Mal ,'Shindig'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
I read January a couple months ago. Yes, very good book, from a subgenre that's generated a number of good books.
It was one of the books that I had a little trouble with, as I have a hard time enjoying books with harm or threat of harm to children or animals than I did before I had the gumball. There was one of the Hugo nominees that I bounced off HARD because of that, and another that I looked at the warnings and was like "nah."
January was my absolute favorite book of 2019.
I started Priory, but couldn't focus enough to get into it. I did inhale all of the Murderbot novellas, which was awesome. (I had bounced off of the Raksura books pretty hard, so I took longer than I should have getting into Murderbot.)
I just finished The Traitor Baru Cormorant, which is very good, and I think I really didn't like it. The Masquerade and the effects on people as described is just too... plausible, I guess? And therefore way too disturbing. It sat wrong for a few days afterwards.
I also started Hieroglyphs: The Celestial Conspiracies, which I'm thoroughly enjoying.
I think I see what you mean about Baru Cormorant, juliana. I read it a while back and don't remember specifics, alas, but I do recall having a complex reaction to it. I did read the sequel, not sure if I will read the third one when it comes out.
I started The Fifth Season and got a good way into it before the relentless death (in particular, the death of a child, which happens very close to the beginning of the book) and grief and catastrophe was just too much for me. I keep thinking I'd like to give it another try, but I'm... unlikely... to be ready and willing to subject myself to that anytime soon.
Yeah, the series doesn't really get less grim.
Indeed.
Jemisin is relentless in conveying her concept of the world. I couldn't read it straight through; I had to read a bit at a time, and it did get more challenging to come back to it the grimmer it got.
I'm reading "Empress" which is a biography of the Nar Jahal, who for several years was the ruler of Mughal India following the death of her husband, the Emperor. The only female ruler -- she's amazing and largely unknown to the West.
This is my obligatory plug for the Broken Earth trilogy on audio - Robin Miles does phenomenal work with the 2nd-person narration.
But yeah, it's not a *comforting* read, and it doesn't get cheerier as the series goes on.
God, I'm not sure I could listen to it, rather than read it.