Becoming Crone deserves 5 stars for getting me out of reading slump alone, because this year has not been my reading year at all, but this story managed to keep my interest.
Starting with a refreshing concept where the main protagonist is a 60 year-old grandma who suddenly comes into her power as a witch - or, a Crone and continuing with assembling a cast of mismatched, quirky characters (and a cat), it follows Claire through discovery and acceptance of her new reality without a boring moment, from funny to scary and heart-wrenching ones.
I very much appreciated the real, tangible stakes and consequences, from the magic's impact on the real world to inflicted injuries that do not magically disappear.
And with the way it ended and my trust in the author, I one-clicked the sequel pre-order without a second thought.
The Bout of Books readathon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It’s a weeklong readathon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 4th and runs through Sunday, January 10th in YOUR time zone. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are daily challenges, Twitter chats, and exclusive Instagram challenges, but they’re all completely optional. For Bout of Books 30 information and updates, visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team
I'm participating on Twitter (@strangenewwords), but I decided to have a summary-of-everything post on this blog after all.
Monday, 4/1/2021
Reading: The Idea of You by Robinne Lee (finished) and A Winter Symphony by Tiffany Reisz Pages/words: 39 + 81 = 120 Challenges/other:
Tuesday, 5/1/2021
Reading: The Star of Lancaster (Plantagenet Saga #11) by Jean Plaidy, Poly by Lesli Richardson Pages/words: 12 + 68 = 80 Challenges/other: /
Wednesday, 6/1/2021 Reading: Poly by Lesli Richardson Pages/words: 99 Challenges/other:
Thursday, 7/1/2021
Reading: The Star of Lancaster (Plantagenet Saga #11) by Jean Plaidy Pages/words: 64 Challenges/other: /
Friday, 8/1/2021
Reading: The Star of Lancaster (Plantagenet Saga #11) by Jean Plaidy (finished), Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life by Gary John Bishop
Pages/words: 33 + 31 = 64 Challenges/other: /
Saturday, 9/1/2021
Reading: / Pages/words: 0 Challenges/other: I participated in the twitter chat!
Sunday, 10/1/2021
Reading: Angel's Blood (Guild Hunter #1) by Nalini Singh, Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life by Gary John Bishop Pages/words: 31 + 24 = 55 Challenges/other: /
Wrap-up:
What I read:
I finished four books! That is, the following:
The Star of Lancaster (Plantagenet Saga #11) by Jean Plaidy,
Poly by Lesli Richardson,
The Idea of You by Robinne Lee,
A Winter Symphony by Tiffany Reisz,
and I made a dent in:
Angel's Blood (Guild Hunter #1) by Nalini Singh and
Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life by Gary John Bishop
Pages/words: 482 Challenges/other: Current Reads on Day 1, and I also participated in always great Saturday Twitterchat.
All in all, another successful Bout-of Books! These are such a great way to make a head-start into the reading year.
The Idea of You drew me in with the premise of a reverse age gap trope with having an older heroine and a younger hero.
I basically devoured it in one day – I started with a few chapters on Saturday and couldn't stop reading on Sunday and I was going to give it 5 stars up until about 50 pages before the end when I started suspecting that it wouldn't have a happy ending.
Which it didn't. And it is such a shame, because otherwise it is such an excellently written story, full of emotion, and the author really makes these two characters work.
I love the age gap trope, but even in older-man-younger-woman version it is a hit-and-miss to find a story that really works out emotionally and shows the compatibility between the characters, much less in the reverse case of older-woman-younger-man, which there are also fewer books about.
But Robinne Lee, despite the age difference, establishes the connection between her protagonists and makes us see the things they have in common that make them fall in love with each other. And then she ruins it.
What grates is that throughout the book the author pontificates on the invisibility of women above a certain age, with them and their work being underappreciated and undervalued, and emphasises the benefits of knowing oneself that aging brings.
And all of that is great and necessary to be pointed out more often in our day and time, be it in everyday life or fiction, because it is the truth: women of certain age do not stop living and mattering.
However, as nice and fine as the author putting all these notions in the story is, it is completely negated by the unhappy ending, which slams the point straight back into the stereotype: that an older woman can only find happiness within conforming to the role of a mother, putting her child and other people first, with perhaps a bit of a career on the side, but she most certainly cannot find happiness in an unconventional relationship, or, god forbid, define herself and her happiness on her own terms.
And that is highly ironic, considering that earlier in the book the author explicitly points out the hypocrisy of people not batting an eye at all the 40-and-older-something men dating and marrying 20-somethings, but condemning a woman for it. Yet, Robinne Lee does the same to her own character in the end.
So, I am mad at this book. It could have been everything, but with that ending it is a huge disappointment.
All in the name of being realistic, I suppose. But, guess what? A 20-year-old boy band star falling in love with a twice-as-old, even if (or even more so if) sophisticated, art-gallery owner, is in itself unrealistic. It is all fantasy. That is why we have fiction. F*ck realistic.
And now I need to find – which is so hard to do – another one with a similar premise but an actual happy ending to make myself feel better. See, that is how my TBR grows. BTW, recommendations welcome. ;)
I read 48 books in 2020 and I set the same goal for me in 2021, but as in the last few years, I'm taking it very flexibly with potential adjustments as the year progresses.
Nevertheless, I am very much in the reading mood right now, so much so I want to read ALL the books at once.
Usually, when that happens, I can't decide which one to read, so I procrastinate and then choose a completely different one from those I initially crave and forget about them.
Hence, I though why not make a list? And why not make a list in a blog post on my book blog? Isn't it why it's here, even if little used in recent years? (Which would also take care of said little use.)
Therefore, this is not a January TBR, because that kind of pressure is usually counter-productive for me I'm posting a list of books I want to read, like, right now, but with no obligation or deadline of actually doing it, more like a checklist for myself. As if in a journal. Except that it's public. (For those 5 people that may still stalk this blog?)
I have The Star of Lancaster (Plantagenet Saga #11) by Jean Plaidy to finish.
Then there is the unholy trinity of smutty holiday novellas:
My Dad's Best Friend (A Touch of Taboo #3) by Katee Robert
A Winter Symphony by Tiffany Reisz
When She Was Naughty by Tessa Dare
I want to do some rereads:
Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy #2) by Deborah Harkness, which I planned to do before S2 of the TV show and then got distracted and the show is returning within the week, but I think I should be able to manage 1/8 a week to keep in step
I've been wanting to do an IAD series reread for a while now and what better time than a new year to start with A Hunger Like No Other (IAD #1) by Kresley Cole, although The Warlord Wants Forever is technically/chronologically the first, but I'll read that afterwards because it worked great in this order the first time around.
Angel's Blood (Guild Hunter #1) by Nalini Singh because after years of my incessant nagging my bestie is finally starting it (and I hope it lives up to my hyping it up) and I could use a refresher (not that it's any hardship ;))
I have two nonfiction/self-help books I want to slowly go through and hopefully find something useful for my depressed & anxious brain:
Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life by Gary John Bishop
Learn To Live: The Book That Can Change Your Life by Mats and Susan Billmark
And I also stumbled upon The Idea of You by Robinne Lee on New Year's Eve (because what else would I be doing then than adding new books to my TBR?) and it sounds so intriguing I want to start it right away.
I'll be crossing out the ones I finish (as you can see, I've already already done one since I started writing this post yesterday) and I might do more of this kind of posts when the need arises.
Letters from Father Christmas is a collection of letters Tolkien wrote to his children as Father Christmas aka Santa Claus in replies to their letters to Santa.
I decided to reread it this advent about a letter or 8 pages a day and, although I missed some days due to real life calamities, I did slowly make my way through it by and by just in the perfect time to finish it on Christmas day.
The letters are such a delight to read, showing Tolkien's craftsmanship not only through the stories he comes up about Father Christmas and his friends and the exciting fortunate and less fortunate events in the North Pole, but also in the intricate handwriting he invents for each of the characters he emulates and even lovely drawings he includes with the letters.
From 1920 to 1943, the letters grow in number along with his growing family and diminish as the children grow up, all along hinting here at there at Tolkien's interests in his literary work as well as at the concerns of the real world, but most of all they give a testimony of his love for his children, thus making me admire him even more as a person rather than just an author.
Letters from Father Christmas are a wonderful read for December and if you haven't read it yet, there is always next year.
This year, however, as the only non-native English speaking country participant, I want to provide some 'exoticism' 😉 and share with you what we call folk church songs, that is, songs for church/Christian holidays (in this case, Christmas) that are widely known and sung among people.
We have a long, centuries-old tradition of folk church songs, many originating from unknown authors and spreading among the people, others being written for choir but becoming widely popular among everyone, and some imported and translated from other languages and being loved so much they are now considered our own.
I will start with one of the latter, perhaps the most popular and most frequently translated Christmas song of all times across the world, Sveta noč, or, as you may have already guessed, Silent Night.
Poslušajte, vsi ljudje (Listen, all people) is a personal favourite because it mentions St. Joseph; it talks about how Mary and Joseph travelled to Bethlehem where after looking for a place to stay they finally found it outside the town in a barn where Jesus was born.
Another few of my favourites are Glej, zvezdice božje (Look, heavenly stars), Rajske strune (Heavenly Chords), and Kaj se vam zdi, pastirci vi (What do you think, o, shepherds ye').
As I said, these are all very popular and sung by everyone en masse at church, but of course the above examples are choir and bands recordings, because unsynchronised people's singing would have been unintelligible. Then again, all of these are probably unintelligible to you, but I hope you at least enjoyed the catchy melodies. The music of the last one is played on European zither, which has an especially apt sound for Christmas songs.
I will end with another version of Silent Night in honour of my uncle, because I learned halfway through writing this post (on Friday, and TBH continuing writing it in the breaks between crying kept me sane) that he had died. Lojze Slak, also deceased, is one of our most renowned musicians and my parents' favourite, he was from one of the neighbouring villages to that of my father and uncle's home village and my father – and, I think, also my uncle – knew him personally, so this is for him. At least they are all together now, I believe.
I apologise for ending on a morose note. I wish you all happy holidays, even if you don't get to spend them with your loved ones due to Covid-19, I hope you are able to spend them at least with the knowledge that they are alive and well and that all of you stay that way!
The
Earth keeps making its way around the Sun even in
2020 and the time has come again for Virtual Advent Tour, organised
by Sprite Writes.
Today is the name day of
St. Lucy of Syracuse (283 – 304 AD). She is associated with light and brightness as
her
namecomes
from lux,
the Latin
word
for light.
According
to a legend, one of her suitors fell
in love with her beautiful eyes, so she gouged them out and send them
to him, but an angel came to her and restored them; therefore, she is
a patron saint of the blind and a protector of sight.
Due to various legends telling of St. Lucy losing her eyes either by torture or her own hand, she is often depicted with a pair of eyes on a platter. (Image source.)
Before
the Gregorian calendar reform, December
13th
was considered
the shortest day of the year, symbolising
the return of light
into long winter nights and thus rebirth and new life, similarly to
the winter solstice.
We
have a folk custom, especially in the countryside, of
planting Christmas wheat on this day – it
is believed that if it sprouts by
Christmas, it will ensure a good harvest the following year.
Christmas wheat in a small pot is a nice decorative element in a nativity scene or on its own. (Image source.)
Do
you have any special traditions or celebrations on this day? If so, I
would love to hear about them.
Midnight Sun is a retelling of Twilight from Edward’s
POV – and a retelling of only Twilight, which with roughly
700 pages makes up for a rather long book.
I found Edward’s POV
highly interesting and up to halfway mark I was going to
give it stars. However, around the time of their first date, Edward’s
inner reflections become repetitive and between 50-70% the story is
rather tedious.
Fortunately,
after around 70% the pace picks up and the story brings up fresh
elements from the time when Edward and Bella are separated.
And
so, after about four months, I was able to finally finish it! And now
I’m back to wishing what I wished in the beginning: to see Edward’s
POV of the rest of the series, especially the beginning of New
Moon,
when he is yet again away from Bella. Although I can also guess how
his agonising could once again turn boring.
On
the other hand, I also want Stephenie Meyer to continue The
Host. In
any case, whatever she decides to write next, I will definitely give
it a shot, because Midnight
Sun
did reaffirm my impression that her books are, while not literary
masterpieces, not half as bad as certain online/book community
circles believe them to be.
