ghosthermione-reads

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in better reading news, i read Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle (in audio) and I really enjoyed it, although i'm not normally keen on contemporary horror. It was great fun (and I'm a little sad i could not ID the different narrators just from the voice)

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reading Gilgamesh The King by Silverberg. so cringe in its show of masculinity.

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Wooing the Witch Queen

I originally knew Stephanie Burgis as a children's writer, but I've been reading her romances for a while now and they never fail to disappoint. I especially like the recurring trope of "Person is rumoured to be a complete monster but is actually a cutie patootie"!

The Plot

Queen Saskia is the wicked sorceress everyone fears. After successfully wrestling the throne from her evil uncle, she only wants one thing: to keep her people safe from the empire next door. For that, she needs to spend more time in her laboratory experimenting with her spells. She definitely doesn’t have time to bring order to her chaotic library of magic.

When a mysterious dark wizard arrives at her castle, Saskia hires him as her new librarian on the spot. “Fabian” is sweet and a little nerdy, and his requests seem a little strange – what in the name of Divine Elva is a fountain pen? – but he’s getting the job done. And if he writes her flirtatious poetry and his innocent touch makes her skin singe, well…

Little does Saskia know that the "wizard" she’s falling for is actually an Imperial archduke in disguise, with no magical training whatsoever. On the run, with perilous secrets on his trail and a fast growing yearning for the wicked sorceress, he's in danger from her enemies and her newfound allies, too. When his identity is finally revealed, will their love save or doom each other? 

The Review

I won an ARC in Stephanie Burgis's newsletter raffle, and I couldn't wait to get to it! I'm very happy she's getting published by Tor, as her books deserve it.

It's sweet, it's fast paced enough and yet you still get to see cute little scenes, there's books and a pet raven involved, and the two main characters are each loads of fun. At the same time, it deals with the heavy issue of abusive families, in a way that I found quite cathartic.

Also, this reader enjoys bisexual main characters in romance, who don't end up "choosing" a side when they pick a love interest! it shouldn't need saying but it still does sooooo this book gets all the points.

I'm looking forward to the two more books hinted at in the series! I forgot how reading ARCs means you have to wait longer for the next one...

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been clearing out loads of smaller works off the TBR. some of the novelettes were freely available online and some were stuff I'd gotten as freebies. For anything else I'm looking on Everand and if it's not there I ask myself if I still want to read it or nah.

my number of books read this month is way overinflated because of that, but that means my 2025 stats will be more accurate.

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annoyed at the (user-created) Storygraph challenges that are like "physically read, with your eyes" "paper or digital"

my ears are part of my body too. people who read braille presumably do it physically (with their fingers). an audiobook is a book. if you have issues with that, maybe reevaluate why.

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I enjoy a cosy mystery and a cosy fantasy novel. so Ive been devouring the Weary Dragon Inn series, starting with Drinks and Sinkholes, as my audio series this winter.

there's an inkeeper, there's food, there's weird animals, there's a diverse cast of characters, and some weird and magical mysteries to solve. whats not to like!

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started too many storygraph challenges and they each have One Prompt Left that aren't compatible with each other. I have at LEAST 4 books to finish in the next 10 days...

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i won this gorgeous arc from Stephanie Burgis and im really enjoying the first few chapters. I love a good case of misunderstood identities as the basis of romance

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“This is what Shakespeare would have wanted.”

“Shakespeare wouldn’t have wanted this.”

No! You’re both wrong! Shakespeare wanted one thing and one thing only. To sell tickets.

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trying to read the short freebies i accumulated over the past year, and i do really wish the storygraph had the option not to count a book towards your yearly count (but still count the pages, and still write the date of reading).

otoh ill just pretend im now at 100+ books even though a bunch have under 30 pages

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I've been clearing my TBR of all the short stories I put on it that are available for free and never read.

A few recs:

The Dryad's Shoe by T. Kingfisher:

Cinderella retelling like only Kingfisher can come up with. Fun, upbeat, short, involves birds and bees but not how you think.

Compulsory, By Martha Wells:

Murderbot before All Systems Red, being the dysfunctional bot construct we know and love

The Angel of Khan El-Khalili, by P. Djèlí Clark

Same Cairo as Master of Djinn and the Haunting of Tram Car 015, different but equally spunky main character.

I think the last two can serve as good intros for those universes, but I equally love a good standalone short story, and both Angel and Dryad work without any extra context

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trying to decide on my reading goals for next year and I think, like I said last time, I want to keep having an incentive to make myself read. but I do also want to be able to choose other hobbies when I want to, and not create any pressure.

I can always raise the goals if they are too unchallenging.

i started 2024 with the goals of 90 books, 500 hours, 7500 pages. I brought it up/down to 95 books, 450 hours, 11000 pages.

So for 2025 I'm thinking 75 books (still counting shorter works as books bc it's too annoying not to with the way the storygraph works), 400 hours and 8000 pages.

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my favorite thing is when murderbot has too many things going on and replies to a question with a canned buffer phrase. its so funny to me. you stressed out this poor robot so much it had no choice but to go into customer service mode.

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Ok, I've seen this sentiment before, but the amount of Kindle Unlimited ads I've been seeing is forcing me to repeat it-

Kindle Unlimited is offering two free months of unlimited ebooks. As a trial. Which will then become a paid subscription.

Your local library is offering unlimited ebooks all the time. Forever. No contracts, no predatory practices, no tracking of how long you spend on each particular page in the hopes that information about your habits can be sold for a profit.

Use your library. They want so badly to give you all of the things for free.

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I feel like we need a refresher on Watsonian vs Doylist perspectives in media analysis. When you have a question about a piece of media - about a potential plot hole or error, about a dubious costuming decision, about a character suddenly acting out of character -

A Watsonian answer is one that positions itself within the fictional world.

A Doylist answer is one that positions itself within the real world.

Meaning: if Watson says something that isn't true, one explanation is that Watson made a mistake. Another explanation is that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made a mistake.

Watsonian explanations are implicitly charitable. You are implicitly buying into the notion that there is a good in-world reason for what you're seeing on screen or on the page. ("The bunny girls in Final Fantasy wear lingerie all the time because they're from a desert culture!")

Doylist explanations are pragmatic. You are acknowledging that the fiction is shaped by real-world forces, like the creators' personal taste, their biases, the pressures they might be under from managers or editors, or the limits of their expertise. ("The bunny girls in Final Fantasy wear lingerie because somebody thought they'd sell more units that way.")

Watsonian explanations tend to be imaginative but naive. Seeking a Watsonian explanation for a problem within a narrative is inherently pleasure-seeking: you don't want your suspension of disbelief to be broken, and you're willing to put in the leg work to prevent it. Looking for a Watsonian answer can make for a fun game! But it can quickly stray into making excuses for lazy or biased storytelling, or cynical and greedy executives.

Doylist explanations are very often accurate, but they're not much fun. They should supersede efforts to provide a Watsonian explanation where actual harm is being done: "This character is being depicted in a racist way because the creators have a racist bias.'" Or: "The lore changed because management fired all of the writers from last season because they didn't want to pay then residuals."

Doylism also runs the risk of becoming trite, when applied to lower stakes discrepancies. Yes, it's possible that this character acted strangely in this episode because this episode had a different writer, but that isn't interesting, and it terminates conversation.

I think a lot of conversations about media would go a lot more smoothly, and everyone would have a lot more fun, if people were just clearer about whether they are looking to engage in Watsonian or Doylist analysis. How many arguments could be prevented by just saying, "No, Doylist you're probably right, but it's more fun to imagine there's a Watsonian reason for this, so that's what I'm doing." Or, "From a Watsonian POV that explanation makes sense, but I'm going with the Doylist view here because the creator's intentions leave a bad taste in my mouth that I can't ignore."

Idk, just keep those terms in your pocket? And if you start to get mad at somebody for their analysis, take a second to see if what they're saying makes more sense from the other side of the Watsonian/Doylist divide.

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oh my god god god god god my dad just tried to complain about me wearing earrings with ghosts on them because they're "not very festive" so i said Well Actually ghosts are very appropriate for christmastime and he said tell you what if you can show me a single christmas themed thing that has ghosts in it i won't say another word about your fashion choices this entire holiday. i Promise. so i got him to lean in realllllll close as i opened up the browser app on my phone and slowly began to type "A CHRISTMAS CAROL" while the blood rapidly drained from his face.

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Knightober 2024 by Hannah Alexander Artwork