Books read in the month of March

[lizbee]

Razor: a true story of slashers, gangsters, prostitutes and sly grog - Larry Writer
The Callender Papers - Cynthia Voigt
Summer Camp at Trebizon - Anne Digby
First Term at Malory Towers - Enid Blyton
Second Form at Malory Towers - Enid Blyton
Third Year at Malory Towers - Enid Blyton
Guantanamo Boy - Anna Perera
Upper Fourth at Malory Towers - Enid Blyton
In the Fifth at Malory Towers - Enid Blyton
Last Term at Malory Towers - Enid Blyton
Picnic at Hanging Rock - Joan Lindsay
Prices - David McRobbie
The Twins at St Clare's - Enid Blyton
The O'Sullivan Twins - Enid Blyton
Summer Term at St Clare's - Enid Blyton
The Second Form at St Clare's - Enid Blyton
Legend - Marie Lu
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
Claudine at St Clare's - Enid Blyton
Fifth Formers of St Clare's - Enid Blyton
Mist Over Pendle - Robert Neill
Into the Fourth at Trebizon - Anne Digby
The Hockey Term at Trebizon - Anne Digby



List is a bit inflated this month, since the average boarding school story takes about 45 minutes to an hour to read. And there was a lot of re-reading on this list, although some were books I haven't touched since I was 13, and it turns out you miss a lot at that age. Did you know there's massive lesbian subtext in Picnic at Hanging Rock? My 13 year old self certainly missed it!

March was notable for the fact that I started a book I didn't finish -- Cold Fire by Kate Elliott, a steampunk AU in which Rome never destroyed Carthage. It came highly recommended from a lot of people, but with a premise like that, I do kind of expect the author to know the difference between Greece and Rome, and also the first 150 pages were desperately boring.

I totally enjoyed Legend by Marie Lu, which was the very first time Amazon recommended a book I wound up buying. It's billed as both "the next Hunger Games" and "Les Miserables in the future but with teenagers", and it's both of those things plus also, I think, a sneaky AU Azula fic. (My surprise on finding the author's DevArt profile, and all the Avatar art in her favourites: actually I wasn't shocked at all.) It's also a very solid piece of YA sci-fi action-adventure with a variety of interesting female characters, protagonists of colour, and some massive, epic Gary Stus. (Not a criticism! I quite enjoy a Gary Stu now and then! I hardly facepalmed at all!) I'm looking forward to the sequels, and as it's already been optioned for film, I'm eager to see which white actors are cast as the Asian leads.

Then, of course, I had to re-read The Hunger Games and thoroughly enjoyed it once more. (I'm also a tiny bit obsessed with the movie, and may have been reading fic. KATNISS/HAYMITCH, GUYS, I'M JUST SAYING.)

Mist Over Pendle was a book I read first as a teen, and when I found it for $cheap on BookDepository, I had to have it. Historical fiction from the 1950s: slightly old fashioned in style and content -- I've noticed that modern retellings of the Pendle witch trials tend to be more sympathetic to the witches, whereas here they are, if not possessed of supernatural powers, still definitely guilty of various murders -- but thoroughly enjoyable. The heroine, Margery, is one of those characters who would be dismissed as a terrible Mary Sue if she had been created by a contemporary female author, which of course means I love her quite a lot. Saucy redheads raised by Puritans -- who can say no?

And then, last night I had a terrible, painkiller-proof headache (which persists into this morning), so I stayed in my room while the others entertained a guest, and read lightweight school stories.

Comments

[kerlin]

Do you have any Hunger Games fic rec? I browsed at AOT3 but was not especially blown away.

[lizbee]

Only these:

How Rue Became the Mockingjay

To the Victor, the Spoils

Both AU.

[skygiants]

Les Miserables in the future but with teenagers plus also, I think, a sneaky AU Azula fic

I may never have been so quickly sold on a book!

[lizbee]

That was my reaction as well!

I kept wishing for more worldbuilding and politics, maybe to the tune of an extra hundred or so pages. But I liked what I had very much. Especially because the main love triangle is heroine/hero/their conflicting ideals.

[skygiants]

My favorite kind of love triangle!

- well, okay, it's tied with heroine/hero/their shared ideals. BOTH PRETTY GREAT though.

[rj_anderson]

YOU ARE CLEARLY WRONG BECAUSE THE ONLY SHIP IS KATNISS/CINNA.

Well, that and Gale/Johanna, anyway.

You have just sold me on LEGEND, by the way, even though I'd quite forgotten about it. Well done.

[lizbee]

My only Gale OTP is LEAVING THE SERIES IN BOOK 1 AND NEVER COMING BACK.

Every time he appeared in the movie, I wanted to shout, "GO AWAY, GALE, NO ONE LIKES YOU."

[rj_anderson]

Dude, seriously? I was Team Katniss Doesn't Really Want a Boyfriend But If She Has To Choose I'd Rather She Picked Gale all the way.

[lizbee]

My real OTP is Katniss/therapy, but Gale was so obnoxious and demanding in Catching Fire, not to mention putting Katniss in an impossible situation, and then he swallowed the District 13 kool-aid in Mockingjay, and I just had no time for him even before he was indirectly responsible for killing Prim.

[rj_anderson]

Well, Book 3 definitely put paid to any notion of Katniss/Gale for me, agreed. I didn't find him obnoxious in CF, but maybe I just found Peeta more obnoxious.

Those books are so not romantic, though. Like you said, Katniss/Therapy all the way. (Peeta guilted her into pairing up with him and giving him children. She calls them "Boy" and "Girl". Niiiiice.)

[fallingtowers]

I hadn't read the first one before, and I now hold you responsible for the fact that I'm chugging Cuba Libre and bawling my eyes out.

[lizbee]

Then my work here is done!

[holyschist]

March was notable for the fact that I started a book I didn't finish -- Cold Fire by Kate Elliott, a steampunk AU in which Rome never destroyed Carthage. It came highly recommended from a lot of people, but with a premise like that, I do kind of expect the author to know the difference between Greece and Rome, and also the first 150 pages were desperately boring.

Sad! I kept thinking I should try this despite being meh about both steampunk and the epic fantasy Elliott is known for (which I haven't yet managed to get into, even though it sounds theoretically interesting), but...that sounds less intriguing.

Azula Les Miz AU, otoh....

[trouble]

I'm eager to see which white actors are cast as the Asian leads.

We are such cynical people.

That said, your recommendation makes me want to pick it up!

[kerlin]

Gah, to both of them! Great reads, though, thank you for the recs.

[emilly]

....a cynthia voight novel the title of which i do not recognise?

(please do not tell me cynthia voight just isn't as good as i remember)

[lizbee]

Well, I -- heresy! -- never cared much for the Tillerman cycle, but this one was as great now as when I was 12. It's about a 13 year old orphan who is hired by her guardian's benefactor to spend a summer at his Gloomy Mansion, sorting through his dead wife's family's papers. And naturally she gets caught up in the mystery of her death, and the fate of their child, and it's all a bit gothic, only set in Massachusetts.