Howdy ho, squiders. How goes?
(The good news is that my site is on the new host and seems to be functioning just fine, so victory!)
I finished reading Hunt the Stars by Jessie Mihalik this morning.
This was my spouse’s Christmas Eve book from two years ago. See, at some point, I read about an Icelandic (I think it was, anyway) custom where they give each other books at Christmas. I guess the Icelandic people read a lot of books, especially in the winter, because of the lack of light and all that. And I was like, oh, that sounds like an amazing tradition, and ever since we’ve done the same.
The books are given on Christmas Eve, the first gift everyone gets, with the idea that we will all sit and read together, which rarely happens but the idea is there.
For many years, I’ve taken care of the kids and my spouse, and then he just needs to do me. This worked well when the kids were younger and I could gift them childhood favorites and classics (my youngest still routinely reads her copy of Harold and the Purple Crayon even though she’s solidly in upper middle grade generally), but as the kids have gotten older it’s become more difficult.
(In general, everyone does read their Christmas books pretty quickly, even if we don’t get to them on Christmas Eve itself. I’m actually the worse offender, typically because I’m already in the middle of a book or three, and also because my spouse tends to get me literary science fiction which is fine, but I have to be in the mood for it.
Two or three years ago he got me Fairy Tale by Stephen King, which I took one look at the thickness of, and is on my nightstand, unread, to this day.)
(This year he got me The Ministry of Time which I am enjoying but still admittedly reading very slowly.)
My youngest is still pretty easy. She likes fantasy, horror, and mystery and will give pretty much anything a try. However, like me, she’s often in the middle of several books at once, so her follow through isn’t the great.
For fiction, my oldest reads epic fantasy exclusively. Efforts to branch him out into related genres like science fiction or straight adventure have failed, and he won’t touch anything scary. For a while this was fine, but he’s quickly gone through most everything I’ve read (he read all of Discworld in about three months) and so I’ve had to flail about to keep finding him things.
(When I was a kid, I used to troll through the library and pick up books with the “scifi/fantasy” label and then see if they were interesting, but he refuses to do this, despite my repeatedly saying that this is the best way to discover books.)
My oldest is not yet a teenager even though he looks/acts like he’s 15 or 16, so I was sticking to YA fantasy (he reads at a ridiculously high level, and sometimes reads college textbooks on areas of interest for fun), which led to me getting him The Sunbearer Trials as his Christmas Eve book a few years ago.
This was a Mistake.
I’d noted it was a popular YA fantasy book with good reviews, and it was mythology-based, which he also likes (he read everything Rick Riordan put out).
He came to me and was like, “Mom, this book says “$@%#” in the first line.”
That’s on me. I hadn’t thought to check for language, and I’d given my 10-year-old a book with the f-word featured prominently.
(I have since learned to stick to older adult fantasy series when possible, because modern YA fantasy can be pretty intense on the sex/violence/language fronts.)
I’d thought that was my only major faux pas on the Christmas Eve book front. Until I read Hunt the Stars here.
As I said, I gave this to my spouse two years ago. I tend to get him science fiction because I find that’s one of his favorite genres. (Though maybe I should stop–I’m not sure he’s liked any books I’ve gotten him in the last three or so years. I picked this year’s off his Goodreads Want to Read list and he’s still not enjoying it.) I normally look at published-that-year, well-rated science fiction, which is how we ended up with Hunt the Stars.
He dutifully read it (he always does) and then gave it to me and said that maybe I should read it. I put it on the shelf but didn’t touch it because typically we don’t read the same sort of science fiction. But I picked it up last week because I have now read four books that were lying around in the last month, which is more than I read all of last year.
(Brains and urges are weird.)
(But I ran out of bookshelf room and then books must be read so they may be purged.)
(Also maybe I’m procrastinating reading potential comps? Not sure. Picked one up this morning but need to read some of the other library books first.)
Squiders, this book is a romance.
It hits all the romance beats. It has explicit sex scenes. The series (this is the first book) does that romance series thing where each book features a different, related couple.
It does have interesting worldbuilding and space travel and intrigue as well, but it’s definitely a romance.
I don’t know my spouse’s feelings about romance as a genre but he’s not seeking them out. And he tends toward literary science fiction, which this is not.
I suspect this was the same year as the Sunbearer snafu, so I was in excellent form that year.
Alas.
This past Christmas my spouse decided he was going to do the kids’ books instead of me, and he did fairly well (I did have to send him to switch out my youngest’s book because she already owned the first one he brought), and the kids really liked the series he picked out for them, so maybe he can do it going forward.
Maybe I should have him pick out his own books too.
Hope you’re doing well, squiders, and are reading excellent books! See you next week!
