The fun we had: Spring 2019
July 1, 2019
Spring! March 20th through June 20th 2019
What I read
Helen Hoang.
The Kiss Quotient. This was a fun read.
Jasper Fforde.
The Last Dragonslayer
The Last Dragonslayer, Book 2, The Song of the Quarkbeast
Piyali Bhattacharya.
Good Girls Marry Doctors. I could not put this book down. It resonated so strongly with my ingrained sense of duty and family culture (though we aren’t South Asian), the silencing of women even while expecting us to be strong enough to bear every burden, the expiration date at age 25, the arranged marriage set-ups, the expectations that you will always prioritize your parents.
Nicola Yoon.
Everything Everything. Very well written but the twist at the end reminded me of the real life story of a similar situation which is incredibly sad.
The Sun is Also a Star. Also very well written. The twist at the end made me mad it was the end because I want mooooreeee.
Fun but forgettable.
Kiera Cass.
The Selection
The Elite
The Siren
Andy Weir.
Artemis.
Sophie Kinsella.
My Not So Perfect Life. I remembered her from the Bridget Jones movies.
Rae Carson. Mostly these books passed the time. It was light and engaging in the moment but nothing about the characters or the story really stuck with me after I was done except a sense that the age differences between the characters was weird, particularly with a teen protagonist.
The Girl of Fire and Thorns
The Crown of Embers
The Bitter Kingdom
The King’s Guard
The Shadow Cats
Walk on Earth a Stranger
Meh books
Kristan Higgins.
Good Luck with That: I was really uncomfortable with some of this book and I couldn’t put my finger on why.
Suzy Krause.
Valencia and Valentine: Maybe this was just not my cup of tea but it was nothing more than a way to kill time til I could sleep and not a particular engaging way at that.
Keele Bergin.
Wholly Unraveled: this was utterly painful to read.
Not good enough to finish
Jasper Fforde. Shades of Grey
Wendy May Andrews. The Duke Conspiracy
Kevin Kwan.
Crazy Rich Asians. I hated this book and wish I hadn’t finished it. The pettiness, manipulations, judging, elitism and racism were all too familiar. Much like The Office, I can’t enjoy the fictional version of something I’ve lived through. Neither Michael Scott is funny to me, having worked with a similarly clueless tyrannical boss (but worse) and the whole snobbish rich clans of Michael’s family made me grit my teeth, I remember how, though less extravagantly, I was also judged to be inferior, not the “right” Asian, an impoverished gold digger. I’m quite happy now but that hurt quite a lot at the time. I can find no amusement in the fictional story, nor did the book end well. It was both personally irritating and incomplete. I shouldn’t have even bothered finishing but kept hoping for a satisfying ending. I won’t be reading any more of his books on this vein, I’m sick of snotty rich Asians.
Where we went
We did a good job of doing local stuff this quarter!
– We went to a very well attended neighborhood hosted Holi festival the first weekend of Spring. It was an awful lot of fun, even though I had MANY regrets about overextending myself overseeing the playdate aspect of it, afterward. It took me several days to recover from that weekend.
– We visited Lands End and the Sutro Baths for the first time. It’s pretty cool there! Also cold. We were bundled up pretty well.
– We got to see Stevie Wonder in concert! This was a freebie and it was amazing. It also took me days to recover from that day’s adventure, though :/ I’m starting to see a pattern of Fun = Falling over the next several days.
What I watched
– She-Ra. We’re still slowly enjoying this show quite a bit though it’s a touch advanced for JB.
– Ralph Wrecks the Internet. This was a fun movie, just like the earlier one.
– Lucifer. This was meant to just be a background show to ignore while I worked but it was rather fun.
– One Day at a Time. I love this show and may never forgive Netflix for canceling it. It got a slow start but it had great bones and also Rita Moreno is amazing.
– Always be my Maybe. This was absolutely hilarious.
What I did
– I learned a new little bit of origami: a star!
– I experimented with a new carnitas recipe and it was a hit! I’m very proud. Sure wish I’d written it down somewhere.
– I also experimented with roasting my fruit before baking it into bread and did you know how GLORIOUS mango can be in bread? I was expecting the same with the strawberries but they were either overpowered or not roasted long enough.
:: What are you enjoying right now?
Only seen one episode so far, but really digging the third and final season of Legion.
Did you enjoy the first two seasons?
The third book in the CRA trilogy is pretty satisfying (the second book is pretty dull even with large sections skipped), though it has very little of Rachel or Pek Lin in it (the two best characters from the first book, IMO).
Is the third book spades better than the first? Because the first book was really incredibly irritating.
I skipped large sections of the first book– basically I just followed Rachel and Nick’s story in that book (and also all the food descriptions), but it sounds like you didn’t like their story that much. The third book nicely concludes everybody and gives nice people happy endings and not nice people terrible endings and messed up people somewhat comical endings. The grandma’s WWII back story via dreams and flashbacks is also interesting. I’m not sure how good the third book would be without having read the first though. And the villain from the second book comes back in the third and gets … an ending.
books!!! i can recommend everything on this list:
http://sensetodollars.blogspot.com/2019/06/good-book-log.html
YAY thank you!
Whew, you’re reminding much just how much I’m slacking on my reading. I don’t think I could keep up with you if I tried, though. Don’t know where you find the time!
So you were so knackered after the exertions, but it sounds like they were worth it. I didn’t do much of note this spring. But I just joined Tinder and that’s keeping me entertained/entertainingly busy. I hope to get at least one post out of it.
I’ll remind you that reading is the one thing I can usually do when I can do nothing else, so it’s not like I’m both reading AND managing a full social life š
This stuff was spread out across about three months, so we maybe did one thing a month. That’s all I can handle.
I need to cut back because 11 days of pain afterward isn’t really worth a single fun thing, in my book.