#Joanna Quinn

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[trenchandwhite]

[randomrichards]

AFFAIRS OF THE ART:

Beryl the artist

Jealous of sister’s success

Middle aged breakdown

[nyx-b-log]

i read a lot but it was one looong book so i only just finished it this morning! got mixed feelings.

the whalebone theatre by joanna quinn is a historical fiction novel starting in late 1918 and finishing sometime in 1945/6, following the life of cristabel seagrave from very young childhood to adulthood. this is how it's sold in the blurb, and that's not untrue, but honestly only about half of the book is focused on her perspective and most of that's in the second half. this isn't a bad thing! just not the story i was expecting.

as much as this is a 'your mileage will vary' kind of book (it's about a well-off white family in england in the early 1900s and covers ww2, those kinds of books are incredibly common and honestly there's other stories to be told about that time period) the writing is exquisite. this, especially the first half, would animate so, so well, she's got a real skill for establishing characters/character moments and scene description. worth reading for that alone imo.

but, big but, it also ran overlong for me. i was invested and enjoying myself in the first half and then we hit ww2 and it all just gradually tapered off. maybe that's me not enjoying world war books in general, maybe it's that it seemed to lose focus, idk.

i definitely got smth out of it, and don't regret reading it at all, but the ending fell a little flat for me.

for manga i read another volume of mushishi (vol 8), which featured another story i've got a incredibly vivid memory of watching the anime episode of. why there's only these two i remember, and not all the other ones in between i've got no idea. the art keeps getting better and better, very sad i'm gonna be finishing the series soon.

[lilianeruyters]

Looking back on 2023

2023 Once more turned out to be a year with some wonderful reading. It does give one hope that every year new beautiful novels are written and published. Especially living in a country that is no longer capable of turning young people into readers. Quite a few Dutch youngsters leave primary school with only a basis reading skill, setting them back for the rest of their lives careerwise and as…

[prologusblog]

Joanna Quinn: A ​bálnacsont színház

Egy újabb meseszép KULT könyv a 21. század kiadó jóvoltából. Joanna Quinn debütáló regényét hozta el nekünk a kiadó, ami a nemzetközi nagyérdeműnél elég jó visszajelzéseket kapott. A fülszövege egyből felkeltette a figyelmem, de valamiért viszonylag későn kerítettem rá sort. Talán azért, mert bármennyire is érdekelt a történet, nem vagyok nagy fanatikusa a családregényeknek és azt sem szeretem,…

[rrrauschen]

Joanna Quinn, {2006} Dreams and Desires: Family Ties

[bookcoversonly]

Title: The Whalebone Theatre | Author: Joanna Quinn | Publisher: Knopf (2022)

[gachagon]

I've been reading "The Whalebone Theatre" for a while now and I want to give an update on my thoughts so spoilers for the book down below if you haven't read it. I will be discussing things past the first act of the book so if you are reading and haven't made it past act 1 then don't click

Anyways I'm noticing a really awful pattern of the men in this book seeming nice at first, but then revealing themselves to be the most terrible people you could imagine. I think it starts with Willoughby who seems like a bit of a playboy, and a nice uncle, but a good guy, but then by the second act we kind of see how he's not the best at being a husband and is maybe a bit distant from his responsibilities as the head of Chilcombe Manor.

And then we meet Taras who seems like a really nice dude who's just traveling with these two women and these 3 unnamed kids, but who is later revealed to be a pretty terrible dad to those 3 unnamed kids.

And you know, I think the way the author went about that reveal is really great because the entire time Taras is there, Christabel always notices those 3 kids and sees them as "savages" because of the noisy and dirty way they look. They don't always have clothes, they're always dirty or smudged with mud from days of playing. And because Christbel is a kid you kind of just get the impression maybe those other kids are just playing "rough" and that's why they always look like that.

But once Christbel talks to them for the first time and learns that Taras is there father, his behaviour towards them and the way they dress and look suddenly shifts in a new, but terrible light.

Especially since Taras up until that point kind of just seemed like a cool yet eccentric painter who didn't want to give Rosalind the time of day and saw her obvious need for attention from others as off-putting. He's nice to Christabel and doesn't shun her imagination and relates to her because he remembers being imaginative as well.

However, he sleeps around with random women all the time, doesn't pay attention to his kids, and leaves his poor wife to manage everything while he also forgets her for his "work". In a sense, he's kind of a hypocrite because he obviously looks down on Rosalind and others for the way they dismiss Christabel's art and imagination, yet here he is literally neglecting his kids and his wife T_T

and I don't even want to know if he's told poor Mlle. Aubert about his wife and 3 kids he's been traveling with. Now I just don't like Taras and I see his actions in a new light entirely. This whole time he's been going on and on about "art this" and "Art that" and what art means to him and how other people are dumb for thinking about art in a frivolous way. But does he really know what art is or is he also like Rosalind, where he discards things that bore him for newer "shinier" things?

In the way that Rosalind hoardes items for her house from magazines, does he get pretty women to be his muses until he moves on and finds different ones that spark something in him?

[toiletpotato]

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[wwprice1]

The new X-Factor lineup (at least to start)! Cover by Greg Land (Bob Quinn will do the interior art).

[adaptationsdaily]

COLIN BRIDGERTON

BRIDGERTON | Season 2

[triviareads]

Could you recommend some historical novels with some kind of game involved? Idk chess, cards, etc

Yes! This is by no means a comprehensive list because there are a lot that are tangentially set in gambling hells and the like, but here are some of my favorites:

Convergence of Desire by Felicity Niven has a card game subplot; Harry is a savant and can easily count cards, and she realizes her and Thomas's houseguests are cheating them during cards so they devise a plan to win back their money. Tom's also a gambler and a high-stakes one from what I remember.

What I Did For The Duke by Julie Anne Long has a sexually tense game of blindman's bluff complete with not-very-discreet groping, and then a dramatic card game that finally makes Genevieve realize in a very roundabout way that the duke loves her and wants her to be happy unconditionally.

The Design of Dukes by Kathleen Ayers has a way-too-sexually-tense game of lawn bowling. The hero later admits he wanted to tug the heroine's skirts up on the lawn and take her then and there.

Prince of Broadway by Joanna Shupe has a heroine who wants to start a gambling hell for ladies so she asks big bad casino owner Clay Madden for lessons.

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean: There's a really hot card game scene at the end where Ralston is basically Done and ready to get this seduction started after Callie is all "hm I wonder what it would be like to be a courtesan".

The Awakening of Ivy Leavold by Sierra Simone: this is a historical erotic romance; There's a game of blind-man's bluff that turns into an orgy by the end.

All the Ways to Ruin a Rogue by Sophie Jordan: Aurelia likes to sneak out and go to a pleasure club dressed as a courtesan and play cards and at one point I believe the hero has to pay a forfeit where he strips naked in front of everyone.

The Viscount Always Knocks Twice by Grace Callaway: It's a house party so there's lots of games; I remember hide and seek which ended with Violet and Carlisle making out in a Priest Hole, and Carlisle also gifts Violet with a handmade bow and arrows during their courtship because she likes those kids of games/sports.

Dreaming of You by Lisa Kleypas: Derek Craven owns a gambling hell, there's a GREAT scene where Sara is disguised by a mask and she's playing cards and all them men can't help but he drawn to her including, of course, Derek Craven. This is actually suuuch a romantic part of the book, at least until he finds out it's Sara under the mask and then it descends into (horny) farce.

Then Came You by Lisa Kleypas: Lily agrees to a high-stakes card game and if she loses she has to sleep with the hero Alex; obviously she loses, there's this really interesting bit where Derek Craven half-assedly protects her honor in that he tells Alex to be gentle with her, but also, says she needs to honor her debts and basically shoves her into a private room to await Alex lolol.

Secrets of a Summer Night by Lisa Kleypas: Annabelle and Hunt play a lot of chess while she's recovering from a snake bite and it does get to the point where she's having sex dreams about it. Both this book and It Happened One Autumn have scenes where the wallflowers are playing rounders (kind of like baseball?), most notably in SoSN where they're playing in their underwear and Simon Hunt and Westcliff happen upon them.

The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn has a pall-mall scene where Kate and Anthony are super competitive and Kate ends the game by whacking Anthony's ball into the lake.

Gavin Hunt from Her Wanton Wager by Grace Callaway, Cross from One Good Earl Deserves a Lover by Sarah MacLean, and Aiden Trewlove from The Duchess in his Bed by Lorraine Heath are some of my favorite gambling hell heroes except I can't quite remember how much gaming there is in their books, but I strongly recommend them.

[tophsazulas]

Happy Lesbian Visibility Week to my fave lesbian icons

[nyx-b-log]

another short week this week, tho in my defence i've had more to do than usual.

started and finished to be taught, if fortunate by becky chambers and it was okay...? you can tell it was her first published work and honestly i think her writing thrives better in longer books. there's still that tender feeling to it that i've loved in all her work, but everything else sort of missed for me.

i've also started the whalebone theatre by joanna quinn and i'm actually enjoying it a lot more than i thought i would! i'm not normally a historical fiction kind of person but the characters and writing in this are pulling me in! (but, it's also a ww2 book in the second half, smth i very rarely enjoy, so this may change asdfghjkl). the blurb is a bit misreading, given that it says the main character is cristabel and when you start the book one, she's three, and two, there's a loooot of other POVs.

for manga i finished vol 7(!) of mushishi which includes the first double chapter in the series, which also is a call back to a chapter in like vol 3, so that was nice. ginko continues to be The Man, and there was some more good comedy in this one. possibly my favourite volume so far. you know what i'm gonna put the rest of this under the cut cos i NEED to talk about this in more detail asdfghjkl if you've not read mushishi, please please read mushishi

it also included the only part i vividly remember from when i watched the anime (over ten years ago?), the chapter lightning's end.

seriously, the way it expresses so much generational trauma in just a few pages is incredible (cw for implied attempted suicide, on page attempted infanticide, and general sad things):

(read from right to left, i've laid it out in double page spreads as if you had the book open.)

(if this doesn't work on mobile i'm so sorry)

basically this is the internal thoughts of the mother in flashback, covering from the point her own mother marries her off to someone despite the fact she's in love with someone else, then when she gets pregnant and doesn't want the baby so tries to kill herself but has to give birth anyway, then when she attempts to kill her own child by getting him struck by lightning because she doesn't know how to love him and it's crushing her, and then that last double page spread... the look between him and her in those last two panels is just 👌 fantastic

i also liked how it resolved (spoilers, ig) in that the mother doesn't just suddenly overcome her own trauma and become able to be the mother her son needs, and the son isn't expected to just deal with it. it's not smth i'm used to seeing, and i appreciated it.

bonus shoutout to the hunting chapter, which draws on horror themes and has some god tier art in it. the page with the birds? incredible.

[lilianeruyters]

Joanna Quinn || The Whalebone Theatre

A delightful novel about three young people coming of age and finding their true selves despite (or maybe because of) dire circumstances.

The Whalebone Theatre has blown away readers all over the world. Rightly so, Quinn has written a complex novel that addresses several themes without ever straying. Most importantly, Quinn has written a novel about erring people that you could frown upon, still she manages to put into perspective all of their actions and make you love them. To start with an example which is a small spoiler. At…