aspirit's Autumn ROOTing

Hello!

I've been eyeing the public library's adult fiction while my TBR piles at home are neglected. For this season (October through December), I have resolved to give the books in my home library more attention. My goal is to move at least nine books out of my TBR collection. That should clear up one out of the *mumble mumble* stacks if I pull from the physical shelves.

My TBR books weren't all catalogued at the start of 2019, so I will have to guess at the shelf age of what's there now.




1. A Most Unusual Courtship by Nancy M. Griffis

Welcome and good luck!

Welcome to the ROOTers, aspirit.

Don't forget to join the group as a member.

Good luck, and welcome to the group!

Thank you! I've figured out (or maybe relearmed) that the option to join doesn't show while Watching. My status is now set as an official member.

My focus isn't strong. I need a plan to read my own tomes, the ones that aren't new.

Since I'm now reading Quill Me Now (ebook; new acquisition) by Jordan Castillo... I will read A Most Unusual Courtship (ebook; older acquisition) by Nancy M. Griffis.

Because I'm reading a borrowed copy of Not Your Villain by C.B. Lee... I'll read my own copy of Half World by Hiromi Goto.

Ideally, I'll clear out the larger stack of partial reads and complete in-progress reviews by the end of this month to start November with fresh picks from the TBR piles.

>5 aspirit:, good job!

Welcome aboard and good luck!

I'm done with my ROOT pick.

A Most Unusual Courtship was a quick and confusing fantasy romance set in an alternate Victorian London.

The courtship seems to have followed Victorian rules for an upper-class man and woman, except the woman's role was played by a large, mixed-race, blacksmithing man whose attractive looks and smithing skills make him highly desired as a marriage partner. The courtship was presented as unusual for the magical lord giving gifts during work together, instead of taking the blacksmith to the theater, which disinterests him. Because, yeah, he's a middle-class blacksmith with not much free time or desire to impress lords. On the other hand, Gerald Smithson readily accepts work for the Queen, without any explanation of why the distrust of her nobles doesn't filter onto her?

Legalization and social acceptance of men marrying each other was attributed to the Greeks allowing same-sex marriages. I wonder when was that supposed to have happened. Greece doesn't currently allow same-sex marriages. The pedagogical and enslaving systems of ancient Greece certainly weren't forms of marriage, while ancient societies in what's now the United Kingdom did allow same-sex couples to officially wed. The absence of a history would have made for smoother reading than that description of a false history, because now I keep wondering what the author knows that I don't.

I expected the world to be described in ways that fit the pieces together. It wasn't.

At the end, the characters complete a project that felt important enough for more pages. They increasingly fancy each other but are left in an awkward start of a vague marriage proposal.

The story was definitely unusual.

Not Your Villain wasn't for me. I repeatedly tried to continue past about a third of the way through but ended up skimming the rest to return the book to the library on time.

Half World is worrying me. Not Your Villain was too fluffy for a dystopian superhero story and Half World might be too dark if the body horror in the introduction was meant to set the tone. I have an interest in nightmare stories because of my personal history with vivid bad dreams, but reminders of how horrible real life can be are too readily available. On the other hand, the introduction has the feel of The Neverending Story movie. (I haven't read the book, which isn't in my collection. I'll be good and not look for it at the library.) I'm curious if Melanie's story will develop similarly to Bastian's.

Resisting new and newly acquired books is hard. Y'all know that. I just feel as if I should admit to the struggle.

I set aside Half World to avoid new nightmares and tore through a new ebook download.



How could I resist peeking at Masks by E.M. Prazeman? Sorry, I couldn't. The book is currently free in Amazon's Kindle Store, and I grabbed it thinking that if I don't like the writing, the art would be pretty within a collection. The art is more magnificent after reading. (Edited to fix the image link.)

I don't have a long review for the book at this time. Basically, the blending of deceipt and honesty within a world of lord jesters is incredible. The painful parts are presented in a way that's surpringly gentle without creating so much distance as to be boring. Meanwhile, intrigues are presented in a way that puts as much faith in the reader as in the main character.

This story is a new favorite. Masks is also the first in trilogy, so I'm itching to buy the next two books.

As for an older ROOT pick that will move my counter... I'm delving back into the world of Anne Rice's vampires with The Queen of the Damned. My brother-in-law gave me a stack of Anne Rice books years ago. Yet I've only read the two books I'd already picked up on my own: Interview with a Vampire (not as engaging as the evil movie) and The Vampire Lestat (which has a strange beauty). The Queen of the Damned is the third book in The Vampire Chronicles, the next after the two I read years back.

I failed at my attempt at ROOTing older books and didn't think it was fair to count new(er) additions to my shelves. There wasn't anything further to discuss in this thread. (I guess.)

Happy New Year! Good luck to the more dedicated ROOTers in 2020!

Thanks, aspirit. Your not planning to try again in 2020?

Despite the supportive tone of the group and the flexibility of the challenge, this for me was more guilt-generating than motivating.

I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm not feeling social enough to ask and take direction in how to ROOT. This doesn't feel like a good time to make a big deal of reading through my TBR. Springtime is looking chaotic, and a summer job looks as if it will require reading of new books.

So, yes, I'm planning on not trying again in 2020.

That's a pity. But I respect your decision.