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#20. His at Night by Sherry Thomas. 3.5. Stereotypical but well done Regency. He's a secret agent pretending to be a total moron. She's desperate to escape an abusive household and tricks him into marrying her anyway, to both their regret. They...fight crime?
#21. Metamorphoses by Ovid, translated by Henry Thomas Riley. 3.5? How do you rate something 2000 years old? Interesting from a historical perspective. Extremely repetitive - basically 75% of these consist of someone engaging in sexual misconduct (raping someone, lusting after someone inappropriate, or chasing someone across the entire damn country - seriously how many times do we have to describe someone's hot breath on someone else's hair) and getting turned into either an animal or a tree. 90% of Greek wildlife used to be someone horny/sexually assaulted. You know the best stories already and the rest got forgotten for a reason. (The best stories are quite lovely, though.) Somewhat amusing is Riley's commentary, in which a guy form the 1800s who believes the Bible is literally true and has a shaky grasp of anatomy himself tries to interpret the origins of this myths in a very condescending way. I'm sure people 200 years from now will have similar feelings on our literary criticism.
#22. The Coldest War by Ian Tregillis. 4. After WWII was fought by Nazi supermen and British warlocks, we bounce forward to the 60s in which everyone's lives are ruined. But that doesn't mean a certain precog doesn't still have a plan...
#23. Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen, translated by Edmund Gosse and William Archer. 3.5. Subtly written unsubtle play about a very unsubtle woman who thinks she's subtle. God, I'm happy not to be a Victorian. Hedda is unmitigatedly awful. But I'm genuinely unsure how much is Ibsen fully grasping the terribleness of women's lives in his time and how much is him still thinking they're emotional and irrational. This is like the "Always Sunny in Philadelphia" of classic theater. Everyone is awful.
#21. Metamorphoses by Ovid, translated by Henry Thomas Riley. 3.5? How do you rate something 2000 years old? Interesting from a historical perspective. Extremely repetitive - basically 75% of these consist of someone engaging in sexual misconduct (raping someone, lusting after someone inappropriate, or chasing someone across the entire damn country - seriously how many times do we have to describe someone's hot breath on someone else's hair) and getting turned into either an animal or a tree. 90% of Greek wildlife used to be someone horny/sexually assaulted. You know the best stories already and the rest got forgotten for a reason. (The best stories are quite lovely, though.) Somewhat amusing is Riley's commentary, in which a guy form the 1800s who believes the Bible is literally true and has a shaky grasp of anatomy himself tries to interpret the origins of this myths in a very condescending way. I'm sure people 200 years from now will have similar feelings on our literary criticism.
#22. The Coldest War by Ian Tregillis. 4. After WWII was fought by Nazi supermen and British warlocks, we bounce forward to the 60s in which everyone's lives are ruined. But that doesn't mean a certain precog doesn't still have a plan...
#23. Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen, translated by Edmund Gosse and William Archer. 3.5. Subtly written unsubtle play about a very unsubtle woman who thinks she's subtle. God, I'm happy not to be a Victorian. Hedda is unmitigatedly awful. But I'm genuinely unsure how much is Ibsen fully grasping the terribleness of women's lives in his time and how much is him still thinking they're emotional and irrational. This is like the "Always Sunny in Philadelphia" of classic theater. Everyone is awful.
