Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Title: Uprooted

Author: Naomi Novik

Pages: 438

Finished: January 5, 2020

First Sentence: Our Dragon doesn't eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley.

Summary: Agnieszka has always known her friend Kasia was going to be taken by the Dragon when they were of age. Everyone knows it. The Dragon protects the Valley from the dangers of the Wood, and in exchange, he takes one girl every 10 years. But when the time of choosing comes, Agnieszka is the one chosen. And upon entering the Dragon's tower, she finds out there's more at stake than just her Valley against the Wood. Her country is in danger, and only she and the Dragon seem able to do anything about it.

Thoughts: I read an ARC of Novik's Spindle's End a few years ago. I quite enjoyed it and made a mental note to come back to her work. This specific title kept popping up on various lists and hung out in the back of my mind for well over a year. I'm so glad I decided to start my year with this novel.

The story has shown up on many Beauty and the Beast retelling lists. And sure, one could call it that. But merely labeling it as a BatB retelling almost weakens the book. Because there's so much more to it. There's the story of the Wood and how it's intertwined into Polnya. There's corruption. And there's a mystery as to where the Wood even came from. How it started. Why it's so malevolent in the first place.

This is the type of fantasy I live for. The world building is balanced with the characterization. Polnya seems to be the fantasy version of Poland. And it's so rich. The fantasy creatures are creepy and real. The magic is stunning. And the characters have strong personalities. They grow. They learn. The story picks the reader up and sweeps them away. At least it did for me.

I enjoyed this one the way I enjoyed Katherine Arden's Winternight trilogy. I definitely mean to come back to it in a few years time to digest some more.

This book counts for Beat the Backlist, Virtual Mount To Be Read, and Library Love challenges. 

2019 Reading Goals Wrap Up

1. Read 45 Books - Progress: 38 / 45 +10
2. Finish Lord of the Rings Challenge: Finished last quarter
3. Back to the Classics - Progress: 8.5 / 9 +2.5
4. To Be Read Challenge - Progress: 3 / 3 +1
5. Newford Part 1 - Progress:  6 / 12 +2
6. Austen Challenge - Progress: 3 / 7 +2

Top 3 Books This Quarter

Austen, Austen - Mansfield Park
Pullman, Philip - The Secret Commonwealth
de Lint, Charles - Memory and Dream

Top 3 Books This Year

Austen, Austen - Mansfield Park
de Lint, Charles - Dreams Underfoot
Arden, Katherine - The Winter of the Witch

Thoughts: Interestingly enough, two of my favorite books of the year were read in the first quarter of the year and one in the last quarter of the year. If that doesn't define this year of reading, I don't know what does. I started the year off pretty strong with 14 books. That's also where most of my children's reading came in - more about that in further thoughts about my goals below. I ended the year.... feeling better about my reading again. It just took some time to get there. 

1. Read 45 Books (originally read 52 books).
    38. I was curious as to why it was so hard for me to get even close to my goal this year. So I looked back over my last two years of reading where I managed 60+ books. And I noticed the majority of my reading was children's books. In 2017, 43 out of my 69 books were children's novels coming out to 62%. Last year 27 out of my 60 books were children's novels which comes out to 45%. This year, only 9 out of my 36 books were children's novels which comes out to 25%. Interesting. Also interesting, when I started this blog, it was to read more adult literature, as I'd been stuck in children's for a long time due to my job. But this year, I found myself struggling with Readers Advisory at work, something I haven't struggled with since I started my job. While I haven't publicly made any goals to read more children's literature, I have made some career goals to read more children's literature with a more systematic plan in place to diversify my reading within.

2. Finish Lord of the Rings Challenge.
    This is the only challenge I completed as intended from the beginning of the year. It was an interesting idea, reading the books in chronological order. Ultimately, while the exercise was interesting, I didn't appreciate it all that much. The first and second ages of Middle Earth were interesting. So was the extra information we got about what was happening during the books. But I really didn't enjoy jumping back and forth in the middle of things. I also don't enjoy the books all that much. Which is funny because I'll probably go back and read them again in 10 years. My favorite part of reading the books this time around was seeing just how much the D&D races and classes were influenced by them.

3. Read 9 (originally 12) categories in Back to the Classics
   Read 8 books fully and consciously decided to not finish a ninth that I had planned to read due to not enjoying it. This was a weird list for me. I was very excited when the year started! However, I found myself not enjoying many of the books I was reading. They were slogs to get through, and because they were slogs, I wasn't interested in reading. So I wasn't reading. I'm not sure what happened or why I wasn't happy with my book choices. I'm not sure if the challenge is coming back next year, but if it is, I have a different idea for how I want to go about completing it.

4. Read 3 (originally 12) books off my To Be Read Pile
    I really wanted to read all 12 of my books. However, for some reason, I kept putting these novels off in favor of other challenges which ended up being very uninspiring and tedious. Of the three that I read, my favorite was Ombria in Shadow. Deep Work was illuminating, and I've been using the ideas I read in it to help me be more productive overall. Born With Teeth was fine, but took a lot longer to read than I would have expected. If this challenge runs next year, I plan on revamping my list and seriously participating over priority of other challenges. 

5. Read 12 books from de Lint's Newford Collection
    Managed 6 out of 12. As this was a lower priority challenge, I ended up pushing it aside for other books fairly often. However, now that I'm reading more of them, I'm sad I did so. I like de Lint's writing, and I've enjoyed reading his books in the last month or so of this year. I'm definitely going to make it more of a priority to read these books next year.

6. Read all 6 of Austen's novels AND her unfinished works, juvenilia, and novella.
    Much like the Newford challenge, this took a very low priority in my reading this year. I read three Austen novels. They were honestly some of the most enjoyable novels I read this year. Will definitely finish this challenge next year.

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Title: Mansfield Park

Author: Jane Austen

Pages: 487

Finished: December 31, 2019

First Sentence: About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Masfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet's lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income.

Summary: At ten-years-old, Fanny Price is invited to live with her Aunt and Uncle, the Lord and Lady Bertram, as a way to relieve her poor mother of at least one mouth to feed. There, treated as better than a servant but not quite so well as one of her cousins, Fanny grows to become a very moral and upstanding, though shy and quiet, young woman, quite unlike her two female cousins Maria and Julia.

We spend most of our time following the events of a single year. A new family comes to the parsonage, and the siblings catch the eyes of many of the members of Mansfield. Edmund is taken with Mary Crawford, and both Julia and Maria find Henry Crawford to be the paragon of the male species. Of course, Maria is engaged to the foolish Mr. Rushworth. Tom meanwhile, causes all sorts of problems.

And through it all, Fanny stays true to her morals and convictions, seeing things as they are even while bearing the remonstrations of her aunt and uncle.

Thoughts: I typically rank this number 4 in my ranking of the completed Austen novels. I'm curious to see how it stands as I finish my Austen reread. In short, I really loved this one, more than I remember.

I really like Fanny Price. She's so steadfast. She's strong in her own way. I like that she knows her morals and sticks to them, even at the attacks of pretty much everyone in her family. She doesn't let admiration or anything else cloud her judgement. I found myself frustrated at times when she felt she couldn't say something because it'd ruin someone else's reputation, even though her own was being ruined at the time. But she really was strong in her convictions.

Our heroine, Edmund, is a little more difficult. Early on, he's easy to like. He takes Fanny under his wing, welcoming her to a family that seems disinclined to really get to know her. He befriends her, teaches her, and they have wonderful talks together. It's easy to see how she falls in love with him. But when he falls for Mary Crawford and finds every possible reason to excuse the lady's bad behavior, it becomes grating to listen to. Of course, it's completely realistic. I, myself, have defended a horrendous boyfriend. I find, however, that he doesn't seem to ever really be in love with Fanny until the very end.

The supporting cast is your standard Austen affair. Mrs. Norris and Lady Bertram in particular are the two personalities that seem to be written most for social commentary and humor. While it's hard to view Mrs. Norris as anything other than odious, there's some comfort in knowing that she's always going to act the same way. We all know those people or have someone in our family where they say something, and you know it's solely to make them look good even though they have no intention of following through. And if they are forced to follow through, they do so in such bad humor. Lady Bertram, the woman of clear learned helplessness. Mr. Rushworth, as well, lends to a ridiculousness that is up there with Mrs. Bennet and many Austen supporting casts.

The cousins and the Crawfords are the anthesis to Fanny. Where Fanny is steadfast in her morals and her sense of self, Maria, Julia, Tom, and then Mary and Henry Crawford, are all people of questionable character. In general, the Crawfords seem incredibly disingenous. Looking for a good time, and not caring about hurting people's feelings. I had a very hard time believeing Henry could ever be in love with Fanny. It seemed mainly a fancy brought on out of boredom and taken to an extreme before realizing that maybe it wasn't worth it. While I think Mary truly did love Edmund, her playfulness had a bite to it that wasn't so kind. Her prejudice without any sense of self-awareness or reflection was difficult to bear.

As for Maria and Julia... well, they are what they are. I suppose Maria really did feel trapped. She'd rather be free of her father's house and in a loveless marriage than stuck there til the possibility of something better came. But I was so angry at her for not taking him up on his offer to let her OUT of the engagement. It's one of those things where I have to remember just how little freedom women had back then.

Overall, I'm glad this is the book that finished out my year. Enjoyable, funny at times, and just a good read. This book counts for my Austen challenge.

In the New Year, I plan on watching some adaptations of both Emma and Mansfield Park. No reviews for them. Just something fun for me to watch. I'm also planning on finishing up the rest of Austen's novels and all her unfinished works. I've already posted my 2020 goals here, and by the end of today, a recap of 2019 will go up.

Firefly: Big Damn Hero by James Lovegrove

Title: Firefly: Big Damn Hero

Author: James Lovegrove

Pages: 334

Finished: December 21, 2019

First Sentence: So here's how it is...

Summary: The Serenity Crew take on a shipment of explosives. Before leaving port though, Mal's kidnapped by n'er-do-wells. Meanwhile the Alliance is closing in on the Tams and the cargo is getting more and more unstable.

Background:  Back in the early aughts, Joss Whedon had three shows on air: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly. Buffy and Angel were long lived. We watched Buffy as a family, and once it ended, we moved onto Angel. And when Firefly came out, we were hooked.

Of course, it was confusing. Fox aired it out of order. As kids, we assumed it was just the way the show was, though I remember my parents being a bit more frustrated than we were at continuity errors that weren't errors. Just out of order airing. More frustrating for us kids was the fact that baseball playoffs were also happening. Many times, we'd turn on the TV to watch Firefly only to be met with baseball. I've never been a sports fan, but I really hated baseball. Also, the show aired at 7PM on Friday nights. Not a huge issue. I had no life. And we often recorded shows anyway on a good old VHS player so we could watch later and fastforward through the commercials.

Even with all that, we loved Firefly, and were very disappointed when it seemingly disappeared. We bought the DVD set when it came out and watched it fairly regularly. I may say I'm a Trekkie, or a fan of Zelda or any other thing, but my true fandom identity is Browncoat. I've written Firefly fanfic. I've played Malcolm Reynolds in a few RPGs. I LOVE Firefly. And while I harbored secret hopes that it'd be back, (I remember dragging a boyfriend to Serenity when it came out. He wasn't as into it as I was.) I've long come to the conclusion that it's over. I don't want them playing around in the universe on screen anymore. I'm happy for new Star Trek, new Star Wars, new Zelda, and new Doctor Who. But I want Firefly to stay what it is.

But a book? Well, that could be fun. So when I saw this on a recently returned cart at work, I picked it up.

Thoughts: As I've said before, I LOVE Firefly. It's the shiniest show in the 'verse even if it only had half a season. My first child is named after one of the characters, and I have most of the other crewmember's names on a list for my second child.

The book... fell flat.

There was lots of good. Characterization was top notch. These are definitely the characters I know and love. I heard their voices in my head so clearly as I was reading. I saw their mannerisms. The dialogue was spot on. Definitely ten out of ten for characters. Even Badger was perfect.

The storyline was decent. I can definitely see this being filmed and made into an episode. There were no problems there.

The issue comes from translating a television show into a novel. Things that can be described with a sweep of a camera are now gigantic paragraphs of adjectives. And not well written, satirical paragraphs that read like poetry. Nope, this is straight up fanfiction writing. In fact, there are descriptions that feel like they're lifted from fanfiction I wrote. Not that I'm screaming plagiarism. There's only so many ways you can describe dusty, out of luck towns. It just read as very amateur.

One of the other issues in translating television to print is suddenly figuring out what characters are thinking. We can guess from a characters expressions and actions, maybe even their dialogue, what they're thinking. But in print, there's actual thought being conveyed. Sometimes I agreed with it, other times, not so much. Like I said, I have my own thoughts on how the characters act and what their motivations are. I have my own fanfiction.

And again, I don't necessarily think this is a bad novel. It just wasn't an episode of the show. And that's where my biggest hang up is. This is fanfiction published in novel format. Heck, I'll probably read the rest of the series even because it's more Firefly. It's easy and quick. And it definitely makes me want to watch the series again.

You can't take the sky from me. 

2020 Goals/Challenges

I thought long and hard before committing to any challenges this year. The reason for that is that I'm pregnant with my second child! It's due in May. But with that being said, I have no idea just how things are going to go between time and brain power. I considered not joining any and just being directionless, but then decided I probably wouldn't end up reading at all if I did that. So I've signed up for a few and decided to continue my others. However, I'm not going to feel bad if pregnancy/new mom brain takes me completely off track. As long as I'm reading, I consider that a win.

1. Beat the Backlist / Virtual Mount To Be Read
   Last year, I participated in the TBR challenge from Roofbeam Reader. I did poorly in it, and it's not coming back this year. So I've found some others. Both Beat the Backlist and Virtual Mount To Be Read seem like they'll fit the bill. If you scroll down, you'll see twelve books I'm going to use to start, BUT books listed in the other challenges will count as they've been part of my Backlist / Mount To Be Read. However, the other challenges are a little more specific in their rules. For Beat the Backlist, I'm on Team Borrowers. For Virtual Mount TBR I'm starting at the Mount Crumpit level which is 24 books.

2. Read "half the books" remaining on my Classics Club list

    Half is in quotes because a number of the books on my list are SUPER long. So I added together the page lengths of the books and divided it in half. In 2020, I hope to read approximately 3000 pages from my list which comes out to either three chunky books or basically all the other ones. Hopefully I can fit these into some Back to the Classics Categories as well.

3. Complete my Newford Collection Challenge
    This feels doable. I enjoy reading De Lint so I don't think this will be too difficult at all. Of course, since this is lower down on my priority list, and there are a lot of books to read, there's a fair chance that I won't get through this one. But that's okay.

4. Complete my Austen Challenge

    Last year I decided to read all of Austen's writings including novels, novellas, unfinished works, and juvenilia. Midway through the year, I added a modern book that someone had written a favorable review for. And then I dropped this challenge to low priority. It's low priority this year too, but I would like to finish it if possible.

5. Reading Classic Books
    It seemed as though Back to the Classics was not coming back this year, so I searched and found a similar challenge that I signed up for called Reading Classic Books. While I have gone ahead and fit some books I plan on reading this year into the categories, this is by no means a final list.

6. Library Love Challenge - January
    Natural challenge for me to join as 99% of the books I read come from the library. In fact, looking at the books listed below, at least 40 of them will be checked out from the library.

7. Back to the Classics
    Looks like it did come back. Categories listed below. My aim is to fit six of my books this year into the categories. I have an idea of what will go where... but of course, that depends on what I actually read! Books listed are completely subject to change.

Beat the Backlist / Virtual Mount To Be Read:

1. Nights At the Circus - Angela Carter 
2. Endless Night by Agatha Christie 
3. Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow 
4. The Impossible Girl by Lydia Kang
5. Water for Elephants - Sarah Gruen
6. Practical Magic - Alice Hoffman
7. The Snow Child - Eowyn Ivey 
8. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
9. Heart's Blood by Juliet Marilier
10. Uprooted by Naomi Novik
11. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - Natasha Pulley
12. The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer

Remaining Books on Classics Club List:

1. Atwood, Margaret - The Handmaid's Tale
2. Austen, Jane - Sanditon and Other Tales
3. Barrie, J.M. - Peter Pan
4. Byatt, A.S. - Possession
5. Cervantes, Miguel de - Don Quixote
6. Dickens, Charles - Martin Chuzzlewit
7. Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan - A Study in Scarlet
8. Forster, E.M. - A Room with a View
9. Shakespeare, William - Twelfth Night 
10. Shakespeare, William - A Winter's Tale (folger shakespeare library ILL)
11. Steinbeck, John - East of Eden
12. Thackeray, William Makepeace - Vanity Fair
13. Tolstoy, Leo - Anna Karenina
14. Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Grey

Remaining Books in Newford Collection:

1. Trader (novel)
2. Someplace to Be Flying (novel)
3. Moonlight and Vines (collection)
4. Forests of the Heart (novel)
5. The Onion Girl (novel)
6. Tapping the Dream Tree (collection)
7. Spirits in the Wires (novel)
8. Medicine Road (novella)
9. The Blue Girl (YA)
10. Widdershins (novel)
11. Make a Joyful Noise (YA) (available in Crow Girls)
12. The Cats of Tanglewood Forest
13. The Hour Before Dawn (IN Muse and Reverie)
14. Old Man Crow (In The Very Best of Charles de Lint)
15. Little Grrl Lost (Find somewhere (buy?))
16. Promises to Keep
17. Dingo
18. Muse and Reverie (collection)

Austen Challenge

1. Northanger Abbey
2. Persuasion
3. Pride and Prejudice
4. Letters to Pemberley
5. Sanditon and other Stories

Reading Classic Books

1. Over 500 pages - Anna Karenina
2. POC author or main character ???
3. Set in country other than where I live - Peter Pan OR A Study in Scarlet
4. Translation - Don Quixote
5. New to you author - A Room With a View
6. Poetry ???
7. 1800-1860 - Persuasion
8. LGBT author or main character: Picture of Dorian Gray
9. Woman Author - Pride and Prejudice
10. Novella - Lady Susan
11. Nonfiction ???
12. Banned or censored: Twelfth Night

Back to the Classics

1. 19th Century Classic. - Martin Chuzzlewit
2. 20th Century Classic. - A Room With a View
3. Classic by a Woman Author. - Pride and Prejudice
4. Classic in Translation. - Don Quixote
5. Classic by a Person of Color. ???
6. A Genre Classic. - Peter Pan OR A Study in Scarlet
7. Classic with a Person's Name in the Title. - Picture of Dorian Gray
8. Classic with a Place in the Title. - Northanger Abbey
9. Classic with Nature in the Title. - A Winter's Tale
10. Classic About a Family - Anna Karenina
11. Abandoned Classic - East of Eden
12. Classic Adaptation. - Twelfth Night

Back to the Classics 2019 Wrap Up

Total Number of entries: 1 (started a 9th to make 2, but made the decision to not finish it) 

Contact: notrosesshadow [at] gmail [dot] com

19th Century Classic: Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens (1897) 

FINISHED 6/9/19 - Pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this. Neat bit of history too.

Classic by a Female Author: Daniel Deronda by George Eliot (1876) 

FINISHED 10/29/19 - Wanted to like this much more than I did. Beginning and end were fine, but bogged down in the middle.

Classic in Translation: The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (1883) 

FINISHED 2/1/19 - rather simplistic, ridiculous, and not very fun to read. Clearly a children's book.

Classic Comedy: Emma by Jane Austen (1815) 

FINISHED 11/14/19 - While not my favorite Austen, one of my favorite books read for this challenge. I love Austen so much.

Classic Tragedy: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (1847) 

FINISHED 5/20/19 - I hate this book. I hate this book more than any other book I've ever read. 

Classic Novella: Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote (1958) 

FINISHED 6/21/19 - As underwhelmed with the book as I was with the movie.

Classic From the Americas: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1967) 

FINISHED 6/18/19 - most surreal reading experience I've had in a while. Loved the book even as I disliked most of the characters and story...

Classic From a Place You've Lived: Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes 

FINISHED 3/17/19. Better than Augie March, though the bits I enjoyed most were the actual discussions of Chicago. 

20th Century Classic: The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsanay (1925)
GAVE UP 12/16/10 - Underwhelming and uninspiring. Hard to focus on.

The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany

Title: The King of Elfland's Daughter

Author: Lord Dunsany

Pages: 240

Finished: DNF December 16, 2019

First Sentence: In their ruddy jackets of leather that reached to their knees the men of Erl appeared before their lord, the stately white-haired man in his long red room.

Summary: The Parliament of Erl decide they wish to be ruled by a fairy ruler rather than a human one. So the King sends his son to steal the daughter of the Elf King and wed her so a human son will be Otherworldly.

Thoughts: I'm returning this book unfinished. Mainly, I'm finding myself watching more TV than reading, which, as I've learned this past year, means I'm not interested in the book I'm reading. Instead of forcing my way through it, I'm going to keep going.

I wanted to like this book. Humans marrying members of Faerie are some of my favorite stories. I was thrilled. And then Neil Gaiman wrote a lovely introduction that had me even more excited about the book.

It came down to language, I think. I was interested in the story, but found parsing out the sentences wearying. Often I'd find myself two pages in with no idea what had happened, then having to go back to read again, closer. It took a long time to make it to page 73, and I just wasn't interested in continuing the slog.

The other thing I find interesting is how the story has moved along so far. In 73 pages, the prince in the land has stolen the Elf Princess away and married her, had a kid with her, and then got mad at her for not following his religion, so she's gone back to Elfland. I'm not quite sure what else is going to happen in the other 160 pages. Likely a hunt for her. But again, I'm not interested in finding out. The book reads like a history book with more flowy language.

In short, I'm disappointed. Perhaps this is a result of being pregnant and I'll do better if I try again in two years. Or perhaps this just isn't the book for me.

Read for Back to the Classics 20th Century but not finished.