A Wandering WeyrCat...

Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond by Kim Harrison My rating: 5 of 5 stars In short: I really loved this anthology. I avoided some schoolwork to snatch a story here and there, and even snuck off into another room to read a page or two. Definitely a winner. No spoilers. I loved reading the Hollows shorts, some more than others. I'm up to date on the other books so some things twinged my heart a little bit (some characters in Ley Line Drifter, for instance). It was so much fun to see the Elf Quest play out in Million Dollar Baby! Trent is not my favorite character but it is nice to get into his head a little bit. I may read him a little differently from now on. I wasn't overly fond of Ivy's tale, but I'm not overly fond of Ivy. It's something about the flavor I give her when I read her in print, because the flavor she has in the audiobooks is different and I like here there. My own hang ups in there somewhere, I suppose. S...

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy My rating: 3 of 5 stars It took me a long time to get through this book, because at times I found myself actively avoiding reading it. I like the characters but disliked that I felt like I was reading three books at the same time. I didn't have a problem switching tracks between the stories, but it seemed like I got bored with the length and detail of a story for a while, then it would become interesting again but the track would switch into the other story. I thought the characters had great depth and were made interesting, though in Levin there seemed some parts written just to be "throw away" scenes. I really liked his connection to the workers and the land, and I could understand that putting put aside as it was, but just (poof) in one sentence was jarring. Still, I think Levin's story was my favorite. I liked it. I did. But it was difficult to get through and there were more than a couple places where I had to reread because I ...

Blood Work by Kim Harrison My rating: 3 of 5 stars It's odd to see the beginnings of the Rachel-Ivy friendship from Ivy's point of view, and definitely isn't I expected. It kind of shatters a certain view I had about Ivy, but gives some aspects of her past some depth. Overall the story feels a little shallow, but I think it's because I'm used to so much verbal detail and internal monologue from the books. I will read more as they come out, but probably from the library. I'm not super-keen on the penciling (everyone has the same nose?) (Rachel's "kind of flat chest" is a bursting C-cup?) (OMG SO MUCH CLEAVAGE) (on one page the lines are so thick, it looks like it was penciled with charcoal) but the inking is really nice. The inking has a nice grimy feel to it that I really liked. I like the way they were able to incorporate the power/pheromones into the artwork, but someone needs to tell the inker, who has never read t...

I got a little behind in posting, due to the nature of summer college courses. On those, I did get A's in all three (yay!). I'm already onto the next half of my summer courses. Only two grades, but three courses (yay conjoined labs!). The first chunk of June was brutal. TLDR? Here's the summary, with the brutality after the break.  June was harsh. I got bullied in public, Mom was in the hospital, Rook cut her foot open and needed constant maintenance, Shane was at drill for two week. I did catch up on some  Star Trek  movies, some reading, ran three times a week, ran all of a 5k trail run. Yea. Take that crappy month. I'm awesome.

Shane and I went to this special evening admission at the local zoo to see the animals when they're most active! We've been to the zoo before, and it's a GREAT zoo, but it's really hot in Florida. If I could sleep through the hottest part of the day and ignore all the screaming children, I probably would too. We had a schedule to keep, so first went to see the Wings Over Water show. It was the same show they do during the day, but I always love it. ONE exception: Hunter the Eurasian Eagle Owl is back! He's been out for a while because of a foot fungus, but was back and ready for pictures. Is it weird that I know these things? I did get to see a Harris's Hawk, Austin, which was made extra cool because I'd just seen a little educational video on them the night before! During the WoW show the birds fly very close to you while the hosts tell you about the birds, their habitat, and how you can help preserve that habitat through little things. I always enjoy it....