl was born. We were never notified. While I doubt this plays a big part in this, Belinda is bipolar.

As it stands, I no longer make an effort to have a relationship with my grandchildren. They are so young, and I anticipate difficulty in pursuing grandparents' rights because of their ages and their mother's attitude toward us. This is painful, as they are the only part of my son that remains. I feel helpless and have pretty much blocked out the fact that I have grandchildren. Do you have any advice? -- BLOCKED IN OHIO

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***

3. Dear Annie: My daughter, 31, left home at 19 to attend university. Within weeks, she began dating a boy she'd met through the school's Facebook group. Coming from our cultural background, we weren't comfortable with relationships outside marriage, but after two years, she moved in with him, mostly on her terms. They lived together for six years, bought a house, got a dog, eventually married and, two and a half years later, had my precious granddaughter.

My daughter has always dominated her marriage. Everything has to be on her terms. She's intelligent, determined and successful, but also bossy, pushy and demanding. Outwardly she can be sweet, but behind closed doors she often belittled her husband, and his laid-back nature just let her have her way.

About a year and a half ago, while I was babysitting, my daughter suddenly announced she no longer loved her husband and wanted to separate. I was shocked, but she bulldozed through the conversation and didn't let me say a word. Deep down, I was sure another man was involved. Within six months, the house was sold, assets divided and custody arranged, with little thought to the impact on their young daughter. My daughter was also left with the dog, which my son-in-law wanted no part of anymore.

It's been nearly a year since the split. My daughter appears to have a new partner, though she won't confirm it, only dropping hints to "familiarize" us with this new relationship, while her not-yet-ex-husband has turned to online dating. My granddaughter now splits time between them.

At her father's house, she still sees her other grandparents weekly. But with us, my daughter controls every visit and barely lets us into her life. We went from caring for our granddaughter regularly to limited contact with her and only when my daughter is present. She uses her daughter as leverage, essentially saying to us, "Accept my choices or lose contact."

Being around her feels like walking on eggshells. If I disagree, I'm met with silence, manipulation or explosive behavior. I cry every night, heartbroken over what feels like losing a limb. I feel for my son-in-law, who I believe was wronged, and I ache for my granddaughter, torn between two homes and two very different upbringings. Most of all, I am at a loss for how to move forward.

Deep down, my instincts tell me this new relationship won't last, but I don't know how to stand by my values and still hold on to my only grandchild. How can I stay in her life without surrendering completely to my daughter's demands? -- Heartbroken Grandmother

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*********

4. Dear Prudence,

“Sean” is my son’s former stepson. He married Sean’s mom when Sean was 6, and the same year my granddaughter was born. They got divorced when Sean was 12. Sean is 15 now. My husband and I have bent over backwards trying to stay in touch with Sean after the divorce. We called, texted, and sent gifts. We live out of state, so seeing both our grandchildren is hard.

Sean rarely responds to any calls, and his mother will not even tell us if he likes the gifts we send him, let alone make him say thank you. My son just shrugs and says that is the nature of divorce, and we are setting ourselves up for failure.

This breaks our hearts because we did our best to embrace Sean as our grandchild. He is still in our will with our other grandchildren. My husband thinks that we should stop trying so hard and step back. Sean is old enough to be able to decide if he wants a relationship with us or not. It isn’t like his mom monitors his phone, and Sean is always “busy” when we visit. He thinks we need to rewrite our will and take Sean out. I understand going through another divorce is hard, but Sean has even cut off his cousins, and those boys were as thick as thieves. What should we do? Wait? Push? Stepback? The divorce was mutual, as far as we know.

—Sean Doesn’t Say

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****

5. Dear Care and Feeding,

I gave birth to a baby girl a few weeks ago, and my mom has been coming to help for a full day once a week. She’s wonderful with my newborn: She changes diapers like a pro, she is great at getting her to stop crying, and she is respectful of rules that were different from when she had her kids (like the fact that babies are supposed to sleep on their backs, without blankets and stuffed animals in the crib). It’s a dream grandparent setup, really! Except for one thing. My problem is what she brings with her every time she comes over.

Every time Grandma arrives, she’s toting a box of stuff from my childhood. When we first got home from the hospital, she brought toys from when I was a toddler. Last week, it was art from the 4th grade. This week, it was photo albums from when I was a baby, and a bunch of my baby blankets. When I suggested gently that the albums of baby photos would be better off remaining at her house, she said she’d think about it.

Well, an hour later, she said, “I thought about it, and I worry that if I don’t bring them here to you, you’ll never see them again.” Which to me sounded like a threat! But the next thing she said was, “You look so tired, go take a nap,” as she removed my screaming daughter from my arms. So it’s not like I was in a position to argue.

My mother is in good health and lives alone in the four-bedroom house she raised my brother and me in. We live in a very small home with comically limited closet space (thanks, housing crisis). I can’t keep up with all the stuff she brings over. But I very much want to stay on as good of terms as humanly possible with her. So what do I do?

—Boxed In

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thistleingrey

1. In fairness to Professor Mallory, The Origins of the Irish (2013) seems well written, well researched, and well considered. I'm at 19% in epub (notes and other back matter begin at 76%), and though I don't love his handling of Niall as a hypothetical line in the sand for when people in Ireland are "Irish," he carries it through sensibly. Perhaps the IE/PIE project (2025) was merely the wrong shape and scope at the time he tackled it. He was emeritus already by 2013, and Irish has the cadences of prose built up partly from lecture material. If we may turn an archaeologist's lens briefly upon the archaeologist, simple logistics suggest that he wouldn't have had the same chances to workshop the IE/PIE material in updated form before writing up.

That said, I've zero plans to try reading In Search of the Irish Dreamtime (2016), the monograph published between them, which Mallory intended as part two to Irish. One reasonable-sounding book is plenty as rehabilitation.

2. Because the Taproot Video collective will sunset as of 31 Mar 2026, I've acquired a copy of Annie MacHale's Three-Color Pickup For Inkle Weavers (selfpub, 2021). I understand just enough to follow along, though not to implement. MacHale's explanations are straightforward, and she includes clear illustrations of the effects she describes, with examples of variations.

(Taproot's website doesn't admit to its imminent shutdown, which seems irresponsible. They've sent an email to their past customers.)

oursin

Firstly:

So, farewell then, PSC, whose advice to the sexually-bothered (rather than the lovelorn) has so oft provided fodder to oursinial musings. Guardian G2 today includes 23 of the best Sexual Healing columns

Not sure if they are The Greatest Hits rather than molto tipico of the kind of thing she addressed: in particular we note (as she stresses in the interview about the lessons learnt over 10 years of agony-aunting):

The female orgasm is still a mystery to some people
I’m still getting questions that show me people continue to think that the only “correct” type of female orgasm is one that’s purely vaginal and doesn’t involve the clitoris. For people to still think that, or to have that as the ideal, is extraordinary, but there it is. They just haven’t had the education to understand otherwise.

There is a waterspout off Portland Bill (where Marie Stopes' ashes were scattered). Volumes of the Kinsey Report on the Human Female are spontaneously falling off library shelves. The shade of Shere Hite is gibbering and wailing.

We also note the recurrent MenZ B Terribly Poor Stuff theme, what with the one who appears to regard his wife's bisexuality as a USP meaning *3SOMES* and two or three where one feels she did not interrogate sufficiently whether the male querent was actually gratifying his female partner before offering reassurance/solution e.g. 'My stunning wife makes no effort with our sex life' where we should like to know precisely what effort he is putting in, ahem.

However, there are also some of the wilder shores there.

***

Secondly, and could we have a big AWWWW for this: David Attenborough seeks out London’s hidden wildlife:

Filming the wildlife of London requires an intrepid, agile presenter, willing to lie on damp grass after dark to encounter hedgehogs, scale heights to hold a peregrine falcon chick, and stake out a Tottenham allotment to get within touching distance of wary wild foxes.
Step forward Sir David Attenborough, who spent his 100th summer seeking out the hidden nature of his home city for an unusually personal and intimate BBC documentary.

rmc28

I managed to get out for my yoga classes Saturday and Sunday mornings. Saturday afternoon I spent a lot of time faffing and failing to go to the public skates I'd tentatively pencilled in; eventually I dragged myself out for the last one and unsurprisingly I felt much better for having done so. It was much easier to drag myself there on Sunday, and I had a bonus surprise meeting with a work colleague, and a lovely long chat while we skated.

Then it turned out Charles's usual lift to hockey practice (alternate Sunday evenings) had fallen through, so I said I'd take him. I had the bright idea of asking the coach if there was room for me to hop on too as a one-off addition to the class, and so I got a bonus 2-hour ice hockey practice. Oh, that felt so good.

Yesterday I switched things up and took Nico swimming in the early afternoon, which I found surprisingly tiring, and went to yoga in the evening. I got chatting to a fellow student afterward, and it turns out she also works for the university on the same site as me, and knows some of my colleagues, because Cambridge is Like That. We swapped some class recommendations and may stay in touch.

I'm really glad I picked up the hot yoga pass, it's been fun to do regularly and if nothing else it's ensured I left the house pretty much every day. If money were no object I might consider a more regular membership, but it's pretty expensive when not on a promotional pass. Plus between my hockey commitments and the additional gym sessions I want to add in January, I'm really not sure I have the time. Maybe I'll think about it again after the university season is over.

Tomorrow I'll see out the old year with one last yoga class, and then go to the last public skate of the year at the rink in the early afternoon. I'm vaguely planning a movie night with Tony and the offspring, watch the fireworks broadcast from London, and then probably zonk.

Aside from exercise I've mostly been reading, with a side of listening to hockey podcasts fall in love with Heated Rivalry.

luzula

Becoming a Supple Leopard: the ultimate guide to resolving pain, preventing injury and optimizing athletic performance by Kelly Starrett (2015)
This book has changed my life. I know I sound like I'm doing a paid promotion or like someone who's joined some weird cult, and I know the book has kind of a silly title, but it's true. My mind is blown.

The thing is, I've had problems with stiffness and muscle ache for years. I've been trying to deal with it by exercise and stretching, but while exercise is obviously good for a whole host of reasons, it doesn't solve the problem of stiffness/muscle ache. And stretching doesn't do much, either. I've also gone to a massage therapist, which does partly help, but it's temporary and also costs a lot of money. And while the guy is much better in the practical application of massage than others I've gone to, and I like him, still I'm reluctant to keep going to him because he does do some things with a large application of force and I doubt his medical judgment (to say the least). In the last few years he has begun to spout conspiracy theories about vaccines and only drinks warm water because, as a man, he needs the yang energy.

Anyway, I figured the stiffness and muscle ache was just middle age and at bottom I just had to suck it up. Turns out THERE ARE EFFECTIVE TOOLS TO ADDRESS THIS THAT I NEVER KNEW ABOUT! Also they're cheap and I can apply them myself! I honestly feel like someone prone to headaches who has just, at the age of 46, discovered the existence of painkillers. But better, because this isn't a drug.

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vass

Hi everyone. Sorry I've fallen off the posting again.

Here are some Yuletide recs:

Imperial Radch/Translation State - Ann Leckie: a perfect preservation (so we’ll never fall apart). If you haven't read Translation State yet, then I strongly recommend not reading this fic until you've read canon. Otherwise, recommended. (I was the recipient.)

The Lottery - Shirley Jackson/The New Yorker RPF: Why one small American town won’t stop stoning its residents to death

Goose of Soulmate Enforcement trope/Original Fic: #footscraygoose (Especially recommended for people from Melbourne)

Prophet - Sin Blaché & Helen Macdonald: Wrong Choice

The Raven Tower - Ann Leckie: k2, p2, yo, k2tog

Columbo, Princess Bride (1987)
The Princess Murdered

France's language watchdog has told government officials to use French fetish terms... (News Satire): Les immortels au service de la petite mort

Chalion/Les Mis: The Truth that Once Was Spoken

cimorene

People really watch Benoit Blanc movies without having ever encountered any detective fiction other than Sherlock Holmes and feel fully qualified to comment on the connections that they think they've made.

Remember the terrible articles in the late 90s that repetitively and confidently asserted that Rowling had invented YA fantasy, or low fantasy, because they didn't bother to check a single library or bookstore?

poliphilo

I said, "This week is sometimes called "Twixtmas"

And Judy said she'd seen it called "Taint week because 't'aint Christmas and 't'ain't New Year. There is," she added, "another connotation."

Well, I have to know these things so I looked it up and found taint is a slang term for the perineum- which ain't the genitals and ain't the anus. Is this in common usage or am I not alone in having had it pass me by?

Origin of the term? Uncertain, but probably US of A, mid 20th century.

Actually I've learned two things, because if you'd asked me before today where the perineum was I wouldn't have had a clue.

chestnut_pod

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: City Hall - Vienna Teng

sineala

So everyone in fandom has become obsessed with the gay hockey show, and

lysimache and I watched it a couple days ago. Neither of us care about hockey (I think we are both hoping that fandom decides to care about baseball, though this seems unlikely -- but, hey, it's 42 days until pitchers and catchers report) but we do like gay things a lot.

It was nice? I mean, it's not going to be my new fandom, but I'm not sorry I watched it. I did nearly give up after the first two episodes for narrative reasons that I will explain below.

( Spoilers )

It's only six episodes, so... you might as well watch it if you like gay shows, I guess? It's not bad.

I somehow own the first book. I am not sure yet if I will read it.

Current Mood: okay

osprey_archer

And Picture Book Advent draws gently to a close. A note for my future self: although traditionally Advent ends on December 24, I think it would be nice to have a final picture book for the morning of Christmas. (My sister-in-law’s large extended family does a BIG Christmas, so we’ve simply ceded Christmas Day to them and have our own little family Christmas later on, which leaves Christmas morning open.)

Because of the way the dates of Advent fell, I had only two books left to review. First, The Wee Christmas Cabin at Carn-na-ween, by Ruth Sawyer, illustrated by Max Grafe, a picture book version of a story I first read in Sawyer’s story collection The Long Christmas. After a lifetime helping out in one cabin after another, with never a home of her own, old Oona is at last driven from her final house on Christmas Eve… only for the Good Folk to build her a house, and grant her wish that every white Christmas hence, the hungry and the lonely will be able to find her home for succor.

A lovely story. Another solid example from Sawyer that the spirit of Christmas is “generosity” and not “copious evergreens.”

And second, The Christmas Sweater, Jan Brett’s new Christmas book this year! Theo’s Yiayia knitted an extremely gaudy Christmas sweater for his dignified pug Ari. Hoping to win Ari over to the cozy warm sweater, Theo takes her for a snowshoe in the woods… only for a fresh fall of snow to obliterate his tracks! But fortunately, Ari(adne)’s sweater caught on a twig near the edge of the woods, so they can follow the unraveled yarn back home.

From the dedication, it looks like one of Brett’s children married into a Greek family, and this book is an homage to that family connection. I particularly enjoyed Ari’s expressive face, and indeed all the dogs running around in the snow in this book.

caramarie

So I was going along, ( and now I am on the Romance Route )

whimsyful

Once a Villain, by Vanessa Len

The third and final volume in the YA time travel urban fantasy Monsters trilogy, this definitely cannot be read without the previous two installments.

Continuing right where Never a Hero left off, the book starts off with main antagonist and Joan’s half-sister Eleanor having finally succeeded in creating a world where monsters rule over humans and she reigns over all, and the plot revolves around Joan and the othes desperately trying to find a way to undo this and return to the world they know.

First of all, I have to talk about that resolution to the love triangle—

major ending spoilers

I had suspicions from the structure of the earlier two books (ex. the division of page-time between the two male love interests) that Len might be going for a poly/throuple ending, but I wasn’t sure if she had the guts to go for it in a mainstream YA series. I’m very pleased to report that she did, in fact, have the guts to go for it! Even though generally the soulmate/predestined trope is not a romance trope I’m fond of, and having the predestined couple turn out to be actually be a predestined throuple all along only slightly mitigates my indifference, but otherwise I really liked how this played out. One of my worries was how she was going to flesh out the Nick/Aaron side of the throuple, but I thought Len managed to concisely convey the sense of a deep, intense relationship between the two in an alternate timeline, enough that I could buy the current versions working out—though I could have read an entire book about about gladiator!Nick and Scarlet Pimpernel!Aaron (hopefully the fanfic writers will tackle this).

The worldbuilding continues to be one of the most intriguing parts of this series, and in this installment I really liked the depiction of a dystopian alternate world where humans and part-humans were basically slaves. The time-travel continues to run on vibes and Doctor Who-esque rules, but I didn’t mind since we got some cool action sequences and juicy character interactions (in particular, I loved every instance where a character has to interact with a different timeline’s version of someone they cared about) out of it.

As for weaknesses, I thought Joan was a pretty reactive heroine in this book, and it did sometimes feel like she’s going along with the requirements of the plot instead of having a distinctive personality of her own that actively drives the plot forward. I also found the epilogue/ending to be a bit too unbelievably happy in terms how easily all the conflict between human and monster society were resolved—I would have preferred if it ended more on a hopeful work-in-progress instead. And as with the previous two books, I felt like the prose could have been prettier on a sentence-by-sentence level.

But overall, I quite enjoyed this trilogy, and thought Len explored some pretty cool ideas even if she didn’t 100% stick the landing. I’m definitely looking forward to her future works!

Goodbye, My Princess by Fei Wo Si Cun (trans. Tianshu)

A bit of an odd duck of a book. Translated Chinese webnovels have been steadily growing in popularity in the Anglosphere, but most of these are danmei (M/M). I’ve seen this book marketed as YA het fantasy romance, despite 1) covering some pretty mature topics (liked forced abortion), 2) there being exactly one fantastical element in the setting—a magical amnesia-granting river—and is otherwise full on historical fiction, and 3) having an infamous tragic ending, which would preclude this from being considered a romance by Western genre conventions. What this really is, is a tragic romance, and an excellent example of the genre.

mild spoilers under the cut

The plot: Xiaofeng is a cheerful, naive young princess from the desert kingdom of Xiliang who has been in a loveless arranged marriage with Li Chengyin, the crown prince of the Li empire, for the last three years. It has not been a happy union—Li Chengyin alternately fights with Xiaofeng or ignores her in favor of his preferred noble consort, and Xiaofeng mainly copes with the stifling nature of court life by crossdressing and sneaking out of the palace to roam the city with her faithful maid/bodyguard A’du. Then one day she encounters a stranger who claims to be her lost love from a life Xiaofeng can no longer remember. As Xiaofeng tries to piece together what had happened in the past, she and her husband finally start growing closer, but what she doesn’t realize is how truly brutal the royal court is, and that some memories are better left forgotten.

The entire main story is told entirely from Xiaofeng’s first person narration, which was a very effective and immersive choice. She is a naive, kind-hearted and trusting person stuck with limited language and cultural fluency in a foreign court stuffed to the brim with schemes and intrigues, and everyone knows it. So you only get a glimpse of all the political intrigue as they all fly completely over her head (these schemes only get explained in full in the epilogue/side stories told by the side characters) and have to try to figure out for yourself what’s actually going on. There is also an excellently done character progression as she slowly loses her innocence and happiness and is ground down into despair—her voice starts off rather silly and childish and then grows both more mature and much more sad.

The author Fei Wo Si Cun has a reputation for angsty, obsessive, incredibly asshole male leads who are basically a forest of walking red flags. But it worked very well for me in this story because it becomes very clear after a certain point that the male lead Li Chengyin is also the main villain and primary antagonist of the story. In fact, the book can be seen as a deconstruction of the common “kind-hearted naive princess marries a cold ruthless prince from an enemy kingdom and then they fall in love” trope/storyline. Li Chengyin is incredibly ruthless and cunning because that was the only way to survive the intrigues of the royal court and stay alive as crown prince. Xiaofeng’s warm and open-hearted personality is like catnip to someone with his personality, but being a monster who loves only one person does not make him any less a monster, and so he loves her but he also destroys everything that she loves, and it all ends in tears.

Overall, recommended if you’re in the mood for what’s essentially a perfect tragedy, starring a pair of lovers so doomed even being granted a clean slate and a second chance by Fate is not enough.

A note about the translation: the English translation is by Tianshu, and this is one of the best Chinese-English translations that I’ve read recently. There is no awkward “translationese” or jerky sentences—the prose flows smoothly and is downright lovely in many parts, and overall feels like a labor of love. I also liked the choice to link footnotes to all the bits of classical Chinese poetry that’s quoted in text. The one choice I’m puzzled by is the change in structure; the original novel (or at least the version I found online) had 42 chapters in the main story, plus some bonus chapters that are snippets from the POV of certain side characters (these are technically not necessary to read but highly recommended). The English translation aggregates the text into four very long chapters/parts instead, plus the bonus side stories. I’m not sure why Tianshu decided on this grouping, as this means there is no easy point to take a break in the middle of a very long part compared to the original.

The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (trans. Faelicy & Lily)

My first danmei cnovel, and I had a great time! About Shen Yuan, a young man who hate-read the entirety of a super popular and clichéd cultivation harem webnovel and died while in the middle of raging about how terrible the writing and plot holes are...only to wake up having transmigrated into said webnovel, as the villainous mentor who will face a brutal end by the OP Gary Stu male protagonist. Now he has to somehow get into the guy's good graces to avoid his canon fate and fix the original novel's plot holes...and of course this being danmei he accidentally changes the romance from M/F one-dude-with-a-massive-harem to M/M along the way.

Shen Yuan's running commentary mocking the the cliches of the hackneyed harem cultivation webnovel he's been unwillingly transmigrated into were hilarious, and I also loved every instance where he had to stay in character as this cool and unmoved master while internally swearing and freaking out. He's also a very funny example of an incredibly unreliable narrator.

My only complaints were that 1) I wish the female characters got more to do (not unexpected for a danmei, but it’s still disappointing to have several intriguing and layered male side characters whereas all the side female characters are much more flat in comparison) and 2) that sex scene sure was...something. Still, this was incredibly fun to read, and I'm definitely going to check out MXTX's other works!

luzula

Day 28: Busy with family; alibi sentence. How about you?

Tally:
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Day 28:

luzula,

china_shop,

badly_knitted,

trobadora,

brithistorian,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

chestnut_pod,

cornerofmadness,

garonne,

brithistorian,

Day 29:

luzula,

china_shop,

garonne,

brithistorian,

pauraque

After the events of The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest, this conclusion to the trilogy expands the perspective on the Earth-Trisolaran conflict beyond our two petty solar systems to a galactic, interdimensional, and finally universal scale. (Yes, this is the sort of book where rather than wondering if your favorite character survives, you wonder instead if there will be a habitable universe for them to survive in by the last page.)

This book took me a long time to read, not only because it's 600 pages but also because I kept stopping due to real life distractions. I also don't have the book anymore because it had to go back to the library. So I'm afraid this post is going to be more vibes-based than going into a ton of detail, even though seventy million things happened in the book that would each be worthy of detailed discussion.

My ultimate impression of the book (and of the series as a whole) is that there are a lot of things that the author and I will just never see eye-to-eye on, but I don't mind setting that aside because I like the way he explores his ideas even if I disagree with their fundamental basis.

( cut for length )

zdenka

An unsystematic gathering of some fics (and other works) I enjoyed from Yuletide Madness! Fandoms incide: Wyrmspan (Board Game), FAQ: The "Snake Fight" Portion of Your Thesis Defense - Luke Burns, Watership Down - Richard Adams, Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight, Young Wizards - Diane Duane, Tosca - Puccini/Illica/Giacosa, The Angel of the Crows - Katherine Addison, Concerned Children's Advertisers "House Hippo" PSA Commercial, and The Devil Came Up to Boston - The Adam Ezra Group (Song).

( Read more... )

Current Mood: amused

lucymonster

Look, I'm not a video essay person, and I was only ever a casual Twilight fan. A three-hour Youtube video essay by ContraPoints titled simply "Twilight" did not immediately strike me as a must-watch. But my sister recommended it to me, and my sister is literally always right about things I will like, so I watched it in parts over a series of evenings and...yeah, my sister's record remains unblemished.

This video is entirely about Twilight but also not even a tiny bit about Twilight. ContraPoints is a former philosopher who has this way of integrating serious philosophical, psychological, moral and religious concepts with "shallow" artefacts of pop culture, taking the latter seriously and the former playfully to create genuinely perspective-shifting works that are also straight-up FUN. This time we're talking about womanhood, identity and sexuality and the ways these themes are developed in a literary genre that is overwhelmingly written by and targeted towards women. There's a lot going on here (again, three hour video essay) and I definitely recommend watching the whole thing if that sounds like the kind of thing that interests you, but it all basically revolves around the central argument that romance functions as a genre by playing out tensions within the reader's own psyche, and has little to do with her actual romantic behaviours or preferences. Which I already more or less knew, as someone who spends a great deal of time writing smutty shipfic about a man with whom I doubt I could bear to spend five minutes in real life, but this video really drills down on why that's the case in a way I found both intellectually satisfying and personally illuminating.

So now, feeling freshly validated and emboldened in the mainstream het romance reading fad I'm going through right now, I bring you guys a few of my most recent adventures:

Book Lovers by Emily Henry is a delightful "fuck you" to the stereotype of the frigid forever-alone career woman. Nora Stephens is a high-powered New York literary agent who keeps getting dumped by her boyfriends as they run off to live their tropey country romance tree-change fantasies. Charlie Lastra is a blunt, surly senior editor who pisses her off on their first meeting by being rude about her star client's book. Nora's beloved younger sister convinces her to do a getaway in a small North Carolina town that turns out to be Charlie's hometown, where he is currently staying to help his ageing parents. Despite their rough start, they quickly develop a sharp, bantery rapport that makes it clear Charlie is extremely into Nora's self-sufficiency and ambitiousness. I really enjoyed the clever, funny chemistry between them and the fact (I don't think this even counts as a spoiler - the book is at no point subtle about where it's going) that Nora gets a happy ending that complements rather than compromises her career. Also, Charlie is a dreamy male lead with a sparkling sense of humour, a wardrobe of high-quality neutral basics, and attractively dramatic eyebrows (he's described as Cary Grant meets Groucho Marx, which caused my brain to immediately land on Peter Gallagher and stay there unmoving for the duration of the book.)

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston: For once, a reskinned Reylo novel that is only sort of a reskinned Reylo novel. Apparently Poston conceived this story as Reylo fic but pivoted to origfic before finishing or publishing any of it. But the MMC looks literally exactly like Adam Driver, down to the specific location of the moles on his face (I pulled up a headshot to check) and is named, I kid you not, Ben. Not!Rey's best friend is named Rose, and the company she works for is called Falcon House. Reylo-gone-pro continues to be the most shameless hustle in the world and I continue to love it.

Florence Day works as the ghostwriter for a famous romance novelist, and also has the ability to see literal ghosts. Benji Andor (Andor! Come ON!) is her gorgeous but hardass new editor who just denied her an extension on her last contracted novel, which she has been unable to complete due to having lost faith in love after a bad breakup. ( More thoughts, including major spoilers )

Forget Me Not by Julie Soto: My mixed feelings about Soto's work continue. I noped out of Rose in Chains early, finding it squicky on multiple levels; I liked the pairing in Not Another Love Song but not the execution; now here's a novel that is both well executed and really enjoyable, but with a romance that contains about as much chemistry as my academic transcript. (I dropped all STEM classes in high school the moment they stopped being mandatory.) In brief: Ama is an ambitious wedding planner who thinks all marriages are doomed because her mum has had sixteen divorces, and Elliot is a grumpy florist who ruined their former situationship by impulsively asking her to marry him. When they both get hired to co-design the same lavish celebrity wedding, old feelings resurface and blah blah you guys know the drill.

( More thoughts )

My Roommate Is a Vampire by Jenna Levine is a fun, silly supernatural romcom that I zipped through while I was on emergency backup brainpower during my Christmas travels. Because of that I don't actually have much to say about it, but I liked it enough to want to include it in the post anyway. Cassie, a broke artist, responds to a Craigslist ad from the enigmatic Frederick J. Fitzwilliam offering bizarrely cheap rent for a room in his extremely nice apartment; it turns out he is a centuries-old vampire who recently awoke from a 100 year coma and needs someone to help him get back in touch with the modern world. The story did not seem to care very much about its vampirism aspect; I got the feeling that Levine just wanted modern heroine/loosely Regency hero, and making him an immortal creature of the night was a convenient way to achieve that. Technically this is yet another Reylo fic turned pro, but I think it might take the prize for characters least recognisable as Rey and Kylo. If I hadn't gone in pre-informed I might genuinely not have guessed its origins.

thisbluespirit

Reading

yuletide fic here and there suited my current state, and I've had a lot of fun with it so far, I actually have a whole batch of recs ready to go for once. (I still need to go back and pick up some fandoms, especially in the first half of the alphabet, and I've barely touched Madness).

( 22 recs in As You Like It, British Airways, Cabin Pressure, Cadfael, Dogsbody, Enigma, Flower Fairies, The Good Place, Georgette Heyer, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, Ludwig, The Prisoner, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Shakespeare & Hathaway, Time Master, Welcome to Our Village Please Invade Carefully & Yes Minister )

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kenjari

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Wednesday Reading Meme on Tuesday

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current slow reading

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Mellandagarna

Learning more things I didn't know that I didn't know

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Object permanence issues

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A whole entire year's worth of nonfiction

Heated Rivalry

Picture Book Advent Wrap-Up

A different Hundred Line route

Recent Reading: Asian Fantasy + Romance

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Death's End by Liu Cixin (2010)

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Genre romance

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December 2025

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