The Wild Ways by Tanya Huff

The Wild Ways by Tanya Huff

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


More cheerfully queer poly incestuous Canadian capers, this time with bonus seal people.

So this book helped me identify a squick I didn't know I had. See, the prequel freaked me out. Which was weird, because I also quite enjoyed it. It wasn't the mind control that got me, and it wasn't the deer semi-beastiality (though, for the record, ….??????), and it wasn't the incest. Actually, it was all the family. Which is weird, because I love stories about intense, close-knit groups of people, and that's exactly what this series is about.

Except this book follows one of the family's oddball misfits who enjoys life on her own, so there was way less family by volume. And I realized that if I just pretended all the background family stuff was an extensive network of interlocking polyamorous and friend arrangements, I was cool. But the minute I started processing the way this book defines family, how they all knew everything about each other, and would always know everything about each other, and everybody was everybody else's business by definition, and all the important things about you were determined by the fact you belong to the family, and no one would ever leave, and no one would ever want to – I'm kinda freaking myself out just talking about it.

Basically, I'm okay with intense claustrophobic relationships as long as there's no family involved. My issues. They are not subtle.

Um. It's a fun lightweight adventure about seals and music and going your own way?




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Yendi by Steven Brust

Yendi by Steven Brust

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Yeah, yeah, you guys told me not to read this book next, but it's what fell into my lap. Though maybe if I had taken the advice I wouldn't be questioning all y'all's judgment and taste so hard right now. Because this was not good. Clumsy, boring, convoluted in weird and uninteresting ways. And the worldbuilding is kind of like those madlib games, except with made up words. Like, the book would be all, "I sipped the Giiizloewf whine. It was red, a shade darker than a Flowieviad, but lighter than a Streizoerjb." And I'd be like, "what the fuck ever, Steven Brust. Page me when you're done transcribing out of your high school notebooks."



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