What Are You Reading Wednesday

[shipperx]

What Have You Just Finished Reading?
Sherry Thomas' "Not Quite A Husband":  An estranged British couple is caught in an uprising against the British in turn of the (19th to 20th) century Pakistan (though that area was part of India at that particular time).

I felt a bit 'blind' re: the locale and the political conflict of this one.  I don't know much about it, and I didn't feel that the book told me more than the very basics.  Plus, I didn't think  the locale was described well enough to 'see it' in my minds eye.  (As a kid, I remember reading 'Merlin's Keep' and being enthralled with 19th Century Tibet. I've retained some of that fascination ever since.  This book didn't bring that sense of place).  However, I did like the developmental stages of the characters' estrangement with their long term marital problems and the emotional minefield that the story navigated.  The situation effectively prevents them from running from one another (as they would've if not prevented from doing so) and forced them to depend on one another such that they actually have to reveal, discuss, and face their issues, which they never would have done otherwise.  So, while I would've liked more background, I did like the central emotional arc.


What Are You Reading Now?
The Leopard Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt


What Are You Reading Next?
Haven't thought that far ahead. 

Comments

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I thought the sleep sex was used as a way of slipping past conscious emotional barriers that they had placed. I don't know that they would've achieved intimacy without by-passing those barriers near the beginning. Though, I thought at the time when reading it that there would no doubt be kerfuffles over this. Still, I was unbothered. I thought it worked in an almost (but not quite) metaphorical way.

And what I liked was that there was no 'good guy' and 'bad guy' in the relationship. Both did hurtful things. Both were hurt. Neither is really afforded the moral high ground here and has to accept. Yes, hurtful things were done to me AND I also did incredibly hurtful things to this other person. Then their learning that if they wanted a future together they had to find a way of working through and beyond that.

I liked that they were both flawed and -- almost despite themselves -- long loving (even when it would've made sense for either of them to have fallen out of love long ago.)

Wicked Intentions - review

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh - I finished Wicked Intentions finally and posted my review to my LJ - it's long. So here's the link:

http://shadowkat67.livejournal.com/1019249.html

Short answer: unless you have unresolved issues regarding Spuffy in S6, not sure you'd like it. Felt like the writer was trying to work out those issues through the central relationship in this novel. (Hey we've all been there.)
But not sure she accomplished it. (Seen it done better elsewhere in fan fic, actually.)

Warning: Went into a side rant on people criticizing novels as being like fic, which you may or may not want to skip over. I've decided some self-published or fan-fics are better written than the published ones because evil marketing people haven't tinkered with the content. ;-)

Re: Wicked Intentions - review

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

(Hey we've all been there.)

Hell, when I dip my toe back into fic, I still do!