rose_griffes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rose_griffes) wrote2020-07-16 08:16 pm
rose_griffes) wrote2020-07-16 08:16 pm
Entry tags:
media update
Some thoughts after finishing season one of Warrior Nun:
Books:
Alyssa Cole's A Hope Divided was a thoughtful glimpse into Civil War strife as lived by a variety of Southerners. It was also a romance novel. I was definitely into the political/historical aspects. The romance was... fine. Whatever. The male lead tortured Confederate soldiers for the sake of getting information for the Union. The female lead is a biracial black woman who was trained in healing. When we meet them, our hero is in prison and our heroine... is too. In a sense. It's complicated, but they eventually attempt to leave together. The buildup to that is lovely but also painful.
Anyway. Read it for the history; the author takes historical facts and breathes life into them with fictional characters.
Perilous Trust by Barbara Freethy--a romance novel that garners a "nope" from me. FBI agent's daughter on the run... I can't even remember what else. The prose was utterly lackluster and I wouldn't have bothered finishing, except for insomnia.
The Men Who Wear the Star: The Story of the Texas Rangers by Charles M. Robinson. Didn't finish. I don't need a book that villainizes all Rangers, but I also didn't really want something that glosses over their history. Also, the prose was not particularly inspiring.
Also tried reading Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova but it just didn't click for me. The prose was good; I think the basic idea for the story just isn't "must-read in the middle of a pandemic" material. *shrug* Given that I like witches and magic and so forth, maybe something else by her will click in the future.
Podcasts: I've been listening to Gastropod and Spilled Milk. Both are food-related podcasts. Both are effective "I can't sleep and I don't want to listen to my own brain spin in circles" fare.
- Ava was a reasonably good lead but...
- it’s hard to compete with Shotgun Mary for screen charisma.
- but also! Ava was coming from a place of powerlessness. She’s an abuse survivor. For a slew of complicated reasons--including victim-blaming--a protagonist in visual media that has survived abuse isn’t always viewed as positively. (This is particularly true if the protagonist isn't a straight white man.)
- Origin stories that have a tight focus on that abuse victim need to give space for the victim to process their past / adjust to their present. Which the show did.
- THE BEST EPISODE WAS AVA AND MARY JUST HANGING AROUND A BEAUTIFUL MEDIEVAL VILLAGE IN THE HILLS. I’m still stunned that they actually did that. Spent all that time (and production money) to give us a quiet, slow-moving episode. *dreamy sigh*
- The ending was, uh. A head-scratcher. It makes it hard to grade the series as a whole when the story is incomplete. But the second half of season one overall? Very good. Worth watching the first half, for sure. (And I didn’t even hate the first half. It was fun, too!)
- I LOVE LILITH AND AM V. CURIOUS ABOUT WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT WITH HER!
Books:
Alyssa Cole's A Hope Divided was a thoughtful glimpse into Civil War strife as lived by a variety of Southerners. It was also a romance novel. I was definitely into the political/historical aspects. The romance was... fine. Whatever. The male lead tortured Confederate soldiers for the sake of getting information for the Union. The female lead is a biracial black woman who was trained in healing. When we meet them, our hero is in prison and our heroine... is too. In a sense. It's complicated, but they eventually attempt to leave together. The buildup to that is lovely but also painful.
Anyway. Read it for the history; the author takes historical facts and breathes life into them with fictional characters.
Perilous Trust by Barbara Freethy--a romance novel that garners a "nope" from me. FBI agent's daughter on the run... I can't even remember what else. The prose was utterly lackluster and I wouldn't have bothered finishing, except for insomnia.
The Men Who Wear the Star: The Story of the Texas Rangers by Charles M. Robinson. Didn't finish. I don't need a book that villainizes all Rangers, but I also didn't really want something that glosses over their history. Also, the prose was not particularly inspiring.
Also tried reading Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova but it just didn't click for me. The prose was good; I think the basic idea for the story just isn't "must-read in the middle of a pandemic" material. *shrug* Given that I like witches and magic and so forth, maybe something else by her will click in the future.
Podcasts: I've been listening to Gastropod and Spilled Milk. Both are food-related podcasts. Both are effective "I can't sleep and I don't want to listen to my own brain spin in circles" fare.