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Sunday, May 18, 2014

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan


A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan is framed as the memoirs of the early days of famed dragon naturalist, Lady Isabelle Trent.

Lady Isabelle decides to write her own story her own way, and delves into her own early life with refreshing honesty.

I was, I have to say, expecting more dragons, but ultimately A Natural History of Dragons isn't really about dragons at all, but about Lady Isabelle forging her own path in a world that has very definite ideas about what is and is not suitable for a young lady.

Needless to say, Isabelle has her own ideas on what's appropriate, and before she knows it she's on an expedition with her new husband to a remote location to study dragons.

I enjoyed A Natural History of Dragons, but I felt like I was waiting for something to happen the whole time. There's a lot of sort of .. running about with not getting much done, and a sub-plot that reminded me of an Enid Blyton novel I read as a youngster (I can't remember the name of it - it had Mountain in the title), and then at the end there's a bit of a rush of  A LOT OF THINGS HAPPENING VERY QUICKLY and it felt a bit unbalanced.

Still.

Dragons.


Sunday, May 11, 2014

It's Monday

Your meme is hosted here: http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/

I'm about halfway through One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I'm reading on my lunchbreaks at work, so it's slow-going.

It's always good to revisit a favourite though.

I started The Snow Child by Eowyn Levy yesterday, and on Saturday, finished The Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan.

Not sure what's up next, but I'm hopefully back on track after a relatively slow reading patch.

What are you reading?

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Health stuff and hey I read some books

See here: http://justaddbooks.blogspot.co.nz/2014/04/readathon-and-health-thingies.html

And now, the sequel. (This gets TMI for anyone who's a bit delicate about discussion of interior ladyparts).

I went back to the doc, and I'm anemic (which, I had my period for three weeks, NO SHIT SHERLOCK) and I have an infection. So I have iron tablets and antibiotics. Yay.

Anyway. I'm waiting to hear back from the hospital about an ultrasound, and after that the doc said the next likely step would be a Mirena coil, which is apparently a tiny magic piece of plastic that gets fitted inside your ladyparts, lasts for five years, and reduces/stops your period.

I AM VERY ON BOARD WITH THIS. But nothing can happen till after the scan. Doc said getting the coil fitted wouldn't be my best day ever but honestly after the period of doom, I don't care - lol.

I also learned that, at the tender age of 42, I'm not menopausal. So, there's that.

And that's what you missed on Glee!

Now, reading. I'm a bit behind with the goodreads challenge now - six books apparently - but I have finished a few since I last did a mini-reviews post. I'm not going to do another one now - I'm too lazy - but suffice it to say I'm keeping up with my challenges - Women Writers, the TBR challenge and also Once Upon a Time, so there's that at least.

Most recently I've finished
A Storm of Swords part 1 by George R R Martin
Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik
Adaptation by Miranda Lo
While We Run by Karen Healey.

I've had a good run because I did enjoy all of those books a lot. Especially Adaptation, and While We Run, which is the sequel to Healey's novel When We Wake. I'm going to hand-wave writing reviews because I'm lazy and still kind of recovering.

Now I'm re-reading One Hundred Years of Solitude for the fourth time (RIP Gabriel Garcia Marquez) and reading A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan which is taking me ages to finish for some reason.

:D