Something blue: update the first

[fred_mouse]

Only a little later than planned, but at least it is still the weekend :)

Have you read anything you want to talk about this week? Bonus points for if it matches the theme!

Comments

[fred_mouse]

I've read two of my possibles (Along the Saltwise Sea and Radio Silence) and finished one of the 'in progress' (All Boys Aren't Blue), which is more than I was expecting!

[kalloway]

Actually, the cover for The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation 3's cover is fairly blue, so I guess it counts. It took me a couple of tries to get into it, but then I read the rest straight through.

There is a section in the middle that I really enjoyed, unfortunately it was sandwiched between two very long and very dry chunks of exposition. Hundreds of pages of tell-y backstory. Theoretically they fill in gaps in earlier volumes, because this author is known for stories about re-framing assumed relationships and truths, but I honestly feel it could be a lot less clunky.

[fred_mouse]

\o/

Do you reckon the clunky is the original story, the translation, something else?

[kalloway]

I don't think the translation is doing it any favors, but when the story has a couple hundred pages of backstory, maybe a hundred in the present, and then another hundred of backstory, it... just feels a little clunky and disjointed. I'm not sure if there's a better way to tell the story, unfortunately. (And also, it was originally a serialized webnovel, so told in chunks over time and where length sometimes beats out pacing.)

[cactus_rs]

I finished The World of Yesterday on vacation and have declared it Something Blue Adjacent because holy shit is it bittersweet. I think I cried every chapter.

[peaceful_sands]

Since the start of the challenge, I have finished:

Practice Makes Perfect (already started blue cover)
Crimea (already started but no blue)
The Good Women of China (already started - no blue)
The Keeper of Lost Things (blue cover)
Od Magic (blue cover)
The Last Light of the Sun (blue cover)
Under an English Heaven (blue cover)
Small Gods (already started blue cover)

Now I'm reading (both of which have blue covers):
A Three Dog Problem
The Good Neighbour

Next up probably:
The House in the Cerulean Sea
Prodigy
The Blue Hawk

There are varying shades of blue and amounts of blue on the covers.

[autumndaze]

I finished "Mo Dao Zu Shi" volume 3 from the official English translation. It's a reread, but my first time reading this edition. Doesn't match the theme unfortunately, but I've been meaning to read it. Still reading a lot of fanfics, though. Just glad to be reading.