Recent books
Aug. 16th, 2025 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
halfcactusMost of these I've been reading on and off for 3+ months and only just finished. I also accidentally closed all my tabs in my mobile browser, so my reading list got even cleaner. ^^;
Burning Houses & Hush Harbor by Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta
Two poetry collections compiled in one volume.
This made me feel extremely un-literary but it did make me slow down and take my time reading each poem and enjoying the rhythm. I posted some of them here: Crust of Bread, and Such—, Gilding, Landscape, Phototaxis, Stay, Temper/7 Down
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Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao
Romance/fantasy novel set in modern-day Tokyo. The FL is the heir to a mystical pawnshop that trades in forfeited choices, and the ML is a Japanese-diaspora scientist who stumbles upon it. Together they traverse the fantastical twists and turns of Other Tokyo in search of the FL's missing father.
I wanted to like this because the author is Filipino and the "magical shop" concept seems hard to mess up, but...
This novel feels like an attempt to meld the animated whimsy in Ghibli movies with the surreal coming-of-age journeys in Murakami novels, but only on the aesthetic level. Mostly it comes off as an outsider trying so hard to evoke an authentic Japanese experience to other outsiders through a relatively Orientalist PoV. According to the acknowledgements at the end, this novel has been vibe-checked by a Japanese reader, so at least there was some effort...? The plot relies too heavily on dream logic. As one would expect, there are Deep Philosophical Musings about the concepts of ~kintsugi~ and ~ikigai~ and this kind of dialogue:
The last 30% of the book was surprisingly better than the first 70% because it dropped a lot of the annoying stuff so I could finally see the author's vision of the story. It's not a very good story as it feels mostly focused on """world-building""" (it's imaginative, I'll give it that), but it is a story, one that I think could have thematically stuck the landing for me if it ended with regret and the main leads walking away from each other the way their theoretical bio-moms walked away from them.
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The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner
Fun, quirky, sweet, and occasionally dark f/f romantasy about a petty criminal from the slums with a knack for fire magic. Faced with the threat of eviction, she joins a team of ladies who are tasked to escort and protect a soon-to-be-wed noble. Among the recruits are a motherly necromancer, a daughterly shapeshifter, an uptight magician in wizarding school, and the love interest—a posh half-troll, half-human illusionist/combatant named Winn.
The MC is a prickly bi disaster with a lot of flings and the FL is cheerfully warm, easygoing, and socially adept in most situations, but sheltered, shy, and prim when it comes to romantic relationships.
I found the characters really likeable here! It has an excellent ensemble cast where every character has their own motivation, but the PoV is very focused on Dellaria, who comes from the slums and struggles a lot with class differences and privilege gaps, on top of the present stress of having to look after her neglectful and drug-addicted mother that she both loves and loathes. The banter is believable and the tension between characters is real, especially towards the later parts of the novel where Dellaria (MC), Abstentia (uptight magician), and Miss Totham (necromancer) are getting increasingly frayed by the plot developments.
tl;dr - Great protagonist, great ensemble cast and character voices (this would be great as an audio drama), great angst, with a well-paced romance arc with interesting conflicts. Made me feel things. And Buttons the familiar is amazing.
Burning Houses & Hush Harbor by Mookie Katigbak-LacuestaTwo poetry collections compiled in one volume.
This made me feel extremely un-literary but it did make me slow down and take my time reading each poem and enjoying the rhythm. I posted some of them here: Crust of Bread, and Such—, Gilding, Landscape, Phototaxis, Stay, Temper/7 Down
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Water Moon by Samantha Sotto YambaoRomance/fantasy novel set in modern-day Tokyo. The FL is the heir to a mystical pawnshop that trades in forfeited choices, and the ML is a Japanese-diaspora scientist who stumbles upon it. Together they traverse the fantastical twists and turns of Other Tokyo in search of the FL's missing father.
I wanted to like this because the author is Filipino and the "magical shop" concept seems hard to mess up, but...
This novel feels like an attempt to meld the animated whimsy in Ghibli movies with the surreal coming-of-age journeys in Murakami novels, but only on the aesthetic level. Mostly it comes off as an outsider trying so hard to evoke an authentic Japanese experience to other outsiders through a relatively Orientalist PoV. According to the acknowledgements at the end, this novel has been vibe-checked by a Japanese reader, so at least there was some effort...? The plot relies too heavily on dream logic. As one would expect, there are Deep Philosophical Musings about the concepts of ~kintsugi~ and ~ikigai~ and this kind of dialogue:
Hana said. "But if you feel that you must call it something, then you may call it Isekai."
Other world. Keishin translated the word in his head, convinced that his Japanese was rustier than he thought. "This is a dream," he said, more to himself than to Hana. "It has to be."
"I might. He works at the Kyoiku Hakubutsukan."
"The Museum of Education?"
"She is not in line. She is one of the kashu."The writing is lifeless and prone to overexplaining every single idea and the characters talk like robots, which if you're being generous, you can explain with the last-act reveal that
"A singer?"
Hana nodded. "These docks belong to the kashu. Each kashu takes you to a different place."
major spoilers
1) Other Tokyo is inherently soulless (its denizens get their souls from forfeited choices; their souls and the names of their soulmates are inscribed on their skin as a map of their "destiny", and they're not allowed to make choices that deviate from their destiny); 2) Both of the leads are products of forfeited choices/regrets (the choices that would lead to them being born), sold to the pawnshop and then "released" into the world, so they're not exactly "real" people, even though they live like real people...The last 30% of the book was surprisingly better than the first 70% because it dropped a lot of the annoying stuff so I could finally see the author's vision of the story. It's not a very good story as it feels mostly focused on """world-building""" (it's imaginative, I'll give it that), but it is a story, one that I think could have thematically stuck the landing for me if it ended with regret and the main leads walking away from each other the way their theoretical bio-moms walked away from them.
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The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry by C.M. WaggonerFun, quirky, sweet, and occasionally dark f/f romantasy about a petty criminal from the slums with a knack for fire magic. Faced with the threat of eviction, she joins a team of ladies who are tasked to escort and protect a soon-to-be-wed noble. Among the recruits are a motherly necromancer, a daughterly shapeshifter, an uptight magician in wizarding school, and the love interest—a posh half-troll, half-human illusionist/combatant named Winn.
The MC is a prickly bi disaster with a lot of flings and the FL is cheerfully warm, easygoing, and socially adept in most situations, but sheltered, shy, and prim when it comes to romantic relationships.
I found the characters really likeable here! It has an excellent ensemble cast where every character has their own motivation, but the PoV is very focused on Dellaria, who comes from the slums and struggles a lot with class differences and privilege gaps, on top of the present stress of having to look after her neglectful and drug-addicted mother that she both loves and loathes. The banter is believable and the tension between characters is real, especially towards the later parts of the novel where Dellaria (MC), Abstentia (uptight magician), and Miss Totham (necromancer) are getting increasingly frayed by the plot developments.
tl;dr - Great protagonist, great ensemble cast and character voices (this would be great as an audio drama), great angst, with a well-paced romance arc with interesting conflicts. Made me feel things. And Buttons the familiar is amazing.
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Date: 2025-09-01 11:50 am (UTC)Ikigai: I checked the text and it seems like it was just a brief line, so I guess it's not a big deal (Haruto had given Hana his heart a long time ago. And now he had given her his hands. His life's purpose. His ikigai)... I might just have a kneejerk "yikes" reaction because there is this one book called Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life which has popularized ikigai as a Japanese concept (on the internet), lol.
Kintsugi: There's an entire long-winded conversation about how it ~*brings out the beauty of broken things*~, which I commonly see in the Anglosphere. Tbf the most obnoxious thing about this bit is how the dialogue just goes on and on. ^^;
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Date: 2025-09-05 11:52 am (UTC)