jinian | reading notes

Currently reading: Smoketown, Tenea D. Johnson. A dystopia without birds, which has predictable effects on the ecology of insects. An artist with the ability to bring her work to life, maybe in a more sophisticated or extreme way than she thought. A religion with the belief that everything can be fixed and every object is a tool. And a couple of other threads that I'm enjoying but having trouble tracking because of my general lack of attention span. It's all lovely, though.

Recently finished: Frost Burned, Patricia Briggs. Reasonably fun, as usual; I expect I will also pick up the next one when I see it at the library. I'm annoyed that the character changed her last name upon marriage, and also that the series didn't.

Pantomime, Laura Lam. I need one of those reaction gifs for "that escalated quickly", because this was fun and amusing run-away-to-join-the-circus with bonus intersex/crossdressing angst until the murdering started up. I wasn't at all sure about the intersex person being apparently magical, with a mysterious connection to preapocalyptic artifacts, but I'm okay with it as wish-fulfillment so far. As is now infuriatingly customary, the ending is not an ending.

The Shattering, Karen Healey. The central conceit was a bit obvious, but I continue to really appreciate Healey's diverse casting and the social dynamics among the characters. There was an opportunity for more moral complexity in the magic dilemma, which I wish she'd explicated; on the other hand, I wasn't expecting the great and realistic representation of grief at the very end.

Reading next: What I really need to do is fix the e-reader's battery, because I have some great things waiting on there, including the rest of Rat Girl.