Hello again!

This blog is being reborn! I’m even going to set a damn alarm on my phone to remind me to write in this sucker, because every scientist ever (no generalizing here!) says that daily writing and journal-keeping makes you smart and rich.

But the purpose of this post is actually to talk about a couple of books I’ve finished lately. BOOKS.

The first is Deerskin, by Robin McKinley. It’s not a new book — I think it was published in 1993? — but I only heard about it recently, and since it’s based on a (pretty jacked up) fairy tale, I decided I needed to read it.

It’s good. Really. If you read the blurb, the big shocker of the book is pretty much right there in the summary, but there’s a lot more to this story than that squicky bit. I think the real story in this book is how the main character Lissar recovers and rediscovers herself after a truly horrifying experience that exiles her from her home. Robin McKinley’s writing, too, is beautiful and lush — and if this weren’t fairy tale-esque, it would be a little too much. And yeah, surprisingly enough, there is an actual Perrault story called “Deerskin,” from which the book draws its story.

I had a couple of issues with it, but they’re mainly quibbles about unanswered questions. Deerskin has a very open ending, and some of the more magical elements are never explained or really even explored. Maybe I’m not deep enough to understand the subtext (of which there is A. LOT.), but Lissar’s famously beautiful mother is a mystery I was still curious about after I finished reading.

I also recently finished Juliet Immortal, by Stacey Jay. This was another one that’s been on my to-read list for ages, and I was kind of dragging my feet about it, because it seems so hokey. Juliet and Romeo, the star-crossed lovers of yore, are reborn as agents of good and evil to help or hinder modern-day lovers IN A BATTLE TO THE DEATH. Well, okay, not exactly.

The real story here is that Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet become warriors, one fighting for True Love and Soulmates and Happily Ever After, and the other for Immortality and Evil and General Mayhem. They meet generation after generation in the bodies of two fated lovers (or in the bodies of people around the two lovers) to do the bidding of some mysterious, ethereal beings known as the Ambassadors and the Mercenaries. It’s a race to convince one of the lovers to either sacrifice the other for immortal life or to make a lifelong vow of love (or…something).

I expected to hate it. But I loved it! It’s young adult, so the characters are all high school students, full of all that lovely high school angst and darkness. And it had its troubles, too, but it was so fun and melodramatic and delicious that I overlooked quite a bit. There’s a sequel out called Romeo Redeemed, which continues the story.

Currently I’m working on Cleopatra: A Life, by Stacy Schiff (what’s with all the Stacys? I don’t know, bro), and I’m really enjoying it so far. Those epic biographies of beyond-famous historical figures can be really dry and slogging, but Schiff keeps a really good sense of humor through the whole thing and seems genuinely to want to put the truth (or at least, the truth we can confirm as truth) out there about this contentious Egyptian queen.

What are y’all reading these days? My to-read list is still miles long, but I like recommendations.