Entry tags:
Media Diet, January
Er. Perhaps I should have broken this month into halves. Or started doing Reading Wednesday? I'm posting this a few days early anyway, bc I anticipate CNY will take up considerable time this weekend.
Audiobooks:
The Deep, by Rivers Solomon, read by Daveed Diggs: Inspired by the clipping. song The Deep and the earlier Drexciya works where there is an underwater society descended from the unborn children of enslaved pregnant women thrown overboard during the Atlantic slave trade, in this novella the main character holds all the memory of her people (very Giver-esque), until the burden of holding all the trauma becomes too much and she runs away. On her journey, she rediscovers the two-leggers, falls in love, and tries to find a new way forward for their community. (I got this from![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skygiants' rec.) The concept was very interesting! I just kind of felt the novella could have been meatier? It was trying to do a lot, but didn't really quite hit depth (hehe). Though to be perfectly fair, I was also listening right after surgery so like, a reread with the book copy might be needed to form a full judgement. I thought it was surprisingly not grim for the premise and I overall enjoyed it!
Aru Shah and the End of Time, by Roshani Chokshi, read by Soneela Nankani: the first in a children's book series, centered around a girl who has a habit of lying, is found out by some of her classmates, lights a cursed lamp, and discovers that a) Hindu mythology is real, b) she is a reincarnation of one of the Pandava brothers, and c) she has to go save the world.liv recced later parts of the series, so I thought I'd start at the beginning. Thoroughly enjoyable, but VERY AMERICAN. I mean, yes, both the Pandava sisters and the real-world setting are American, but something about the way that other religions interact really pinged me as American too. Just factual, not a negative. Super enjoyable overall! Kept up a good steady level of excitement and nice pacing. I'd totally rec this for any kids.
Deeplight, by Frances Hardinge, read by Joshua Akehurst: fantasy-horror (nominally) YA set on an island chain where some decades ago the gods of sea that terrorized the people just-- destroyed each other. The main character is a street urchin who runs petty cons, until his best friend ropes him into some more serious trouble.meitachi put this as her favorite read of 2021! I say nominally, because it didn't read that much as a YA? VERY good worldbuilding. Do have to ignore the physics of how pressure affects the body, which is plot-conveniently acknowledged. Worldbuilding is good in both the fantasy sense (interesting myths! weird gods!), the setting sense (how would a society that did a lot of deep water exploration be shaped? and the prevalence + acceptance/honoring of Deafness), and the character sense (everyone has their own motivations! no one is wholly good or evil!). The beginning-middle bit was a bit slow, and I was not-- super convinced of how it presented the ~complex morality~ of some of the choices. But overall! Really satisfying.
A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin, read by Harlan Ellison (DNF). Ellison's narration was a terrible mismatch for me-- far too much variation in speed / volume that messed with my ability to process. I thought after the previous three audiobooks were reasonably smooth listens that I was getting better at processing audiobooks, but no, just a run of readers suited to my taste. I'll finish this up as a regular book at some later point.
The Beginning Place, by Ursula K. Le Guin, read by Rob Inglis: two young adults visit a strange, hidden world within a nearby wood, where something has caused the townspeople to have an unspeakable fear of leaving the town. Though the audiobook was decently read, I struggled to understand some of the connotations of what was happening in that form. It's a quieter book, and both characters are not very likable or living nice lives, so I can see why people might not like it as much as her sparklier books, but I enjoyed thinking about the ~symbolism~ and such.
树上的鱼, by 刘保法, read by 羽瑶 (DNF): a series of cute children's stories, of the fairytale variety. The cover (a tree growing out of a fish!) looked really enticing, but it was just too young for me to really enjoy. Nicely read + stories were cute though, so I imagine it fills its niche well.
三生三世谁许桃花, by 雨微醺, read by 刘艳丽 and 艾威 (DNF): afaict a pretty standard mythology fic, one of those angsty romance types. Didn't catch my interest enough to continue (it's 12 hours long...), since it's not really a genre I enjoy. I do wish English audiobooks would use different actors for reading out dialog, like Chinese audiobooks do, instead of trying to do voices; it's much easier for me to process, unless the narrator is incredibly skilled.
Books:
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, by Becky Chambers: three travelers at a rest stop planet end up stuck there with their hosts. I /thought/ this had been highly recced by multiple people, but DW search only brings upskygiants' review as wholly positive! Hm! Theoretically this is the last book of the series, but I felt it stood well enough alone. From context clues, it seems the mentioned human boyfriend (all the main characters are aliens) must have been in at least one earlier work. I liked it a lot! I liked the weird aliens-- they were mm... very soft scifi? But overall they were satisfyingly weird and had interesting cultural and physical differences. It did sometimes veer into over-explaining things that need not be explained and each alien seemed to come from a bit of a monolith culture. But its focus on relationships between such different people and exploration of their psyches will make it a safe rec for most of my flist here. (Or so I thought before I did that search and found such ambivalent reviews! *shocked pikachu face*)
Where the Wild Ladies Are, by Aoko Matsuda, translated by Polly Barton: a myth-inspired supernatural-but-modern-day short story collection, strongly centered on women's stories. Fromskygiants' rec. Started a bit weak, but as the interconnections between stories became clear, it became much stronger. Really liked how that contributed to a sense of worldbuilding, which often is difficult in short stories-- the spaces between the stories made it seem like a vaster world. At the same time, it wouldn't have worked as just a single novel, because the tone of the different pieces were sometimes very different, making this a deeply necessary use of the medium of 'short story collection.' A short but highly satisfying read.
How the Word is Passed, by Clint Smith: the author goes to several sites and explores the history of slavery in America. Fromsophia_sol 's rec! The trivial complaint: stylistically, the excessive description made the pace plodding; I am just not a visual person and page long descriptions of clothing add approximately nothing for me. Overall, the problem for me was really that I am well read enough on the history of slavery in the US and how it relates to the modern prison labor system etc etc that the new facts content was minimal, meaning the novelty of the book had to rest primarily on the interviews. I think the frame of visiting the individual sites, the interviews with varied people, the ~personal journey~ are all great! The chapter that really worked for me was the Angola one, where the emotional overlay and illustrative details were highly effective. If one wasn't as familiar with the history, this would be a solid starting point.
Country Driving, by Peter Hessler: three extended stories about 1) his exploration of northern China following the Great Wall(s), 2) a family in a small town where he's rented a weekend house, and 3) a factory that makes the little nylon o rings in bras; this book was published in 2010 and the events are all very 2000s China. If you have a very low tolerance for white guy goes to be a journalist in a developing country, do avoid, esp as it's very much his personal experiences from his biased PoV. But I think he generally does a decent job of being open-minded, and the 2000s of it all does partially explain (the few!) :gritted teeth: moments. (Though tbh, the biggest :gritted teeth: moment for me was how during his various drives west, he seemed to primarily subsist on sugar and soft drinks, which he mentions alarmingly frequently.) My main complaint is actually about the editing, and I wonder if it's been stitched together from several articles, because he'll repeat things already said, but not in a reminder-y way, as if they're new info, and the timeline jumps are not well indicated. There were also a few missed pinyin typos and at one point he thinks hotpot is boiling oil. Anyway, I don't regret reading it, and it's not particularly relevant for modern-day China, but it was pleasingly nostalgic for a bygone era.
How Much of These Hills Is Gold, by C Pam Zhang (DNF): set during the California Gold Rush, the story of two orphaned young Chinese American siblings. The author is very into the lush prose, which I am not. This would be fine, except I found the internal logic frustratingly inconsistent. How can this be the first major water Lucy has seen and yet both siblings can swim? At one point, drinking water without boiling it is a major mistake, then Lucy drinks cold water directly (during her period!)? If you're going to use era-inappropriate Mandarin pinyin, at least do the pinyin right and group the syllables into words. The Chinglish of the 'two syllables in Mandarin and the rest of the sentence in English' is generally Not to My Taste either. IDK, I know the author wanted it to be as ahistoric as any white novel establishing the myth of America, but the world just felt SO ahistoric and inconsistent that I couldn't continue.
Land of Big Numbers, by Te-Ping Chen: ten short stories, real world-ish (except two) China (also except two) slice-of-life-ish with neither happy nor sad endings. Frommeitachi's rec! I think you can really tell the journalistic experience of the author in the precision of the gaze and practiced feel of the prose. I mostly enjoyed the stories, but none really stood out and I feel like I'd have enjoyed them more as separate short stories instead of in a collection. (I seem to be solving the 'how to track short story consumption' problem by reading them as collections though haha.)
Visual media:
The Great Canadian Baking Show (season 4): I kind of dipped in and out during a marathon watch party, so I didn't catch everything, but I did have a Thought: I feel like the latest GBBO seasons, a lot of the bakers were dedicating time to practicing their bakes during the week and it seems that that isn't happening here? Combined with how the judges seem much nicer than in GBBO, it feels like a return to the roots of a more amateur baking competition.
The Handmaiden (2016): an erotic f/f psychological thriller, set in Korea during Japanese rule. It was really lush and beautifully shot-- the CGI was nearly all enhancements, and only stood out poorly in one scene near the end. I really enjoyed the flashbacks, as scenes are replayed with new information at hand from a different PoV. What's the rule, that porn should add something to the characterization? Definitely most of the scenes qualified, but eh, they sometimes went on gratuitously long. The actors were uniformly excellent, and were occasionally needed to carry weaker sections of plot. Overall, don't regret watching, but I'd only rec if all the bits of the first sentence seem your cup of tea.
Kieta Hatsukoi (My Love Mix-Up!): light high school BL, heavy on miscommunication storylines and characters who are Good. Jdramas really have such a deft touch for those kinds of storylines! It did get a little repetitive towards the end though. It is mostly a light show and hits the marks on time, with conflicts resolved pretty rapidly and through the characters being genuinely caring about each other. I am 99% sure this is a 'I'm not quite the target audience' thing, but there was a little too much gratuitous homophobia for such a light show for my taste, and so ep 8 was a definite low point. I... honestly might recommend skipping the ep if you're here for a purely 'light BL' experience. Overall, what it says on the tin! The two mains are very cute.
Audiobooks:
The Deep, by Rivers Solomon, read by Daveed Diggs: Inspired by the clipping. song The Deep and the earlier Drexciya works where there is an underwater society descended from the unborn children of enslaved pregnant women thrown overboard during the Atlantic slave trade, in this novella the main character holds all the memory of her people (very Giver-esque), until the burden of holding all the trauma becomes too much and she runs away. On her journey, she rediscovers the two-leggers, falls in love, and tries to find a new way forward for their community. (I got this from
skygiants' rec.) The concept was very interesting! I just kind of felt the novella could have been meatier? It was trying to do a lot, but didn't really quite hit depth (hehe). Though to be perfectly fair, I was also listening right after surgery so like, a reread with the book copy might be needed to form a full judgement. I thought it was surprisingly not grim for the premise and I overall enjoyed it!Aru Shah and the End of Time, by Roshani Chokshi, read by Soneela Nankani: the first in a children's book series, centered around a girl who has a habit of lying, is found out by some of her classmates, lights a cursed lamp, and discovers that a) Hindu mythology is real, b) she is a reincarnation of one of the Pandava brothers, and c) she has to go save the world.
liv recced later parts of the series, so I thought I'd start at the beginning. Thoroughly enjoyable, but VERY AMERICAN. I mean, yes, both the Pandava sisters and the real-world setting are American, but something about the way that other religions interact really pinged me as American too. Just factual, not a negative. Super enjoyable overall! Kept up a good steady level of excitement and nice pacing. I'd totally rec this for any kids.Deeplight, by Frances Hardinge, read by Joshua Akehurst: fantasy-horror (nominally) YA set on an island chain where some decades ago the gods of sea that terrorized the people just-- destroyed each other. The main character is a street urchin who runs petty cons, until his best friend ropes him into some more serious trouble.
meitachi put this as her favorite read of 2021! I say nominally, because it didn't read that much as a YA? VERY good worldbuilding. Do have to ignore the physics of how pressure affects the body, which is plot-conveniently acknowledged. Worldbuilding is good in both the fantasy sense (interesting myths! weird gods!), the setting sense (how would a society that did a lot of deep water exploration be shaped? and the prevalence + acceptance/honoring of Deafness), and the character sense (everyone has their own motivations! no one is wholly good or evil!). The beginning-middle bit was a bit slow, and I was not-- super convinced of how it presented the ~complex morality~ of some of the choices. But overall! Really satisfying.A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin, read by Harlan Ellison (DNF). Ellison's narration was a terrible mismatch for me-- far too much variation in speed / volume that messed with my ability to process. I thought after the previous three audiobooks were reasonably smooth listens that I was getting better at processing audiobooks, but no, just a run of readers suited to my taste. I'll finish this up as a regular book at some later point.
The Beginning Place, by Ursula K. Le Guin, read by Rob Inglis: two young adults visit a strange, hidden world within a nearby wood, where something has caused the townspeople to have an unspeakable fear of leaving the town. Though the audiobook was decently read, I struggled to understand some of the connotations of what was happening in that form. It's a quieter book, and both characters are not very likable or living nice lives, so I can see why people might not like it as much as her sparklier books, but I enjoyed thinking about the ~symbolism~ and such.
树上的鱼, by 刘保法, read by 羽瑶 (DNF): a series of cute children's stories, of the fairytale variety. The cover (a tree growing out of a fish!) looked really enticing, but it was just too young for me to really enjoy. Nicely read + stories were cute though, so I imagine it fills its niche well.
三生三世谁许桃花, by 雨微醺, read by 刘艳丽 and 艾威 (DNF): afaict a pretty standard mythology fic, one of those angsty romance types. Didn't catch my interest enough to continue (it's 12 hours long...), since it's not really a genre I enjoy. I do wish English audiobooks would use different actors for reading out dialog, like Chinese audiobooks do, instead of trying to do voices; it's much easier for me to process, unless the narrator is incredibly skilled.
Books:
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, by Becky Chambers: three travelers at a rest stop planet end up stuck there with their hosts. I /thought/ this had been highly recced by multiple people, but DW search only brings up
skygiants' review as wholly positive! Hm! Theoretically this is the last book of the series, but I felt it stood well enough alone. From context clues, it seems the mentioned human boyfriend (all the main characters are aliens) must have been in at least one earlier work. I liked it a lot! I liked the weird aliens-- they were mm... very soft scifi? But overall they were satisfyingly weird and had interesting cultural and physical differences. It did sometimes veer into over-explaining things that need not be explained and each alien seemed to come from a bit of a monolith culture. But its focus on relationships between such different people and exploration of their psyches will make it a safe rec for most of my flist here. (Or so I thought before I did that search and found such ambivalent reviews! *shocked pikachu face*)Where the Wild Ladies Are, by Aoko Matsuda, translated by Polly Barton: a myth-inspired supernatural-but-modern-day short story collection, strongly centered on women's stories. From
skygiants' rec. Started a bit weak, but as the interconnections between stories became clear, it became much stronger. Really liked how that contributed to a sense of worldbuilding, which often is difficult in short stories-- the spaces between the stories made it seem like a vaster world. At the same time, it wouldn't have worked as just a single novel, because the tone of the different pieces were sometimes very different, making this a deeply necessary use of the medium of 'short story collection.' A short but highly satisfying read. How the Word is Passed, by Clint Smith: the author goes to several sites and explores the history of slavery in America. From
sophia_sol 's rec! The trivial complaint: stylistically, the excessive description made the pace plodding; I am just not a visual person and page long descriptions of clothing add approximately nothing for me. Overall, the problem for me was really that I am well read enough on the history of slavery in the US and how it relates to the modern prison labor system etc etc that the new facts content was minimal, meaning the novelty of the book had to rest primarily on the interviews. I think the frame of visiting the individual sites, the interviews with varied people, the ~personal journey~ are all great! The chapter that really worked for me was the Angola one, where the emotional overlay and illustrative details were highly effective. If one wasn't as familiar with the history, this would be a solid starting point. Country Driving, by Peter Hessler: three extended stories about 1) his exploration of northern China following the Great Wall(s), 2) a family in a small town where he's rented a weekend house, and 3) a factory that makes the little nylon o rings in bras; this book was published in 2010 and the events are all very 2000s China. If you have a very low tolerance for white guy goes to be a journalist in a developing country, do avoid, esp as it's very much his personal experiences from his biased PoV. But I think he generally does a decent job of being open-minded, and the 2000s of it all does partially explain (the few!) :gritted teeth: moments. (Though tbh, the biggest :gritted teeth: moment for me was how during his various drives west, he seemed to primarily subsist on sugar and soft drinks, which he mentions alarmingly frequently.) My main complaint is actually about the editing, and I wonder if it's been stitched together from several articles, because he'll repeat things already said, but not in a reminder-y way, as if they're new info, and the timeline jumps are not well indicated. There were also a few missed pinyin typos and at one point he thinks hotpot is boiling oil. Anyway, I don't regret reading it, and it's not particularly relevant for modern-day China, but it was pleasingly nostalgic for a bygone era.
How Much of These Hills Is Gold, by C Pam Zhang (DNF): set during the California Gold Rush, the story of two orphaned young Chinese American siblings. The author is very into the lush prose, which I am not. This would be fine, except I found the internal logic frustratingly inconsistent. How can this be the first major water Lucy has seen and yet both siblings can swim? At one point, drinking water without boiling it is a major mistake, then Lucy drinks cold water directly (during her period!)? If you're going to use era-inappropriate Mandarin pinyin, at least do the pinyin right and group the syllables into words. The Chinglish of the 'two syllables in Mandarin and the rest of the sentence in English' is generally Not to My Taste either. IDK, I know the author wanted it to be as ahistoric as any white novel establishing the myth of America, but the world just felt SO ahistoric and inconsistent that I couldn't continue.
Land of Big Numbers, by Te-Ping Chen: ten short stories, real world-ish (except two) China (also except two) slice-of-life-ish with neither happy nor sad endings. From
meitachi's rec! I think you can really tell the journalistic experience of the author in the precision of the gaze and practiced feel of the prose. I mostly enjoyed the stories, but none really stood out and I feel like I'd have enjoyed them more as separate short stories instead of in a collection. (I seem to be solving the 'how to track short story consumption' problem by reading them as collections though haha.)Visual media:
The Great Canadian Baking Show (season 4): I kind of dipped in and out during a marathon watch party, so I didn't catch everything, but I did have a Thought: I feel like the latest GBBO seasons, a lot of the bakers were dedicating time to practicing their bakes during the week and it seems that that isn't happening here? Combined with how the judges seem much nicer than in GBBO, it feels like a return to the roots of a more amateur baking competition.
The Handmaiden (2016): an erotic f/f psychological thriller, set in Korea during Japanese rule. It was really lush and beautifully shot-- the CGI was nearly all enhancements, and only stood out poorly in one scene near the end. I really enjoyed the flashbacks, as scenes are replayed with new information at hand from a different PoV. What's the rule, that porn should add something to the characterization? Definitely most of the scenes qualified, but eh, they sometimes went on gratuitously long. The actors were uniformly excellent, and were occasionally needed to carry weaker sections of plot. Overall, don't regret watching, but I'd only rec if all the bits of the first sentence seem your cup of tea.
Kieta Hatsukoi (My Love Mix-Up!): light high school BL, heavy on miscommunication storylines and characters who are Good. Jdramas really have such a deft touch for those kinds of storylines! It did get a little repetitive towards the end though. It is mostly a light show and hits the marks on time, with conflicts resolved pretty rapidly and through the characters being genuinely caring about each other. I am 99% sure this is a 'I'm not quite the target audience' thing, but there was a little too much gratuitous homophobia for such a light show for my taste, and so ep 8 was a definite low point. I... honestly might recommend skipping the ep if you're here for a purely 'light BL' experience. Overall, what it says on the tin! The two mains are very cute.