1) I completed a book I've been reading since January, 2) I finally read my first nonfiction of the year, and 3) I completed a series. All in all: so refreshing, especially considering how May went.
Total books: 6 | New reads: 5 | 2025 TBR completed: 3 (0 DNF) / 5/18 total | Total books read this year: 33
May | July
#1 - Within the Sanctuary of Wings by Marie Brennan - 4/5 stars (audio)
I am so conflicted about this book.
In terms of quality compared to the rest of the series, I'd say it held up. It followed the same general order as its prequels, the pacing was as good as ever, the world-building continued to meet expectations, the ending was solid--but overall the story fell flat for me.
I don't think I was ever as invested in the whole "who were the ancient draconics?" question as readers are meant to be. (My apologies to Suhail.) Cool ancient civilization? Fine, good, that's a great under-girding for a story about naturalists and archaeologists. But somehow I missed the hint that our eventual goal was answering the question of just who those people were. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention....
I'm pretty confident a lot of it is down to personal taste, though. SPOILER> I've never been a fan of dragon stories where one off-shoot dragon species is sentient and humanoid. It's weird how often that comes up.... And every time, I go, "Ok...? Meh?" It's just weird to me. <SPOILER As always, I loved Isabella as a character, and I even loved the discussions of comparative mythology. Usually that's my jam!
So now I'm just vaguely frustrated. Content (this is not The Other Wind all over again) but frustrated.
#2 - Stand Still, Stay Silent, vol 3 by Minna Sundberg - 4/5 stars (reread)
Soooooo it turns out I got much much further into this story than I thought when I was reading the webcomic. There is one event in the story that I clearly remembered and it didn't happen until the end of this volume. Here I was thinking I'd only ever got about halfway through the story.
(The rest of the story remains such a haze that I might as well be reading it all for the first time.)
Onni remains my favorite, poor boy, but I think I most relate to Mikkel (because of course I most relate to the cook).
The ending didn't pack quite the punch that it did the first time, probably because I spent the entire book braced for it. The rest feels somewhat transitory. I'm fairly certain most of the final volume is officially new material, though, and I definitely don't know how it ends.
#3 - Maskerade by Terry Pratchett - 4/5 stars
It's Granny and Nanny and Greebo. Of course I had fun.
AND I figured out the twist pretty early, so I'm proud about that.
#4 - Idylls* of the King by Alfred Tennyson - 4/5 stars ('25 TBR, audio)
First of all, the narrator for this audiobook had the perfect voice: rich and deep and epic. So so good.
As for the story itself, I predictably struggled to follow some of the finer points, and I'm confident most of that would have been fixed by actually reading the words (perhaps in tandem with the narration). It only took me part of the first chapter to catch my stride with the language and tone. However, once I found my footing I loved the narrative style. Definitely one I would love to revisit and linger over a little more.
(Admittedly, I lost the plot at several points, including "Merlin and Vivien" and "The Last Tournament". Also I'm still ticked at Arthur. You aren't the epitome of all that is pure and blameless and good in my book if you can't manage your own household, you moron.)
* the narrator pronounces it "id-dill", and I'm pretty sure it's pronounced like "idle". but whatever.
#5 - Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick - 5/5 stars ('25 TBR, audio)
In a change from In Order to Live and Escape from Camp 14, Nothing to Envy takes a wide-lens look at general life in North Korea from the 80's/90's through to the early 2000's (this book was published in 2009). Rather than following a single person's life story, Demick focuses on one city and six different people who lived there, including a medical doctor, a school teacher, and a mother. Demick's ability to lay out a narrative and draw together all of the threads is excellent; the picture she paints horrifyingly vivid. This one has been on my list for years and I'm glad I finally got to it.
(Barbara Demick has written several other books that I am now considering adding to my list.)
#6 - Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wreath by Sigrid Undset, tr. Tiina Nunnally - 4/5 stars ('25 TBR, Top 5 Anticipated Read)
I have no justification for why this took me a full six months to finish, and that only the first book in the set.
I had originally planned to treat this as one book because that's how I had access to it, but I realized partway through that it made more sense to treat it like the LOTR trilogy. Which took some of the pressure off. Not all of it, of course; because while I enjoyed my reading when I made myself sit down and read--and I got through sections pretty quickly when I had the time--this was not a book I ever felt myself craving to return to.
The setting is splendid. It truly is a historical epic in the romantic style. The cast of characters are so rich and their lives so colorful that I loved those aspects wholly. The language is simple but evocative, and I understand this is a better and more faithful translation than previous attempts, which I appreciate.
Kristin herself is complicated. I found myself comparing her story to Gone With the Wind for some reason, even though I hate that movie and remember almost none of the details.... She frustrated me, I suppose. It's not entirely her fault: coddled and adored by her father, neglected by her mother, thrown out into the world with little guidance or protection and preyed upon by the wolves there. I wouldn't call her willfully ignorant or foolish, and yet there's something about her that irritated me. Hence the Gone With the Wind comparison.
In all, I can see why this is considered a classic, if an oft-overlooked one. I can see why the people who love it love it so fervently. And I suspect that will only become more evident in the sequels. Once I find the wherewithal to dig into those.
As a side note, there is some content in this story that certain readers probably wouldn't appreciate. It's not graphic or gratuitous but it is there. Weirdly (perhaps naively) I was not expecting it.
Also now I need a new book to fulfill the "K" title in my alphabet titles challenge....
Currently Reading:
Moira's Pen by Megan Whalen Turner - Still picking my way through this one. I'll probably have it finished by the end of July.
Frontier Wolf by Rosemary Sutcliff - I only started this a couple of days ago, but it's not drawing me in like the previous books in this series did. Possibly a slow read ahead.
Note: I had Pawn in Frankincense listed in my "currently reading" last month, but I literally read eleven pages at the tail end of May and nothing since. So I put it on hold. When I get back to it, I'm just going to start over.
Sigrid Undset, the Norwegian author of Kristin Lavransdatter and winner of the 1928 Nobel Prize for Literature, was an outspoken critic of Hitler and the Nazis from the early 1930s. When Germany occupied Norway in 1940, Undset fled to the U.S., and lived in Brooklyn Heights until the end of the war. Here she is selecting books from her library to donate to soldiers and sailors, February 1, 1942.
“Surely she had never asked God for anything except that He should let her have her will. And every time she had been granted what she asked for—for the most part. Now here she sat with a contrite heart—not because she had sinned against God but because she was unhappy that she had been allowed to follow her will to the road’s end.”
― Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter
