rec me books, o reading page?

[fiachairecht]

I like disastrous obsessive girls and unreliable narrators and settings-that-are-characters and psychological horror, among other things. non-dude authors preferred. the last book i finished was the haunting of hill house (shirley jackson), am currently reading the bear and the nightingale (katherine arden), next will probably be the traitor baru cormorant (seth dickinson).

also if you're wondering if i type the vast majority of my book-question posts on my phone while lying on the floor of my favourite indie bookshop you would be correct, excuse the typos my screen is too small to show me and autocorrect may catch and may make worse.

(the problem, you see, with dreamwidth moving so quickly these days, is that i keep forgetting who mentioned excellent-sounding books and then because i am bad at remembering to add them to my memories, i also forget where they are! and the last four pages of my reading page are all today!)

ETA: wow yes you all have super great taste and also apparently strong feelings on twin peaks? i have never seen the show but i am delighted by that spinoff discussion. i am definitely set for my next few library trips now :D

Comments

[thatyourefuse]

Do you know about Megan Abbott? Because The Fever most of all for DEAD LAKES THAT WANT TO EAT YOU, but really, all of it.

[fiachairecht]

YES, Megan Abbott's everything is also My Everything, Queenpin was an Oh! This is what stories can be! revelation years ago and I've never looked back.

[thatyourefuse]

:D :D :D

I don't know how anyone learns to charge every single damn detail with that specific kind of nerved-up sensuality, but like is there a course I could take or something? (Also, it still cracks me up that I would have called her as a Twin Peaks person -- specifically the kind who can appreciate parts of late S2 and really never got over Laura/Donna! -- way before someone linked me the piece she wrote about it, but that felt too much like projection.)

[havocthecat]

I've been tracking for recs, so excuse me for interrupting, but I've always thought half of the problem Audrey and Donna had with each other was their unspoken and sublimated sexual rivalry for Laura.

Okay, and so also, why did Nora and Shelley just never have sex after hours at the diner, because they were way more healthy with each other? I mean, seriously, was doomed, abused Laura Palmer the only bisexual woman in Twin Peaks? David Lynch did not have a healthy idea of women's sexuality.

[thatyourefuse]

I mean, I know what YOU mean, but I don't think healthy sexuality of any variety has ever really been... on-brand, for him. Not to mention that I think they were really right up against the limit of what you could GET past the censors and/or anyone's agent in the early 1990s as it was. (Wasn't that around the time various directors were making a lot of noise about the MPAA telling them to do things like cut 1.5 seconds of thrusting out of their sex scenes, if they wanted an R rating and therefore any distribution ever?)

(Guess how often we yell "JUST RUN OFF TO VERMONT!" during Shelley/Norma bits in this household, though, go on, guess.)

[havocthecat]

Given how much Lynch I've seen, you're not wrong, and that heterosexuality he shows is pretty unhealthy too, so you have a very good point. I mean, there are zero healthy relationships on that show. Or I think even in any of his movies.

(RIGHT? Ed and Leo and Bobby were not prizes, not in the least. VERMONT.)

[thatyourefuse]

I'm very FOND of Bobby Briggs in an "oh god, this is you trying, isn't it" kind of a way, but... yeah, nah, honey, do not be guided by a boyfriend who's skipping Econ for the third time this week like right now.

[havocthecat]

He was trying so hard, he really was, but look at those role models! I mean, really, what kind of role models did he have to learn from?

[thatyourefuse]

Not to mention that, like, he's the obvious case of "you're not actually going to get very far on any of the other issues until the ADHD is under control" out of that cast. Or any cast. Of anything. Ever.

[havocthecat]

Like, I really wanted to tell Admiral Scully General Hammond Major Briggs to get his son some treatment for whatever his problem was? But back in the 90s, I wasn't that up on ADHD symptoms, because my girlfriend hadn't been diagnosed, she was just self-medicating with a whole lot of caffeine. I mean a LOT a lot of caffeine. Now, though, yeeeeeah, ADHD, you are so right.

[thatyourefuse]

And like eight other things, but really you've just got to watch him try to sit in a chair for two consecutive minutes. (I genuinely don't know why Dana Ashbrook didn't have a much bigger subsequent career -- he just occupied space in the most exuberantly fantastic way.)

[havocthecat]

I feel like everyone from Twin Peaks who wasn't already a name should've been bigger after the show than they were. Though, wow, looking at IMDB, he did work a lot more than I realized (and was, surprisingly, in two eps of Psych, not just Dual Spires, the Twin Peaks homage episode).

I still need to watch the 25 years later sequel, because it was on a pay channel and I wasn't going to pay for Showtime for one series. But I think it hit Netflx?

[havocthecat]

Also do you happen to have a link to this piece? Because that sounds relevant to my interests.

[thatyourefuse]

La.

[havocthecat]

Thank you!

Also, frankly, this entire post has helped to reassure me that the character in my original fiction who is utterly terrible and manipulative (uh, because she cares?) should be allowed to be utterly terrible and manipulative.

I've spent two scenes shoehorning her into being a better person (after she blackmailed someone) and why am I bothering? WHY?

Let her keep the news that her girlfriend's entire livelihood has burned down to herself because it would mean more time with them. Obviously, she's doing it "to keep them safe," not for any other, more selfish reasons. (She's totally doing it for more selfish reasons.)