A Paucity of Posts

February has been a slow month for this blog. There have been a succession of DNF titles which not only failed to engage me, they failed to provoke interesting thoughts. I'm currently reading a fantastic non-fiction that I question the broad appeal of. (When I finish I'll be raving about it and you can decide.)

I think we're entering one of those romance cycles where the market and my preferences are turning away from each other. Kleypas doubled down on her paranormal series and is dipping her toes into the bondage stream. I'm not the 50 / Motorcycle / Benson reader. So there goes Kleypas. She used to be a reliable read for me - an author you reset yourself with. I'm reviewing my extensive list of books to read when the pricing system repairs. There are not a lot of Must Catch Up authors there. Most of those books will go unread.  Maybe 10% still tempt me.

I've got a big bag of books and no idea what's going to stick. Bear with me into March and we'll see if the Book Bag part of my subheading reclaims ground currently occupied by A Slacker. Perhaps I'll just start posting "HATED IT" next to DNF covers. (Minimalism redefined for book blogging.) I think a DNF without exploration is useless. Mostly, aside from the non-fic, I'm thinking about Sharon Shinn's Shapeshifter book. I hate that she went series with it. I hate that by the end the mystery of is he or isn't he was neatly resolved in exchange for a conventional validation. Sometimes as a reader I feel much like Shinn's heroine did about her lover. A certain amount of self harm is required to keep the relationship alive.