The Opposite of "On A Roll"

In a rut, maybe? It seems like whenever I come off a spate of regular posting, I stop posting entirely.

I like to think I'm entering a period of serious reading--I have a window of about three months here, between summer classes letting out and the baby arriving in November, to get all my reading done for the next year or so. I'm saving some good audiobooks and podcasts for after the baby comes, but I doubt I'll have a lot of time to read then. Luckily, most of the books I'm waiting for--The Wordy Shipmates, Half a Crown--are coming out in early fall, so I should be able to gobble them all up in a mad dash.

So, I finished Fire Study, the third in Maria V. Snyder's series. It was, I'm sorry to say, not great. It was, I suppose, not awful, but it's missing the fast-paced rush of plot that swept you right past any smaller flaws in the first two books (an example I can think of is how not-complex Yelena's reunion with her parents in Magic Study is, or how she suddenly becomes The One who will solve all this country's problems, as though no one else is competent to have an adventure around here). The plot of the new one jumps all over the place--characters move around, each scene and part is cohesive to itself, but it's not clear what direction it's moving in. Still, the last half starts you rolling along in a more satisfying way. I maintain that Poison Study was an amazing, wonderful book, and I kind of want to reread it now.

I'm running up to the library in Arlington today to get Letters to Judy, which is a collection of letters written to Judy Blume by her teenaged readers. I read an excerpt from it in one of our nonfiction readings for class, and I have this love for Judy Blume (Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret is such a great book) that I suspect is going to get bigger and better when I read something written by her, in her own voice. Usually, I try to avoid things that get me into the real-life personalities of authors, actors, musicians, etc.--they're human, and I'm so often disappointed. But I think Judy Blume might be an exception here.

Okay, I should run if I'm going to make the library promptly. Here's hoping I can get caught up again!