One day last December, while incredibly bored at work, I stirred up some drama in a discord server I’m in by admitting that I had no idea what a “warrior cat” was and, as that started to die down, that I’d never read any of the Animorphs books. Since most of us grew up in or after the 90s, I discovered that I was one of the few who had never been exposed to either sprawling franchise and, since I wanted something fun to do, I suggested we do a book club centered around reading all of the animorphs books in a single year. Someone drew up a schedule, another person shared a link to a freely available PDF of the books (which had been shared during the early days of the pandemic, when everyone desperately needed something to do and parents struggled to occupy their children), and I briefly tried to get everyone to figure out if we were going to do a proper full book club or just post our reactions to things. Since we landed on just posting reactions, as I was apparently the only person who explicitly said they wanted to discuss the books as we read them, I’ve felt a lot less motivated to keep up with this largely solo experience. Despite that, I’ve managed to mostly keep up with the schedule (we’re reading book 8 this week, after having read the first seven and then the first “Megamorphs” book) and I’ve had disappointingly few conversations about what we’ve read so far.
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Harrow The Ninth’s Narration Made For A Harrowing Read
There will be spoilers for Gideon The Ninth and Harrow The Ninth in this review, starting in the third full-sized paragraph. There will also be some minor hints at spoilers in the second full-size paragraph, so tread with caution.
Well, I finished Harrow The Ninth. You’re probably reading this a day after I wrote about my initial impressions of the second book in the Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir, but it has been two days since I wrote that. I was too busy on Friday to write a blog post during my breaks at work and then far too tired to write anything once I finished. So, since I was burned out, exhausted, mentally drained, depressed, and incapable of determining if anything would actually be fun, I decided to toss aside my reservations (and cautions) about reading Harrow the Ninth in my current mental state and dove in. Eight hours later, it was half past three in the morning and I’d finished the book. I didn’t exactly disassociate my way through the book, but I basically did. Time left no impression on me and not in the way that happens when I get sucked into a book most of the time. This was a new one for me. It wasn’t a negative experience or anything like that–I actually wound up liking Harrow the Ninth more than I thought I would–but I definitely wasn’t really in control of myself. I didn’t really feel like I could pull myself out of this weird mental state. Normally, I forget that I’m reading at all and don’t even think to stop. This time, I just couldn’t stop. It was like I lacked the agency to stop, which kinda fits with the whole “mild disassociation” thing I had going on.
Continue readingI Found My Own Holy Grail: A Great Queer Adaption of Arthurian Legend
Recently, while doing my usual internet browsing during the spare moments between the events of my day, I came across some book recommendations. I can’t, for the life of me, remember where I found them or who was providing them. All I remember is that the first book this person recommended was one I’d recently read and loved (though I can’t remember what this book was either), so I wound up browsing the rest of the recommendations and bought all of the ones that sounded interesting. In my own defense, I haven’t been sleeping well for a while now and my memory has been pretty spotty. I probably wouldn’t have remembered this book at all if I hadn’t ordered it immediately since I have absolutely no memory of placing this order. But I did order it and, as it turns out, all the other books that I chose were preorders for things releasing this fall, so I had just one new book to read. After sitting on my table for a while (I was in the middle of my Dresden Files reading binge when I ordered it), I finally cracked it open during the day I was restlessly pacing my apartment a couple weekends ago.
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