12.05: Toes and books

[starlady]

For today, seekingferret asked about my favorite toe. I have webbed feet, so my second and third toes are literally tied for my favorite toe(s). Interestingly, it's only on the right foot that the webbing goes up high enough to prevent me from wearing five-toed shoes.

Yesterday, rachelmanija asked me about five books I didn't enjoy, or enjoyed for the wrong reasons. This is actually a hard question! One of my achievements of the last few years has been ruthlessly cutting out books that I don't enjoy from my reading habits, mostly through pre-screening my choices. I didn't enjoy Guadalupe Garcia McCall's Summer of the Mariposas for the reasons enumerated at the post. I also didn't enjoy Nnedi Okorafor's Akata Witch (Viking, 2011) anywhere near as much as I wanted to, for many of the same reasons that Rachel noted in her review. The pacing was wonky and, as much as I liked Sunny, the stakes of the backdrop and the dimensions of her actual experience of being a Leopard Person were very mismatched. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the sequel, which I understand is coming out next year. Okorafor is still one of the most interesting writers I know, but I think The Shadow Speaker is still my favorite of her books (and at this point I've read almost all of them). And while reading volume 8 of Ôoku I inadvertently realized that the manga has straightwashed multiple notable historical figures, including Tsunayoshi, which has definitely colored my opinions about the manga henceforth.

ETA: I also didn't particularly enjoy Georgette Heyer's Sylvester, which I read earlier this year. I'm not well-versed in romance novels in general, and I know enough about the Regency period that the Regency slang felt layered on with a trowel. I also prefer Jane Austen's approach to the Regency period, which (being contemporary) was eminently sensible: most aristocrats are fools. I have False Colours on my shelf and I will probably read Cotillion at some point because it's the one everyone loves, but there it is. That said, I'd welcome recs for people's favorite Heyers that I should read instead.

Comments

[seekingferret]

Oh, interesting! I asked because I realized it was a question that I don't have an answer to myself, and I like asking questions like that because they often bring surprising answers.

Do you find that having webbed feet makes you more aware of your toes than a person who doesn't?

Have you tried wearing a five-toed shoe only on your left foot?

[starlady]

Um…I dunno whether I'm more aware of my toes than other people. Maybe, inasmuch as it means I can't wear certain types of shoes/socks? It was also a frequent cause of exclamation when I was younger; it still kind of is, when it comes up in conversation and people find it interesting/strange/cool.

I don't think wearing just one five-toed shoe would work, sadly, as part of the point is that they're so much less shoe-like than other shoes and it would be impossible to replicate that for the right foot without the same sort of shoe/sole. I have entertained fantasies of someday getting those kind of shoes custom-made, though I don't even know whether that's possible.

[thistleingrey]

Hmm, Cotillion is not my favorite Heyer, but I am used to being mildly disagreeable. :P I do like the setup. When I first read Faro's Daughter, I liked it, but now I bet I wouldn't. Perhaps Venetia for her retention of some control of her own actions. The slang is trowelsome in every Heyer book I've read, and I've hit most of the Regencies as well as a couple of the mysteries and one historical. (IIRC it was the summer of grad school before the one in which I caved and began reading Harry Potter. Hugs and kisses for local libraries.)

[cynthia1960]

My personal favorite Heyer is A Civil Contract.

[metaphortunate]

Mine too.

[rachelmanija]

Shadow Speaker is my favorite too.

[lnhammer]

Sylvester is one of my favorites, so if you don't like either that or False Colours, you should probably move on. (I'm not particularly fond of Cotillion myself, but it's not one of the stinkers either.)

---L.

[snickfic]

Cotillion is by far my favorite Heyer of anything I've read. It was the first I read, and honestly I might as well have stopped there, because nothing else I've tried has come close. The main pairing is lovely, and the secondary characters are also lovely, and it has lots of just the right kind of humor.

I know A Civil Contract is much lauded, but I found it horribly bleak. Possibly that's why people like it? It's definitely a more sober novel than many of her others.

*uses representative Heyer quote icon*