Log 29.5.23
in the past three weeks:
- read Going Postal by terry pratchett. brilliant (obviously)
- rewatched the pilot of the x files before realising i don't have the remote to my dvd player, so i can't play any of the other episodes (booooo). it was good obviously but like wow it sure is clear now that duchovny and anderson were still learning how to act
- rewatched the social network to calm myself down the evening i moved. still great
- read A Game of Thrones, in a very condensed period of time (read most of it in one day and then finished it the day after). mixed feelings. for some reason i wasn't expecting it to be good? but shocker, cult classic beloved fantasy series is actually pretty good. the first two thirds were brilliant and then the last third was also objectively good, but i struggled with it. somehow id forgotten about GoT's reputation for killing everyone. it was pretty rough to read, actually. not helped by the fact i hate reading about battles because i can never follow any of it. after the execution near the end of the book it was hard to get through the rest & i was really tempted to just give up on it.
won't be continuing the series anytime soon, i have enough homesickness and loneliness to deal with w/o adding in other stuff on top of it. i am quite certain N will not be happy about that and for their sake i really really want to love it but i just can't right now. the first two thirds was really good though so i think i will come back to it... someday.
- tried to read the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. failed. i want to like douglas adams but his writing makes my head hurt.

the plan is to jump ship from ASOIAF to discworld. discworld has the good compelling prose characters and fantasy world im looking for without the explicit brutality and despair. and also it cares more about the working class which i appreciate.

Log 8.5.23
watched a few episodes of the muppets <3, my attachment to gonzo is only strengthening

Log 4.5.23
finished The Motion of Puppets, by Keith Donohue. it was pretty good! i love puppets, of course, & i particularly love orpheus and eurydice retellings. the ending wasn't as tragic as i'd expected it to be - the author made a few key changes that i really liked. it was well-paced, the characters were interesting and likeable, and it held my attention. i only have two criticisms.

the first thing i noticed was that the prose is very self-conscious in that way you often find in mid-tier adult fiction. very much aware that This Is A Book, you know? my second criticism is much less petty - i can't remember the exact word for what i'm saying but i know the concept. it's not racism - i mean it is racism but i KNOW there's a more specific term for what i'm talking about. the thing where you treat an indigenous culture as inherently mystical and other. the book framed it as the source of every bit of magic in this whole narrative came from a very old Native American puppet, which just... i don't know. it didn't quite sit right with me, especially considering how the puppet was actively malicious.

apart from that though, i enjoyed the book, though i'm not sure i'd particularly recommend it. give it a go if you like fun puppets and modern greek myth retellings.