Reading

[ironymaiden]

a lot of long-awaited library holds came through for me, some wonderful and one remarkably disappointing.

i've now read all of The Murderbot Diaries series to date and they are just as good as people say they are.* there's a nice drip of character growth and mysteries solved per novella. Murderbot the self-aware jailbroken SecUnit is a delightfully unreliable narrator, not about events but about their feelings and their friendships. i like the worldbuilding (so much capitalism, itty bitty drones, bingewatching, pretending to be human is so relatable) and especially the behind-the-scenes world of ubiquitous artificial intelligence.

i have also read The House in the Cerulean Sea; where a depressed social worker inspects an orphanage full of nice people. i know that it is supposed to be heartwarming and is beloved by many but it really didn't work for me.
the whole thing reads like a middle-grade novel but it is also about a sad office drone having a midlife crisis. i assumed it was a litfic author's fantasy project - no awareness of the tropes, sketchy worldbuilding, heavy with the metaphor - but apparently Klune has written some other genre fiction; i won't be checking that out. it's massively preachy and the romance...well it isn't. the protagonist and his dude barely spend any time together, they don't really develop a friendship beyond both of them liking the same group of orphans. it's a white savior narrative where the nonmagical dude comes in from the outside and fixes things for all the downtrodden magical people. there are two characters identified as black; one is a magical negro lady and the other literally turns into an animal. also one of the kids is the Antichrist and that means that Satan is real in this world?!?**

so somehow there don't seem to be magical adults around at all (genocide?) just a lot of kids in institutions. the happy ending is that the protagonist and the dude who runs the little orphanage get married and adopt all the kids. i wanted to be all heart-warmed like other people were but i was not. it felt unearned.

so anyway, i when i dislike something that's beloved, i internet for other people who didn't like it and oh wow. unfortunately the author says that he was inspired by the sixties scoop and the more recent separation of refugee families and WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH HIM, HAVING THE KIDS ADOPTED OUT WITHOUT CONTACT WITH THEIR CULTURE IS NOT AN INSPIRATIONAL ENDING. (also most of the kids are endangered species/last of their kind so that also plays into the whole narrative that indigenous people don't exist in the present. gross.)

i think i forgot to mention that i bought every Restaurant to Another World light novel that is available in English to read while we were camping in August. they are just as delightful as the anime. the books include more recurring characters, more of the culture of the fantasy world, and more about the life of the chef.


*i deeply resent that the ebook novellas cost the same as a thousand-page paperback novel so i'll still be sticking with the eternal library hold wait for the next one.
**and therefore also Christianity is real and it's the End Times?

Comments

[swingandswirl]

I had planned to read the Klune book, so thanks for the warning! One less book on the TBR...

Isn't Murderbot wonderful? I'm not a huge fan of first person so I've only finished the first novella, but I really enjoyed it. (And yes, re: the prices, which is why I happily snagged them when Tor did a giveaway as part of the novel release.)

[oracne]

MURDERBOT.

Thanks for the Klune review, someone gifted it to me and it's good to have warnings.

[ironymaiden]

I don't think my feelings should stop you from attempting to read it. There are some very nice scenes with the kiddos and I would happily read more about the gnome hanging out with the garden store owner.

[oracne]

I will get to it eventually, sigh. So much TBR, wow.

[sartorias]

I was planning to read the klune . . . thank you for taking that bullet for me.

[yourlibrarian]

I am starting the first Murderbot book tonight!

[novel_machinist]

OK, the Murderbot Diaries is going on my good reads account

[helvetica]

ohh man I love Murderbot! They are just so fun and sometimes yes they are a bit predictable but often they surprise me. I love the depth of characters and all the different types of people and bots you get to meet. I want to watch an episode of Sanctuary Moon

[ironymaiden]

I'm also interested in the adventure series that ART liked.

[lovelyangel]

I so much want to read Murderbot... but they're all in the virtual backlog behind my physical tsundoku. I keep saying I'll finally attack the backlog of books when I retire – which might happen sooner than my original plan (but not soon enough).

I suspect the books for Restaurant to Another World are better than the anime. I watched the anime and thought it was fine – pleasant and entertaining – but not special and memorable. A second season is being broadcast next month.

[ironymaiden]

I'm not sure the light novels would do much more for you, it's really just a small expansion on the same stories and others that haven't been adapted yet. It has a special place in my heart because I needed some extra-comforting media while Trump was happening

[flexagon]

Fascinating. I had some of the same thoughts about Lucy but not nearly the same strong reactions you're having. I feel like the strength of the Klune is in the narrative tone, much more than it is in the worldbuilding... it was like a gentler, more adult Lemony Snicket narrative voice.

I don't disagree with your points but they don't ruin the book for me.

[ironymaiden]

Cheers, I definitely see where you're coming from.

I know that the book was a simple pleasure for a lot of folks that read it, and my expectations were high based on all the praise I had seen. I think maybe I would have liked it more had I a)not just finished Murderbot, which did meet expectations and b)not been reading a lot of romance and fix-it fanfic in the past year+.

[varina8]

Thanks for the reviews. I was curious and clicked through to the Klune interview. My sense is his heart is in the right place but he was working from a very naive world view.

Let me add, I haven't read the book so I could be way off the mark. Still, I get the idea he isn't familiar with the Indian Child Welfare Act or the issues it was intended to address. If he was, it might have steered him around some very large landmines and given him a better sense of what he was wading into.

Cross-cultural adoption is contentious as anything out here in the world. C refused to apply for his tribal card because he didn't feel he had the cultural grounding, even though he met the blood guidelines. A sensitivity reader aware of the issues might have made a difference.

[dhampyresa]

HAVING THE KIDS ADOPTED OUT WITHOUT CONTACT WITH THEIR CULTURE IS NOT AN INSPIRATIONAL ENDING

YIKES