June Reading

I have been in a bit of a funk this month, with minimal reading done, but a lot of grumpiness. :(

Love in the Time of Dragons by Katie MacAlister made me laugh, and entertained me, but the second one, which will be listed in the next week, not so much. There were still the funny moments in Unbearable Lightness, but not enough other stuff happening... well not at a reasonable pace anyways.

Kisri by Moira Rogers - a short read, but fun. And hawt. And yes I am always spruiking the MR books, but they never fail to entertain me, whether I am deep in the land of reading funk or what, they never fail to make me smile and inhale the story.

I read another two Dakota Cassidy books, Accidentally Demonic, I think fell victim to my reading funk, and despite it having all the elements of Cassidy's work that i enjoy, it just didn't grab me. But My Way to Hell did grab me.

Chicks Kick Butt... well I am mostly finished it. Only one or two stories to go. But what I want to know is, what is it with anthologies lately? Are they now nothing but an advertising junket for ongoing series? The majority of these stories are part of larger ongoing series, ones I don't read. :( Which left me a bit in the dark on some of the stories, as I think the authors assumed that the reader would have some basic ideas of the world in which the story takes place.
That said though, it was mostly a reasonably entertaining read, even though part of me was crying bring back the standalone novella! throughout... My favourite stories were by Rachel Vincent and Elizabeth Vaughn, my least favourite, the Cheyenne McCray. (Though to be fair the first full novel of that series was a big DNF for me)

SIDE NOTE: What is it with authors not having full book information on their websites? I went to Vincent's site after reading her short to get more information on upcoming books, as I remembered how much I enjoyed her work, and all she has is book covers which link straight to Amazon, which is really not a great place for book detail. Apparently there is a new series coming out, but I couldn't find information about it on the site, though there was a book pic linked to Amazon, and again with no blooming info on A. - I deleted a rant about A poor book info site, are you proud Jen?? -
So she has lost some sales from this reader, though before you label me a totally cranky pants reader, which I am, I did also tweet her and asked about a blurb and got no response there either, so dollars stay in the pocket.

And those few are pretty much the only books I have finished this month. :(
Though things are looking up I am currently reading two books when I can find a spare moment:
An e-arc of Roil by Trent Jamieson from Angry Robot Books, this is a steampunk fantasy book. Jamieson is an Australian author, and one thing he can do extremely well is world-building, he has MAD SKILLS at this, and I am completely enamoured of the world he is building in this book... I just wish I could say the same of the characters, but I am in the early half of the book, so this may change.

The second e-arc is Firestorm by Radclyffe, this is a Lesbian contemporary romance. Contemporary is a bit outside my comfort zone, but Radclyffe is on my trusted author list, who has made me enjoy contemporaries before, so I haven't hesitated to start this. And within the first chapter she has me totally absorbed and wanting to find out all I can about the main characters.

So that is my month so far... I hope everyone else is having a much better time of reading than me this month!
- Please feel free to list some of your highlights for the month... I am extremely nosy about what everyone else is reading, it is always an interesting way to find new books/authors that I may have missed.

Question number two & three: Do you ever have reading funks? And do you have any tricks for getting out of them?

Okay I have issues

And I am a cranky reader, with many issues.
I am also in a crankier than normal mood tonight. There is also a kind of spoiler below.
So you have been warned.

Now I love Nalini Singh and absolutely adore the psy/changeling series. But two of the recent books have really hit personal buttons with me.
I won't go too much into Mercy and Riley's book, which was a wallbanger for me, but it was read a while ago. I will simply say, that I was disappointed with how unequal some aspects of the relationship was, despite them being both of equal pack rank.

But Play of Passion, which I finished today, I just have to rant about.
Admittedly it took me a long time to read it as I took some baggage into it, I was struggling with left over issues from Mercy's book.. But I got through it in the end, and I thought Singh actually did a good job with many aspects of the power dynamic... even though I feel she wussed out and made Drew still dominant.
But then she lost me.
Apparently Drew is a super sekrit ALPHA alpha, who hasn't finished his "growing" into his dominance. WTF?
Seriously is it just that impossible in a romance novel to have a heroine be even the slightest bit more dominant than her hero??? (And let's face it, realistically he wasn't less dominant, there was just the illusion of it re. pack hierarchy, BUT NO we couldn't even have that!)
Head meet desk.
Then once I closed the book after the last page, with my buttons pushed, I started thinking back on the book. Now there are several instances where NS is blatantly pushing the okay for females not to be dominant, how all aspects needed in pack, with Indigo's mother, one of the teens, etc. Which is all well and good, even the maternal leanings of most of those gets past my (often militant feminist) radar, but then I realised... there are no examples of non-dominant males. Huh?
Is it not okay for a male to be non-dominant? Is it only maternal females that it is cool for???
Then I remembered the boy from the start of the book that Indigo and co were counselling, but I went back and in the final scene with him, there are the comparisons between him and the alpha, which kinda rules out him not being dominant..

So I was left with a big pile of WTF, all my hackles raised, and needing to rant.
(It probably a good thing, that this blog does not have any readers yet. *grin*)

As a fellow reader pointed out, it is escapism, bluh, bluh.. but STILL!
And yes, I know that was mature. *rolls eyes* I just disagree that I am actually fully coming at this from my Women's Studies background, (though I acknowledge that it is part of the equation) it is also coming from me as an escapist reader. I do not find it romantic when the power dynamic is so often unequal, it just pulls me out of believing in the happy ending in many ways.
And it confounds me that it is acceptable to have a hero be so much more dominant/powerful than a heroine, but you can't even have a heroine even the slightest bit more dominant than a hero??
And that it is always stressed so??

Now this is a regular rant of mine, and some have argued that the women are often not weaker, they keep them in line maternally or emotionally, or whatever, but why can't this be flipped around to the bloke? Why can't he provide this role, and the female be dominant?

And how typical, that my first decent sized post on this blog, is a complete and utter rant, which probably makes little to no sense.
Maybe I'll edit it tomorrow, when I have calmed down a little.

PS. I don't mean to bag out Nalini completely, this is an issue I have with a LOT of books from the genre. She just has the misfortune of being an auto-buy author, with two recent releases which have hit my buttons completely, so she catches the brunt.

PPS. Play of Passion is actually a fun read, and if you do not have my baggage, which would be most of the world it is an awesome book you should enjoy. As usual Nalini Singh's world-building and characters rock.