Lady Business

This week was dominated by me catching up on paid work between, I'll be honest, writing a lot of words about baking delicious treats for your werewolf boyfriend.

Totally unrelated, Teen Wolf comes back at the end of June and I'm not emotionally prepared.

Reading the last week:

• Uprooted by Naomi Novik
• Captain Marvel (Issues 7 - 13)

Well, after looking forward to Uprooted for almost a year, putting off reading it because I was terrified of not loving it as much as I wanted to love it, and finally starting it while trying not to inhale it so I could savor it (I failed), I have finished and it was WONDERFUL. I loved it so much. It's giving me all the same warm, fuzzy emotions I felt with The Goblin Emperor. They don't compare beyond "whisked away to uncertain future!" but they're both so heartwarming. I wasn't sure I'd ever find a book that made me feel like The Goblin Emperor did ever again, but here it is!

Agnieszka was a delight to follow. The premise of the book really doesn't tell you how layered this story is at all. You go in knowing that every ten years, the wizard that protects the valley from the evil Wood comes and takes a young girl to serve him, and once she's gone she doesn't come back for ten more years, and then it's never for good, as they always leave. Agnieszka — and everyone else — is convinced he'll take her best friend, Kasia. But, of course, everything goes wrong from there and the story goes deeper and deeper into the history and political situation of the world. Every time I thought I knew what would happen Because Tropes, I was quickly assured I had no clue.

Plus, the Dragon was like, Rodney McKay if Rodney McKay transformed into a wizard with magical skills instead of Science. Into it.

On Goodreads, it shows me Friend Reviews and everyone who has it added and the list goes on and on and on and on. Everyone has been talking about this book and loving it (although I've seen a few valid qualms about some of the relationships) so if you haven't heard of it I need you to a) please share your hermit secrets with me and b) look it up and see if it sounds like your type of fantasy. I've always loved Novik's work; even stories that aren't my jam go down super smooth. She's so great at flow in narrative (that mysterious thing I can never explain), and this book definitely has that to spare. If I could hand Uprooted every major SF award right now, that would be half as many accolades as it deserves.

I also caught up on my Captain Marvel issues, which I got behind on because I was busy with books. I loved the previous volume of Captain Marvel a lot, but the issues I read this time were hit or miss. The story about Chewie was super cute, but then there's an whole story about having to speak in rhyme that was embarrassing. It's not that the premise was bad, but the whole conceit of rhyming regular speech was basically an invitation for me to be mortified for the characters/writer when it just completely fails to work. I do appreciate how many of the characters here are all really different women, and I would have been totally cool with at least ten more issues of Carol, Tic, and Rocket's Adventures in Space, but Secret Wars or something.

(I still don't understand Secret Wars. Apparently universes are colliding and characters are DYING? I don't…why, Marvel? Why?)

Anyway, I have two more issues and then I'll start Carol Corps, which I remain dubious about because Secret Wars. Battleworld. Where Doom is God or something. Ugh.

I'm currently reading an ARC of Trailer Park Fae by Lilith Saintcrow (what a rad name), who is a new-to-me author for review at B&N SF. I'm muddling through Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, too, because I'm going to dubcon rozurashii into a comic with me or keel over trying. Because I don't have enough projects already.