My year in trying to find books to read

[olivermoss]

I think my biggest take-away is that some creators I respect have terrible taste in books.

I've been struggling to find books I like. I went a long time without reading any books. I tried to get back into them a few times and kept getting feeling that maybe I was looking for an experience in books that wasn't there. Then, I found some books I actually liked and it was so validating. I can't overstate how good it felt to find books I actually vibed with... but I am not getting into who it was or why I stopped reading them. That's another post.



* I read a bunch of Josh Lanyon books. The relationships were a little flat, but they were readable and she's got lots of them. Then I found out about the BS she's pulled in the past, pretending to be a cis gay guy and lecturing slash writers, even publishing a how-to guide on writing sex ... which is hilarious to me because her sex scenes are awful. I would bet that any cis guy would wince in pain at some of those descriptions.

I kind of have an itch to finish the Scrabble and Secrets series. I don't care about authors being cagey about their gender or publishing under a name of a different gender, but there is a line and she went miles past it. She claimed to be something she's not to try to speak with authority.

* Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. The premise looked interesting and John Rogers tweets a lot about this author. (I've learned that as much as I adore John Rogers I should never read his book reccs. A book recc thread he just retweeted had Terry Miles in it and ... no. I wound up rambling about Terry Miles and that might be a separate post.)

I tried to get through how purple the prose was because I assumed it was part of the theme of the book. But I couldn't make it far.

* The Engineer & The Gangster by C. S. Poe. Two separate books, m/m romance. I really liked the first one and would recc it as a stand alone! The second ... crams way too much in there and not even the author can keep track of all the plot, relationship complications and trauma they try to pack in. But if I pretend The Engineer is a stand alone, it's great. It's one of the better m/m books I've read. I might try a few more books by them and see how they are.

* Strange Medicine: Dr. Maxwell Thornton Murder Mysteries by S.C. Wynne. Bought this randomly off of the kindle store. The characters are deeply unlikable. I kept with it to the end, but the love interest character never stops being an asshole.

* The Atrocities by Jeremy C. Shipp - Another recc from a scriptwriter I follow on twitter, this time Robert Cargill (Scott Derrickson's co-writer on many projects). It's a horror novel being made into a movie. It was all style over substance. The plot was an implausible mess. I read to the end to see if the resolution would help it all come together and it was just dumb.

It might make a good film because if they get the visuals right it will look cool?

* Various Jordan L. Hawke books. From what I hear, if I can actually get into this author he is the writer I've been looking for. I've gotten multiple reccs for him, but the insta-lust is too over the top. I've been told that it calms down in later books in his series, but in the early books it's like 'my best friend is dead, I couldn't save them, here comes an officer who thinks I did it and is going to interrogate but but Oh NO that exact eye shape is my weakness... you wouldn't think I'd pop a boner right after seeing my best friend die but here we are!'

I can't get past the protag being in a constant state of arousal no matter what is going on. Him lampshading how ridiculous it is at times doesn't help. I would love to power through to the later books because I've been told that the Whyborne & Griffin series is everything I've been looking for.

* Pressure Head (The Plumber's Mate Mysteries Book 1) JL Merrow - M/M mystery series. It involves someone who was bullied getting involved with their former bully. The protag has ongoing health issues from one of the physical attacks from the bully as a teen. It's apparently dark and complicated and about redemption but I cannot read this book. The victim blaming gives me horrible feelings.

* The Wizard's Butler Book 1 by Nathan Lowell - Urban fantasy involving butlers.

So, this is weird. I am going to have to give this another try. I got this title from an m/m recc list, but I just went to look up something about the book and I am pretty sure it's not m/m. The main character was so calculating that I was put off, but hrmm...

According to wikipedia he is a 'rational science fiction' writer and that's troubling. Is he into LessWrong? Man I wind up with the worst reccs sometimes.

* Kill the Farm Boy: The Tales of Pell (The Tales of Pell Series Book 1) by Kevin Hearne, Delilah S. Dawson. A local trans book club had the third book in this series as their pick for a month and I was going to try to join, but I could not get through this weird, try-hard satire. Also, the club's picks for other months were Neon Yang and Alok Vaid-Menon... so I gave up. If you don't know what's been up with Neon Yang it's ... a LOT. I am not touching their books.

So yeah, a lot of swings and misses. I feel like I tried a few more books than that, but I am going by what my kindle says I bought this year. I think it feels like more because I did finish a bunch of Josh Lanyon stuff.

Stuff I like must be out there, but how to find it? Reccs in fandom spaces haven't worked out yet... though I do have some in my TBR pile. So much is self pub these days that I can't tell the established authors from people tossing up quickly written self-insert fic with serial numbers badly filed off. The algorithms on both Amazon and Audible keep giving me reccs with blurbs that start out promising, but then the third line of the blurb is 'as an omega trying to hide that fact he's an omega'. The book series with fandoms tends to be YA stuff and I can't stand YA. Area book clubs... love Neon Yang so no.

I don't like constantly failing to vibe with books. It makes me feel bad and like I'm too weird to connect with stuff. But I really think the problem is that finding books is a jungle and a lot of people are content to read Kindle Unlimited books that need to be written fast for the writer to make money doing it, so they write fast and do insta-lust to 'get to the good part'. I want books with m/m content, but I am not necessarily looking for smut. I like smut, but also a lot of the audience for books with m/m are there primarily for the buttsex and don't mind the books taking shortbuts to get there. If I wanted no relationship building and a lot of smut I'd be browsing AO3 for K pop RPF. I can get better smut for free.

I feel like I am walking into cake shops and asking for a sandwich. I should go to the sandwich shops but they are all heteronormative and gender existentialist. The metaphor got away from me, but hopefully you can see what I mean. The queer stuff I find is mostly smut or a writer processing trauma by writing near-future YA dystopias. The genre stuff I like (mystery / fantasy / crime / etc ) I don't mind the older stuff like Tolkien and Agatha Christie but the modern stuff just falls flat or is annoying with the gender stuff.

Books I bought but haven't actually read yet:
* Ninefox Gambit (Machineries of Empire Book 1) Yoon Ha Lee
* Confessions of the Fox: A Novel Jordy Rosenberg
* A Marvelous Light (The Last Binding Book 1) Freya Marske
* A Darker Shade of Magic: A Novel (Shades of Magic Book 1) V. E. Schwab
* Death Trick by Richard Stevenson
* Lord of the White Hell Book One (The Cadeleonian Series 1) by Ginn Hale
* Guardian (Aisling Trilogy Book 1) by Carole Cummings
* The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (Dead Djinn Universe) P. Djèlí Clark <- I actually just started reading this
* Salt Magic Skin Magic by Lee Welch

Comments

[muccamukk]

Honestly, the Neon Yang thing, as far as I can tell, is twitter deciding they're the character of the day, despite them... not actually having done anything? I have yet to see actual receipts for anything more than a subtweet well after the fact. But somehow they're the ringleader of a nefarious plot! Which no one can find any evidence of at all! Funny how often the designated punching bag is trans. Again.

But I never could stand Kevin Herne, either, so I might be ??? at that club's recs too.

lot of the audience for books with m/m are there primarily for the buttsex and don't mind the books taking shortbuts to get there.

Beautiful.

I thought after I posted this that I haven't had much luck with M/M recs either, and tend just just rely on fic. I think I've either not finished or not loved the last three books recced to me, maybe the last four.

[olivermoss]

I saw a lot of the Neon Yang stuff as it was unfolding. With the new round of drama happening, I haven't gone looking again, but apparently a lot of what what said around that time got deleted. I didn't personally screencap anything. I don't know if he was as much of a 'ringleader' as some are painting him, but what I saw wasn't good. I tend to stick my nose into these dramas even though I don't post about them.

Oh no... 'shortbuts' I am going to leave that typo there.

At Confab some people said they like the lack of establishing character or a relationship, because they just pretend that m/m books are AUs for their own fave pairing. I don't know how common that is, but if that is a chunk of the audience it would explain a lot.

[muccamukk]

Doesn't Yang use They/Them? Apologies if not.

(I was also there for various rounds of this). I'm suspicious of the "Yang def said way worse things! But they were deleted and absolutely no one in the basket of squirrels paranoid ass fandom kept receipts, so we can't prove it." SureJan.jpg. Was Yang's behaviour ideal? Not really, but the backlash against Yang as the one person to twitter mob because of ultimate responsibility is not making me happy. Furthermore, it doesn't seem like the solution to shutting down trans voices, is shutting down additional trans voices (and it is out and out brigading at this point).

I guess the tl;dr is: I'm personally not prepared to boycott someone's books because they said something shitty on twitter when emotions were high. If I did that, I wouldn't have anyone left to read.

I liked CS Pratt's Witchmark book. It had a nice mix of romance and plot, and the characters felt like people. I haven't read the rest of the series though.

[olivermoss]

You are right. Weirdly, my local groups list Neon as he/him and as one of the FTM authors they read. I should have double checked before I posted.

The whole situation was bad. I don't know if Neon Yang was the worst. I definitely follow and support people who have had not-good behavior in the past, but they also owned it. If Neon had reacted differently in the wake of everything, and wasn't involved in that upcoming mech anthology, I'd feel differently. My deciding that I am not going to support an author isn't a boycott, it's me going 'no, based on what I've seen I don't want to read their books or financially support them, personally'. If other people do like Neon Yang, I am not going to get in their face about it. It's their choice. Unless we are talking Chick-Fil-A or Hobby Lobby, I don't really get into it. Also, this is my personal journal, not transmediaclub I haven't posted about this situation over there for a few reasons.

[oracne]

I like Ginn Hale! I assume you've tried Alexis Hall, K.J. Charles, and Cat Sebastian already?

[writedragon]

K J Charles has some good ones. I second that author.

[olivermoss]

I loved K J Charles early stuff, but I do not like her later stuff. I've heard a lot about Cat Sebastian, but haven't tried their work. I should try Cat's stuff.

[oracne]

Sebastian has a mixture of pairings.

[writedragon]

I understand your frustration. As a fic writer myself, I found "The Library of the Unwritten" by A J Hackwith to be delightful. Premise: All the unfinished books and their characters end up in a little corner of Hell's library; some of the characters escape their books and a bit of chaos ensues. There are f/f, m/m, platonic, and possibly cis relationships (I forget, because relationships are secondary to the story and not the focus), and the story itself is clever and engaging.

[olivermoss]

That is a cool idea! I might check it out, but I am going to get through a bit of my TBR list a bit first.

[rachelmanija]

Have you read Ginn Hale before? I haven't read that series but I LOVE The Rifter (it starts out a bit shaky but ends up amazing) and Wicked Gentlemen.

[olivermoss]

I haven't, but one of their books is in my To Be Read pile. I need to get through that pile, but after a bunch of swings and misses I need to find a way to motivate myself.

[mistressofmuses]

I'm sorry you've had a hard time finding books you enjoy. :/ I agree that there HAS to be something out there that will catch and keep your interest! I just don't know what!

[olivermoss]

Yeah, it's been a mess and I don't really like posting that nothing worked, feels dour. But, I kinda felt like rambling :)

It's also too early for end of the year stuff, but everyplace is doing end of year stuff and I feel like posting wrap ups.

[mistressofmuses]

I caught myself thinking something about "well, I could probably get that done this year..." meaning in 2022. But even in my own head, I've just sort of bypassed the end of the year, haha. Maybe it is seeing all the wrap-up stuff. So it seems perfectly reasonably timed to me.

[olivermoss]

Most wrap up stuff does come early, especially the TV shows. Everyone wants to get stuff out before other people.

I normally don't do end of year stuff, but I am hoping that maybe I can put 2020 behind me. That's what's what happened right? 2020 wound up being at least two years long? Here's hoping it doesn't go on for a 3rd year.

[mistressofmuses]

It's true! So many retrospectives already!

I'll probably do something looking back at the year (to see where I fell with habit tracking and writing if nothing else). But you are 100% correct. 2020 was two years long, and I am absolutely ready to leave it in the damn dust.