november 16
so here we are again, not with the promised Sunday Newsletter, nor is this as long as I want it to be (because it also doesn’t reflect what I finished last week!) but I’ll be honest: being in front of a screen, even my iPad, after work is starting to become Not Fun. I’m lucky that I have a flexible work day to do some things I want to get done—I’ve done more work on my graduate degree, for example, while working, than I have in many months (amazing how precarity makes doing that work nearly impossible!) and it’s not because I’m slacking off at work, but because much of my work is done in waves, I can easily switch back and forth between doing this and doing my tasks at work as they come up. But when I come home I’m tired, sometimes I have meetings after work that go right up until dinner time, and I just can’t make myself write or do much of anything!
“waaaah ai you wanted a job and then it cut into your other work even though actually you’re doing work at your job, life is so hard for you” this is less the point I’m trying to make—not complaining about work, which I’m still enjoying even a month later, and more trying to think about capacity. I know someone who is suffering from long COVID, which involves post-exertion malaise, and the way she describes it does actually reminds me of what it’s like to try to get things done after work—though they are obviously not comparable, since she is too disabled to work. But my brain is tired, my body is tired, and so I think: what would be possible if I didn’t have to work for a wage? What would happen if we only worked for four hours a day instead of eight? I think I would still enjoy my job even if I didn’t have to work it to survive, but I don’t think I need to be there for eight hours a day, and I don’t think any one else does either. And those hours could be used, as the union saying goes, for what we will—me writing more, reading more, doing other things that may be not just for my own joy but for other people’s joy.
anyway. that is what I’m ruminating on this week. I’ll have more next week—maybe Sunday, maybe next Tuesday, we’ll see! In the meantime, let’s move on to
The Book I Wrote About This Week
I’ll admit, I was intrigued by this book and then… I wouldn’t say sorely disappointed, but it was kind of disappointing at first, because I thought “oh great, a corrupt Catholic official, it’s a day ending in y.” (Not that I’m like opposed to narratives that hinge on revealing the corruption in church settings, but there’s also a corrupt gay priest reveal and I’m kind of like “okay whatever” about the whole thing.) And then the build was slow—I don’t know that I’ve ever really felt like a book build as slowly as this one has. It did gain speed and the third act was action-packed, but it really was like “boy the wheels are a chugging” for that first third and a hunk of the second.
And noir-style writing is not for me—I don’t love it, I miss a lot of it. I have, to my shame! never liked a femme fatale character in my life. (Is it the internalized misogyny or is it Men Being Like That? It’s So Hard To Say!!!) And I don’t think this is like the most Noir book, deliberately so—it deliberately tries to undercut some of the tropes I think, but given that I’m not super familiar, it just sort of flies over me, because I’m not clued majorly into those tropes in the first place.
But also it wasn’t a BAD book? One thing I’ve been struggling with lately is how to balance my own tastes with the impulse to Write a Good Review for Authors. Because I know that good reviews are something that publishers rely on when making decisions, and it’s about FIVE STAR reviews. A book publisher doesn’t care about my nuanced take on why a book wasn’t for me—they’re looking at 5 star reviews only. So I feel compelled to often push a review up—offer five stars when I would only offer four. (Or, more often, four stars instead of three.) It helps when I can give a half-star review, like on LibraryThing or The StoryGraph, but even then I’m pitching UP my reviews if a book just wasn’t to my tastes but I recognize it has value. Which is a problem—not so much for this book (though if I don’t pitch up a review for a white author, especially a white male author, I do feel like I run the risk that they will feel entitled enough to message me about it, which I have had happen to me in the past) but for books by marginalized authors whose work I just don’t click with. How do I express my opinion AND support authors? (I guess by just not giving star ratings but. I like it! I like to hit the button!)
Anyway this book was not entirely my thing, but it was fine, and it took me many paragraphs I guess to just say that.
The Reading Situation
100 books: at the time of this writing, I have finished 100 books! I did it! Thank you to unemployment for giving me enough time to finish all of these books, and thank you to every author even on the bad books, for writing a book that I could read and either enjoy or not enjoy as my taste dictates!
Author identity challenge: at the time of this writing, I have finished 14/18 prompts, or 78% BUT!!! With all this free time my brain has now freed up, after finishing my 100 books, I just put holds on four books that will help me complete this so! I have hope! A month and a half left, we can do this!
Currently reading: Making my way through Greater Good and cursing Thrawn every page; just finished act one of Saint Oscar and boy it’s good; working my way through Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings; inching though Burn It Down and Sexual Justice. Hopefully by being better about leaving work not super later (I would LOVE to not get out of work when the sun was going down, though I know that’s a steeper and steeper ask every week until the end of the calendar year,) I can get some more of that evening reading time in!
HMU
And that’s it for this week! Thank you so much for reading. Hopefully I can get another one of these out—maybe by Sunday, maybe not! (I recognize that “Sunday” is a completely self-imposed and arbitrary deadline, but I like having it done on Sunday as part of my ‘get ready for the week’ deal!) Thanks for hanging in as I relearn how to split my time between work and other things, especially this! Take care of yourselves, and each other! <3