Blue-Footed Musings

Today is the last day of February. My plan was to have finished both of my February reading choices by now. I read Akata Witch first, because it was obviously going to be the easier and quicker of the two. It was good, and I was happy that I had chosen it.

Then I started reading Black Leopard, Red Wolf, and OMG, I have never felt so betrayed by book critics in my life. They raved over this book, saying that it was “revolutionary,” “spectacular,” and “gripping.” They put it on Top 100 lists. Oprah’s magazine even recommended it. I wish now that I had also read some of the everyday readers’ reviews before buying the book, because a lot of them used completely different words to describe it. They said it was full of violence, murder, and rape, and that it was “vulgar,” “vile,” and “horrifying.”

I’m siding with those everyday reviewers, and I think the critics ought to have given fair warning about the violence. I can tolerate a certain amount of violence in fiction, but Black Leopard, Red Wolf immediately started to bother me. Less than 20 pages in, and I was already disgusted. I’ve tried for a week or more to convince myself to pick it up again, but I don’t think I have the stomach for it. There are a lot of one- and two-star reviews suggesting that I shouldn’t try. The book isn’t going to change, and neither am I.

So, I am going to read a collection of Rita Dove poems as a substitute, once it arrives. In the meantime, I’m reading something completely different: Dog on It by Spencer Quinn. It’s a mystery told from the point of view of a dog. It’s not entirely nonviolent, but it’s endearingly stupid, just like the average dog. I love it so far.

This week I am working on clearing out the draft folder of my blog. So, late though it is, here is a post I wrote about reading in 2020.

By the Numbers

1. I read more books in 2020 (41) than I did in 2019 (33). Note: I had previously declared my reading total for 2020 to be 40, but as I was checking to see which Hercule Poirot novels I hadn’t yet read, I realized that I’d read one in 2020 that I hadn’t recorded on the list.
2. I read no nonfiction in 2020, perhaps because circumstances made escapism seem a lot more important than education. I hope that won’t become the new norm.
3. I gave A-level grades to roughly half of the books (you can read about my favorites from the year here). I’m not sure if all those high grades mean that I was lucky in my reading choices or that pandemic desperation made me more willing to be pleased. Maybe it was a bit of both.

Overall it was a pleasant reading year, but over the course of the year I threw away three books. Yes, I literally threw them in the trash! The first was a book that reeked so strongly of perfume that I couldn’t tolerate handling it. I had neither the heart to try to de-stink the toxic thing nor the willingness to foist it off on some other reader, so I threw it out. The second was an old paperback that fell apart as I was reading it (for the record, it was Ngaio Marsh’s Tied Up in Tinsel). Its pages were foxed and tanned, not good recycling material. The story itself was so annoying that I didn’t even finish it. Throwing it into the trash was the only satisfaction I got from it. And the third book had dead bugs and what looked like a tiny cocoon in it, so the trash was the only place for it. Such are the perils of buying used books.

I haven’t given up the practice, though. I developed a book-buying habit early in the year and never quite managed to quit it. At first, it was because we couldn’t get books from the library, which had locked down along with the rest of the state. But later, after the library reopened, I continued to buy a lot of books, perhaps because they were the only “people” I was allowed to bring into my home, and surrounding myself with them meant there would be no shortage of company when I needed it. I didn’t have enough room for them, it’s true, but I was glad (and still am) to have them.

Now it’s time to focus on reading in 2021. My goals for the year are broad. I’d like to read more nonfiction and more poetry. I’d like to read more books from outside my “reading bubble.” But mostly I’d just like to read more, and I wish everyone, myself included, an plentiful year of reading.

February, for such a short month, is a jam-packed one. It’s got two holidays, plus a week of school vacation, and it’s also Black History Month. The month flies by quickly, and sometimes it seems like everything is happening at the same time, and sometimes it is! Valentine’s Day is on Sunday, and it is also my dearest friend’s birthday. Presidents’ Day is on Monday, and it’s also the first day of the aforementioned week of school vacation.

As for the Black History aspect of the month, like last year, my intention is to actively celebrate by reading fiction written by black authors. Obviously, all months are good months for reading books by black authors, but if your reading isn’t as diverse as it should be, February is a convenient reminder to do something about that. So here are two books that I have chosen to read this month:

I finished reading Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline on Wednesday. The best things about the book are . . .

1. It continues the story of the characters from Ready Player One, which is nice for anyone with an interest in reading about what happens to Wade Watts and his friends after winning Halliday’s prize.
2. It has a happy, at least on the surface, ending that is a real ending and not merely the lead-in to another sequel.
3. This quote:

Kira always said that life is like an extremely difficult, horribly unbalanced videogame. . . . Your body is your avatar, and you spawn in a random geographic location, at a random moment in human history, surrounded by a random group of people, and then you have to try to survive for as long as you can. . . . Some people play the game for a hundred years without ever figuring out that it’s a game, or that there is a way to win it. To win the videogame of life you just have to try to make the experience of being forced to play it as pleasant as possible, for yourself, and for all the other players you encounter in your travels. Kira says that if everyone played the game to win, it’d be a lot more fun for everyone.

The worst things about it are, sadly, just about everything else. The impression the book gives is that the author was encouraged to repeat the formula from the first book and to do it fast, fast, fast. And it seems as if he tried to recreate the magic from the first book while also correcting some of the flaws, but without really understanding which was which. The result is a tedious read that manages to spoil even some of the magic from the first book. If you want to read more about it, I recommend this review, which explains some aspects of it much better than I could, from Slate.com: “From the perspective of anyone but Wade, Ready Player Two is a horror story that thinks it is a fantasy, narrated by a monster who thinks he is the hero.”