Book round-up: November 2020

[sixthlight]

Average reading month: all new books, one non-fiction that wasn’t for book club, a pick and mix of new fiction. There is a distinct mood in all my reviews here of dissatisfaction and it’s hard to tell if it was the books or me.

Non-fiction

Queer Objects (Chris Bricknell and Judith Collard)

Gift from a friend, an interesting read I never would have picked up off my own bat; it’s a series of sociological essays on objects related to queer people. It goes from Those Two Guys In The Tomb In Egypt, through Tūtānekai’s flute, to a discharge notice for a lesbian in the Australian army, to an ID card for a trans woman in Thailand, and sixty-odd other items. It was the kind of history I like, that reminds you that people have always been people (and queer), but not necessarily on our terms.

Fiction

By the Currawong’s Call (Welton B Marsland)
Historical Australian M/M romance I read because it was written by a friend of a friend. Fine as a romance, but suffers from somewhat anachronistic attitudes from one of the leads (or at least attitudes that feel anachronistic), and also just a general sense of being well-meaning and not quite landing various things. Not sorry I read it, not exactly an enthusiastic rec.

Return of the Thief (Megan Whelan Turner)
I enjoy this series but not nearly as much as other people, and I’ve never been quite sure why. As a series-ender it absolutely stuck the landing, but I was left a little frustrated by one Chekov’s gun that never quite fired even when all the others did. Otherwise if you like the series (and if you haven’t read it, I do very much recommend going into it unspoiled) you’ll like it, I think.

The Midnight Bargain (C L Polk)

Secondary-world magical Regency-esque romance with some serious things to say about parental leave and contraception, through magical analogues. Polk is a good writer but her first two books were queer romances, and I managed to get through this one without even knowing if queer people existed in this society (maybe one ace character??? It was unclear????), let alone how these issues affected them, and it made me very grumpy. It’s 2020! Issues of women’s rights and reproductive rights aren’t only problems for cis straight women! Basically the main plot/issues would have been groundbreaking in, like, the mid-80s. This is probably largely a Me dealbreaker but the T Kingfisher books left me on edge about this as an issue.

Silver in the Wood (Emily Tesh)

Atmospheric queer novella in Victorian England (maybe? England-esque, at least) about folklore and forests and magic. A little bit of horror, a little bit of mysticism, a little bit of romance, a lot of kindness. A quick but compelling read.

Not Your Villain (C B Lee)

Follow-up to Not Your Sidekick, YA superhero/supervillain shenanigans in long-post-apocalyptic solarpunk North America. Could have been as fun as the first but makes the near-fatal mistake of spending the first half of the book re-telling the first book from another character’s perspective but providing next to no new information, meaning that by the time the actual new action starts it’s turned into a slog. I’d seriously recommend starting halfway through, because the story and characters are good, and the teenage romantic shenanigans are believable and sympathetic. It’s just a bit repetitive.