yuuago | Reading Wednesday

Finished Reading: Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse. Post-apocalyptic SFF with Navajo/Diné characters. I liked the worldbuilding and the protagonist, but didn't GAF about the protag's love interests. I seem to remember people mentioning finding the ending unsatisfying, or something like that; my attention kind of wandered in the last twenty pages, so I get where they're coming from. But this isn't the end of the story; the sequel, Storm of Locusts, is already out. (Thought it was coming out next year, but I was mistaken. xD ) I might give it a look later.

Also Finished: Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq. I'm somewhat familiar with her music, but hadn't realized until now that she wrote a book. Her prose is really beautiful, and if she writes anything else I'll have to check it out. There's also poetry in this book, and that was also good. I wasn't in the mood for the story this novel was telling, though. Maybe I would have liked it more if I'd read it at a different time.

Currently Reading: Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice. Apocalyptic (?) fiction set in a small northern Anishunaabe community. All power/communication with the outside suddenly cuts out, with no sign of being restored. The prose is a little stiff/mechanical, but I don't mind - the author does a pretty good job of setting up the emergency + building up the community dynamics. I'm halfway through right now, and so far it's relatively cozy, but I have a feeling it's going to get dark pretty soon.

Note to FList: This one might appeal to those of you who like Stand Still, Stay Silent. No magic or monsters in this one (as far as I know), but it's pretty much 100% "surviving an emergency in a small northern community". Very much a Year 0 vibe.

Also currently reading: Trans+: Love, Sex, Romance, and Being You by Kathryn Gonzales and Karen Rayne. Title's self-explanatory. This book is aimed at teens. I am waaayyy outside the target audience for this, to say the least, but I saw it on the new arrivals shelf and felt compelled to pick it up. I'm actually pretty impressed - it's about literally everything you can think of related to being trans, written in a really accessible way, setting out explanations and definitions clearly while acknowledging that there is a lot of variation in the ways people discuss and think about and experience these things. I really wish that books like this (& all of the other books related to LGBT2QA stuff) had been on the library shelves when I was a kid.

Reading Next: In Europe's Shadow: Two Cold Wars and a Thirty-Year Journey Through Romania and Beyond by Robert D. Kaplan. Conversations with the person who beta read my most recent fic made me interested in taking a look at Romanian history, so I decided to see what the library had. Not a whole lot. This one, I had assumed it was a straightforward coverage of 20th + early 21st century history, but the summary (which I should have read first, sigh) describes it as "memoir, travelogue, journalism, and history" ...Which suggests to me that it's mostly going to be about some American's experiences in Romania, rather than actually about Romania itself. I'm going to give it a try anyway, but I'm not expecting much. The other books available in the library are more general Balkan history, rather than Romania specifically, but I might take a look at them later on.

Want to Read: I need to read one more First Nations novel or short story collection, and then I'll be finished with this year's reading goal. :) Suggestions welcome. Examples of authors I've liked are Eden Robinson, Drew Hayden Taylor, Thomas King, and Katherena Vermette. My Goodreads has a list of everything I've read under this category here.