WIP Wednesday - Ink Flare

I'm still recovering from my tonsillectomy on Friday, so things have been pretty slow around here. I think I had wildly unrealistic expectations for my recovery time... It really amazes me how groggy I still feel, five days on from the op. Part of it, I suspect, is that sleep is so interrupted, because one of the few things that really help with the pain is drinking lots of cold water. Well, when you sleep you are obviously not drinking, and when you are not drinking your throat really dries up and, well, OUCH! 

But enough of me whinging. I'm feeling a little better today, so I've decided to tackle the disaster zone that the house has become over the past few days, and I've also had a chance to take a few pictures of Ink Flare as she looks right now. 

The body is done, and so is sleeve #1. I'm about 1/3rd into sleeve #2 right now. I've not done as much knitting as I thought I would over the past week because even knitting often seemed to energetic, lol, but there has been some progress and considering how quickly this project is knitting up I think it might be possible to complete it over the coming week or so. 

As for reading, I've been indulging in a bit of pop lit. I have another book I want to start, but with my head so fuzzy I didn't quite feel up to it. So I've been reading Deborah Harkness's All Souls trilogy (A Discovery of Witches, Shadow of Night, The Book of Life). I'm currently on book three.

I'd heard a lot of good things about this trilogy, and it certainly makes quite good sick-bed reading, but honestly? I'm not entirely sold on these books. I enjoy the historical aspect of them, and the detective work of historical research, which feed into my own interest in history and own compulsion to research absolutely everything. It also helps that the author is a historian and academic, and therefore knows what she is talking about in that area. 

What I haven't particularly been able to get behind is the main romance. Since it's pretty much at the centre of the book this is obviously a bit of a problem... It's not only that the trope (a vampire / witch love story) is kind of exhausted, but that I find the main characters individually, and their relationship with each other, a bit annoying and tiresome. The rhetoric is so over-romantic at the same time labouring the point of how hard they have to work at making it work, how independent they really are, how much they adore each other, blablabla. It's hard to explain but even while it's trying to present a realistic portrayal of a new relationship it seems like a wish-fulfillment fantasy of the author, with the heroine an independent modern woman who wins the (flawed) dark, brooding male hero, and while everyone is initially skeptical and hostile towards her she manages to win them all round because she is so amazing... Sorry, I'm exaggerating, but, well, I'm just not feeling it, you know? I always get the sense that I'm being  told how to feel, how amazing these characters are, how amazing this relationship is, while what I'm seeing is something quite different. I'm not only unconvinced because I just can't feel it but also more than a little put off by how simplistic it all seems, and by the unhealthy obsessive and stifling nature of the dynamic of the relationship. I don't know, it's probably just me - it's not the first time I seem to be swimming against the tide of the general popularity of a book. :/

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