I’ve been on a mental marathon for the past couple years, writing my first novel. I wake up, and I decide where I will write today: at home, at a nearby cafe, or the mall for a cheaper outing where I can get a $2 coffee. I go to bed and I lie awake bothering my partner with questions about plot ideas I’m having and if they will work with the themes I’m trying to convey. I read books or watch movies and shows, and all I can think is, “oh, the way they did that is cool. I wonder if I can learn something here to apply to my story?”
It consumes my existence right now, and that doesn’t bother me at all aside from the occasional fear that none of this will pay off beyond my own sense of self-satisfaction. And I probably would be okay with that on some level, but there would be disappointment in not seeing any greater success too. As is normal when you spend years of your life working on a project—six years so far, if you count the on-and-off time, but more like three of actual constant work.
I’ve experienced many small successes that have made me proud, as well as plenty more struggles along the way and it’s been a pseudo-spiritual experience to maintain this effort through the highs and lows. It’s been fun for me, but there are days I wonder what I’m writing for. I hope my story can make people feel for the characters the way I’ve empathized with so many characters I’ve fallen in love with, and I hope the story will mean something to people who are not me, but all I can do is make it the best version of itself it can be and hope for now.
Project Hail Mary (2026) dir. By Phil Lord & Christpher Miller
On Tuesday, I went to see Project Hail Mary, the newest film based on an Andy Weir book to hit the theatres and I have so rarely had such a fun time with a film. The emotional ups and downs were delightful to experience, even when they were lows for the character, and they were delightful because of the way the story was built. Reaching certain story milestones felt earned, and the tension was built well.
Ryan Gosling also made the main character, Ryland Grace, an extremely empathetic character whose eyes it was interesting to see through. I’m curious to read the book and see if I find the Grace in the book as empathetic as I found Gosling, as while watching another film based on an earlier book of Weir’s, the Martian, I found Matt Damon extremely hard to empathize with in the film and it made a massive difference to my experience with the story. I’m curious how much of this is the actor chosen for the role and how much is the story itself. It seems Weir’s storytelling improved a lot between the two stories and it gives me a lot of hope that, as I spend time with my current story and eventually move on to other stories, I will also improve each time.
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Another piece of media that got me thinking recently was Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, which I started a few months ago but struggled with initially. In the middle of February, I had emergency surgery to get my gallbladder removed and had trouble holding books over my stomach as it put pressure on the surgical site, but once I could hold books again I decided I wanted to finish that book. I checked reviews to see if my struggle was normal, and it seemed that many struggled with the first half of the novel as I had, so I opened it back up and pushed through. Le Guin tosses a lot of alien words at you and a lot of characters whose significance can feel confusing until you meet them a couple times. By the time I got to the second half of the book, I started to get pulled back in.
Though there was action and tension in this part of the story, I still find the book to be more atmospheric overall and this was a slower, slightly more challenging read for me because of it. I believe I would have an interesting time re-reading The Left Hand of Darkness because of this. After gaining a better understanding of the characters, I think going through the first half again with that knowledge in mind would make some scenes a bit clearer. And despite the struggles I had with it, I can see how all these aspects I struggled with add to the themes and atmosphere of the book, so I would say I enjoyed this book a lot in spite of these and have great respect for it. I look forward to reading The Dispossessed soon, but I may take a break to go through some easier reads for a bit.
Sky Full of Stars Series by Lindsay Buroker
I also recently finished a second series by Lindsay Buroker. Last year I read through her Fallen Empire series, and in December I started reading the follow-up series to that one, A Sky Full of Stars. The plot was shorter and less complex comparatively, but as the story switches to the POV of Jelena Marchenko, the daughter of the protagonist of Fallen Empire Alisa Marchenko, who is only eighteen at the time of the story, it follows that the tone would lean towards a YA level of language compared to the slightly more mature tone of its predecessor. I enjoyed the series still, as I love a good adventure regardless, but I did miss the character interactions and character diversity of the first series. As most of the teens that were the focus of this story were Starseers (this world’s version of a jedi-type cult), there was less variety in the main team, but I still enjoyed the character interactions. I overall enjoyed Buroker’s writing and may consider one of her other series at some point, but I have a massive backlog of books I want to get through as well first. I am currently focused on reading diverse stories so I will have to get back to Buroker later on.
Game Changers series by Rachel Reid
In January, I blasted through the Game Changers series by Rachel Reid and finished The Long Game about a week before I ended up having my surgery, just in time. I had finished watching the show and have been having a blast being a part of that fandom, so I had to know how the show compared to the books. The series is an easier read compared to some other books I’ve been reading, and I don’t tend to enjoy reading contemporary romance as I just think romance is more fun if it’s in space or on the back of a dragon, but I want to try reading a bit of everything.
I did enjoy the series, even though I found the quality to vary between the books. My favourites in the series were Heated Rivalry, Role Model, and The Long Game, with an honourable mention to Tough Guy which brought forward an interesting couple but lacked a bit of tension or oomph to me. Game Changer and Common Goal were the weakest two for my tastes.
In Game Changer, I found Kip somewhat insufferable in how he pushed Scott to come out, not to mention the dubious kiss with Kyle even if it was a momentary lapse. I am glad that Jacob Tierney wrote Kip in a way that fixed this issue, having the big coming out being Scott’s decision made with a miniscule amount of prodding from Elena. That feels like a better story as it brings a better understanding of the pressure Scott is under and how big of a decision coming out is for him. In the novel, I found Kip’s pressure for Scott to come out to feel childish and unnuanced to a point of frustration. Of course Kip thinks Scott should come out. Kip had a very accepting group of family and friends around him. Scott does not have this, at all. He does not know how his teammates will react, let alone the sports journalists and fans all over the world.
Forcing Kip to float around his apartment like a flamboyant betta fish is not good on Scott’s part, of course, but Kip’s pushing rubbed me the wrong way regardless. It came off rather childish at times in my eyes. The show’s choice to let the ball sit firmly in Scott’s court and him still choosing to come out because he loves Kip, without some kind of ultimatum, made the relationship feel much more loving and fair.
As for the books I enjoyed more, I really enjoyed Role Model grappling more directly with the darker side of what happens in the sports world, the kinds of crimes players get away with because of the environment shielding them from consequences. I really loved the arc for Troy to do his best to turn things around and when the commissioner starts getting involved in the story, it becomes much more interesting.
I loved the tension in the Heated Rivalry and Long Game books, with Shane and Ilya at the core of it. I felt these two had much more nuanced looks at how hard the decision to come out can be. I have much more minor critiques here. In The Long Game, Shane’s story and character arc felt a bit underdeveloped compared to Ilya’s, and I understand why it seems like the more interesting story to pursue, but I still wish it had been balanced a bit better.
Another critique I have about the series broadly is a writing issue wherein sometimes the world these stories take place in just feel so small, as if it was written with a small town contemporary romance in mind. Meanwhile, most of the books take place in large cities: New York, Montreal, Ottawa. Yet scenes where characters are walking down city streets, no one else seems to exist outside of the characters. I’m sure this is something that wouldn’t bother everyone, but I felt it rather strongly and I believe the reason why is that there is this fear of the world outside hockey, understandably so, as well as the fear of the rest of the hockey world. The public can be a scary reality for anyone with a public persona and this is shown rather rarely. Characters walk down city streets and nothing else seems to be going on. It truly feels as if nothing else exists in the world. The public is but a distant concept that exists somewhere else. It’s not an inherent issue, but I found myself wishing it was different. To me, Common Goal was the worst offender for this and contributed to it being my least favourite in the series.
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
This is a book that, I regret to inform, I struggled with. In a bad way. I got so miserable every time I opened it up that I decided to drop it about 30-40% of the way through. And I think my problems with this book that led to the DNF were two-fold:
One, I felt lied to about what the book was. The prose was too much of a poem, a bit more experimental, compared to what I expected.
Two, this book was mentioned alongside many sci-fi genre books, but it’s much more literary and I was not looking for something in that genre right now.
After reading something that was more on the challenging side for me a month earlier, with Left Hand of Darkness, this felt like something else entirely to me. I also simply didn’t enjoy the way it was written. I feel this book has the sort of inverse problem that most writing has. Most of the time, writers are told, “show, don’t tell.” This book does nothing but show, and show, and show. I felt like I was reading these letters from the outside, without enough context to really care, personally.
Clearly, my opinion is not held by most as this book comes highly rated on most websites, and this is of course because everyone has different reading tastes. Personally, I felt often that I wanted more of the action and less of watching Red and Blue trading intellectual barbs with each other until they fall in love. I felt as if I was reading two people philosophising in front of me, without ever letting me in, as the reader. Again, a stylistic thing that many seem to have enjoyed, but I felt like I was a third wheel, standing outside of a conversation with two folks who are sharing inside jokes and never wanting to include me. And I’m sure I could analyze their letters, and find answers to the references they’re making, but why should I continue to sit around the conversation that has no interest in including me?
I think this book will sit better with folks who enjoy more complex prose in their novels (technically this is a novella, but regardless), folks who enjoy more literary fiction, and folks who enjoy poetry. Perhaps if I had had it explained that way to me, I could read it at a time where it was more inline with what I wanted to read and I would find more enjoyment in the very things that bothered me on this attempt. At this point in time, I’m enjoying my genre fiction. Perhaps I’ll try this book again one day, but I need to find a time where it matches my expectations.
