If I can manage to string words together in any kind of sensible order. I’ve been (silently) struggling with other people’s vocabulary and sloppy writing all week. It’s okay. In this case, other people are paid to figure out how to make something work. IIIII get paid to write about it, sometimes after they duke it out, which they were doing this week. But my brain was soooo fried this afternoon that I wasn’t sure I could do a social engagement, especially since the GG was on the roto side of things and I am still COVID-nervous, I think for good reason. We visited our friends anyway and I disclaimed that I was “cranky” and I WAS CRANKY but we’ve known these folks long enough that they put up with me.

A while back I finished N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy and greatly enjoyed it although there were moments when I did NOT know what the heck was going on (this one may merit a re-read at some point). I call it sci-fi but amazingly enough I have seen it in the xword as fantasy. I suppose it could go either way.

After that I went into a totally different genre with Franzen’s Crossroads. I was a little nervous about starting this one. I guess I would call it a family “saga”, which isn’t my usual go-to genre and I have never read this author before. It was fine! The characters weren’t 100% lovable but they were interesting and believable enough. It revolves around a church youth group in the late 60s/early 70s (my generation). I am not at all religious and did NOT participate in such a group at my childhood church but it wasn’t terribly preachy. This is supposed to be the first of a trilogy and I’m looking forward to the next installment.

Bewilderment. I enjoyed Overstory and I enjoyed this one. But. I think sometimes authors try to tackle too many complicated issues at once without always knitting them together effectively. In this one it seemed to be mainly climate change and neurodiversity via a dad and his young son who are mourning the boy’s mother. A really good read but I struggled a bit thinking the adults in the boy’s life should have been better able to help him deal with his loss besides recommending psychotropic (right word?) drugs or encouraging him to take some not all that well thought out actions against climate change. And do some other sci-fi-ey type things that I won’t mention because spoilers. I know this is a terrible mini-review but that reflects that I still haven’t fully processed this book.

Cloud Cuckoo Land. Oh my god. I loved this one. I know some people aren’t crazy about this author’s books and I understand why. His structure can be a bit hard to follow until you get the “rhythm”. In this case, he alternated between three (four?) sets of characters with centuries and thousands/millions of miles between their settings. Nevertheless, this one became hard to put down fairly early on and I liked how the stories were resolved in the end, particularly for one character who had me just about cheering out loud.

I have now embarked on The Beekeeper of Aleppo, a totally different direction again. So far loving it.

Porterization with turkey and fixings tonight and so g’night from yer fav-o-rite crappy book blahgger. Oh and typos be damned.

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