If you liked “Jewish AU where awesome Lady does biology” then you’ll love “Jewish AU where her awesome granddaughter does philology”.
I really appreciated this book, especially the Tolkienesque “evil will oft will evil mar”. And the way Brennan took the diary style of the previous series and let it become this letter and newspaper and diaries approach. Hi Dracula!

A really interesting mix of essays and I appreciated the historical tour at the beginning of this one far more than the one in the CC to SF.
I also loved appreciated the theoretical surveys, although I found the genre ones less...interesting. And, of course, I got some good book recs out of it.

JRR *#€You have to like allegory (or, heh, at least CORDIALLY dislike it) and believing in the afterlife helps too, but what he does here with art and existence is perfect.
Also, on fairy stories basically defined a genre. So, you know. There’s that.

I loved the second half of this book, but my vicarious embarrassment was in FULL SWING for like the first part and also there was a lot of “this situation is insurmountable, if only we had some method of expressing our desires to another human being!”
Which yes, tbf, it’s a romance novel AND is talking about neurodivergence. And also I want more good interspersed between my cringing.
Having said that, this book quietly but emphatically rejects the Madame Butterfly/Miss Saigon narrative. Rather than a woman who gives up her child, she’s one who fights to save her. Rather than prioritizing the Western woman and leaving the Asian protagonist as love always idealized and lost, Esme gets to be a real person, Linh (her mom) gets to be a real person! And she gets to keep her daughter and live. It isn’t the POINT of the novel, but given how prevalent that narrative is, it’s nice to see it entirely balled up and thrown out.

I think this book is better than my experience of reading it, which is my fault for trying to follow an epic on no sleep. So it goes.
What I like so much about this is the balance between mythic modes of narrative and the up closer novelistic mode. The scope and time frame are mythic, but the depth of character development in each short chapter is far richer than myth usually allows.
And, of course, I prefer stories that don’t feel the need to explain all their references and boy does this one deliver on a world that feels mythologically grounded but also doesn’t feel obligated to be a primer for new readers. It was good.
Also I was exhausted while I was reading it and, while I really enjoyed it, I think I would have found it much more...unputdownable in a different mood.

I always appreciate how reasonable the aliens look when we see the world through their eyes and how depressing humans are sometimes.
Which of course is the point.
Butler’s books are always case studies, not precisely arguments, for they are too open ended for that, but they ask questions nonetheless. Can humans get better? How messed up are our priorities ACTUALLY?
Is xenophobia worth dying for? Do we have a choice?
I’m nearing the end of her oeuvre and it’s making me sad.

I somehow forgot to rate this when I read it, but it was brilliant and amazing and I forgot how much the truth of fact the truth of feeling is a must read for the High Holidays.
Why is he so good?!

WTF did I just read?
I feel like that should be a rating. Somehow.
Anyway, if you’re on the lookout for a book that combines...idek A Man for All Seasons with Groundhog Day and set in Italy, have I got a book for you!

So the thing that this book gets REALLY REALLY right is that neither Darcy nor Lizzy - aka Trisha and DJ - are cruel or mean. They're just...arrogant and willfully misreading and deeply sensitive.
So I spent basically the first half of the book cringing because SUCH AWKWARD, these humans.
Which is the point.
There's also something about reading Pride and Prejudice retellings that, because you know what's going to happen, anticipation functions differently and either enhances or gets in the way of speculation. I don't know what to DO with that, although it's there and inevitably part of the story.
Figuring out that the story is heavy on the other flavors is helpful, but I can't help but wonder whether I would have enjoyed it more or less if it wasn't calling itself a gender-swapped P&P. I think I still would have read it.
The gender thing and the question of who gets to be arrogant is also a fascinating part of the story.

I...am like 99% positive that I’ve read this book before and just haven’t read it since I started tracking my reading.
Err, what does a modern orthodox person SAY about the formative texts of 20th century orthodoxy? Thoughtful, provocative, assumes everyone is fundamentally intellectual in their orientation (which, you know, guilty), and unaware of the ways in which covenantal community originally formed WITH Eve systematically excludes her daughters in his ideal contemporary world. So 4 stars?