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Beth H ([personal profile] bethbethbeth) wrote2025-05-22 01:40 pm
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The Fourth of the Recced Book Reviews: Get a Life, Chloe Brown

On May 8th, I offered to read the first five books people recced - assuming they were available (preferably from the library) - and I'd give a short review [https://bethbethbeth.dreamwidth.org/701769.html].

This is the fourth recced book review

Get a Life, Chloe Brown (2019) by Talia Hibbert (recced by lareinenoire on DW)

Let me start by saying that I have read many a romance novel in my day - thousands if I include fanfic, which I do - and lord knows I don't privilege fancy-pants literature over genre fiction.

However, for the first 50 or 60 pages, this romance novel wasn't doing much for me. The 2 main characters (a man & a woman) had started to feel as if they'd been created based on checklists of race, disability, class, etc., and their secretly-attracted-antagonists'-banter felt a little boilerplate.

Never say die, though. I soldiered on, and once Chloe & Red started actually interacting, both characters grew on me, and the book became much more engaging...and often charming.

For those of you who like super-tropey fiction (and fancy some decent sex scenes), you should give this a try.
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pauraque ([personal profile] pauraque) wrote2025-05-22 12:14 pm

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis (1945)

I picked up this book because I saw it mentioned as an example of the concept that "Hell is locked from the inside." That is, if God is the source of all good, then by separating yourself from God, your existence can have nothing good in it, and that's Hell. You can escape anytime by reconnecting with God.

Lewis explores this idea by imagining himself being taken on a journey from Hell (envisioned as a dreary, lonely, mostly-empty town in perpetual twilight) to the outskirts of Heaven. Here the "ghosts" of those in Hell are met by people they knew in life, who try to persuade them to enter Heaven instead of turning back. This is very much inspired by Dante, and like Dante, Lewis gets a guide: the Scottish fantasy author George MacDonald, who I'd never heard of, but apparently he was a great influence on Lewis. (Has anyone read his stuff?)

So, why would the dead turn back? Well, because it turns out the hard part of getting into Heaven is letting go of all the damaging patterns that made you miserable in life: Abusively controlling people and calling it love. Feeling big by making others feel small. Manipulating loved ones because you're scared they'll leave you. None of this has any place in Heaven, but most of the ghosts Lewis meets are so entrenched in it, blustering in pride or cowering in terror behind their emotional walls, that they'd rather go back to Hell than admit there's a better way.

Lewis keenly observes the lies people tell themselves to justify their own self-destructive behavior, and it's startling how little has changed in 80 years! Some of the ways these characters talk are chillingly familiar. Though I don't share the religious side of Lewis's worldview, we're certainly in close agreement in our understanding of how people lock themselves in their own personal hell on Earth.

The book is short but impactful. Lewis had a gift for viscerally expressing what his faith felt like to him, which is something I find valuable as someone who has never experienced religious faith. Part of why I read is to better understand what it's like in other people's heads, and this book did that for me.

(Oh, and I'm not being snarky by tagging this as fantasy. He calls it fantasy in the introduction! He makes it clear that he's writing imaginatively and not presuming to describe what the afterlife is actually like, because he can't know that. Well, I mean, I guess he knows now...)
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pauraque ([personal profile] pauraque) wrote2025-05-20 12:09 pm

The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories, ed. Yu Chen & Regina Kanyu Wang (2022) [part 4]

This is part 4 of my book club notes on The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories. [Part 1, part 2, part 3.]

The fiction pieces in this week's selection all leaned horror. I'm not sure how horror genre is defined in Chinese literature and I forgot I was going to ask if anyone else knew.

It is also the one year anniversary of my joining this book club. \o/


"Is There Such a Thing as Feminine Quietness?: A Cognitive Linguistics Perspective" by Emily Xueni Jin (2022) [essay]

An academic take on translation. )


"Dragonslaying" by Shen Yingying (2006), tr. Emily Xueni Jin

Mermaid-like beings are mutilated so they can walk on land and live as second-class humans. )


"New Year Painting, Ink and Color on Rice Paper, Zhaoqiao Village" by Chen Qian (2020), tr. Emily Xueni Jin

A restorer of antiques comes across a painting of a faceless child which may carry a curse. )


"The Portrait" by Chu Xidao (2003), tr. Gigi Chang

A demonic artist steals the essence of the women he paints. )
bethbethbeth: The Earth (Misc Earth (bbb))
Beth H ([personal profile] bethbethbeth) wrote2025-05-19 10:36 am
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The Third of the Recced Book Reviews: A Memory Called Empire

On May 8th, I offered to read the first five books people recced - assuming they were available (preferably from the library) - and I'd give a short review [https://bethbethbeth.dreamwidth.org/701769.html].

This is the third recced book review

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine (recced by coffeejunkii on bluesky)

After a bit of a hiatus, I'm back to the Recced Book Reviews. A Memory Called Empire has actually been on my TBR list for a long time, and I'm glad I had this push to read it.

Martine's SF novel is a very good blend of political intrigue and relationship building, focused on Mahit Dzmare, a "stationer" (someone raised on a space station) who's been sent a bit precipitously to serve as the new ambassador to Teixcalaan, the main city/planet of a huge Empire.

Mahit arrives on Teixcalaan already knowing a great deal about the Empire's literature, history, politics, and language, but as most of us understand, studying a culture and truly knowing a culture are two very different things.

Anyway! Good world building and good character creation, but despite that, it took me a weirdly long time to get properly started considering I ended up liking the book so much.

I look forward to reading the next in the series (A Desolation Called Peace, 2021).
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elainegrey ([personal profile] elainegrey) wrote2025-05-19 07:06 am
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Goodbye to Edward (cats, f&f, garden)

We said goodbye to Edward around 12:20 yesterday, a month and a few hours after saying goodbye to Luigi.  There was a cloud that was rainbow colored in the sky, a nacreous cloud (except May?! and 35° latitude?!) that greeted us as we reached the vet, that offered a bit of marvel to go with the grief.

First photo of EdwardRecent image of them both snoozing

The medication to allow Edward to breathe more easily failed and the prognosis became even more complicated. No prognosis had him leaving the cage where he was receiving supplemental oxygen, so we said good bye to him there.

We're shattered, and i have so much at work to focus on the next few days. A week and a half before i can safely see my dad.... No spots, so we're thankful for that. (I think Christine worries the stress of waking to Luigi's condition triggered the last flare of my condition.)

--== ∞ ==--

Meanwhile, B-- (Christine's sister's husband) is now using supplemental oxygen.  D-- and B-- lost their two grey cats Atty and Scout to some seizure condition in late 2024 and this spring. We know additional grief is on the horizon.

So we will go through the change in our lives because forward through time is the only way i know.

--== ∞ ==--

I'd started working in the yard just before, the vet called. And then while Christine showered before we went to the vet, i put a few plants in the ground in the yesterday:

Better boy buried deeply in the eastern side of the back of the circle garden; a bigger Early girl to the west, and between them a "Sweet banana" pepper and a sweet basil. Last year a Matt's wild cherry tomato swarmed that whole area. I would have expected seedlings but maybe the winter weeds then pinestraw mulch was too thick.

Carmen (Red Italian frying pepper) east most, and the second of the four "Sweet banana" peppers in the east middle bed; the last two  "Sweet banana" peppers in the west middle bed, and one between the two tomatoes.

The Thai basil in the east front bed  close to the peony where sage thrived before.

I also pulled some seeds out from my collection - Zinna, marigold, sunflowers. I have struggled to grow sunflowers here but will try again, i guess. I mixed a bunch of collected marigold seed heads in the soil near the tomatoes - who knows when i collected those.  I should probably soak some of the hyacinth beans and plant them so when all the poppies die back i have something to replace them.  It failed last time i tried but i will try again. If i get my seedling kit going soon, i should start some more basil.

I'm leaning towards planting the  rosemary where i had it before but i don't know why that big plant died last year. I suspect humidity from all the stilt grass and Bears foot (Smallanthus uvedalia), then drought. But i wonder if the Smallanthus uvedalia had anything to do with it beyond the shade and captured humidity.

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sine nomine ([personal profile] sine_nomine) wrote2025-05-18 09:03 pm

A quick update with not enough info

I am at the Cedars-Sinai Emergency Department. One of my providers caught what looked like cellulitis, and said Urgent Care! Urgent Care said yes cellulitis get thee to a hospital. PA said be prepared that they might admit you. But here I wait because, although they moved me to phlebotomy quickly, body did not cooperate. So I am back in waiting room (where I have been for some hours though still not as long as DC waiting room times) and still am waiting. When I can clearly feel the condition is getting worse. Fun times.