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Tiffany managed to get Letitia onto the broomstick with her. The girl fidgeted, but simply gasped as the stick sailed down gently from the castle battlements, drifted over the village and touched down in a field.

'Did you see those bats?' said Letitia.

'Oh, they often fly around the stick if you don't move very fast,' said Tiffany. 'You'd think they would avoid it, really.'

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

The problem with posting about this book is I couldn't find a dang quote that wasn't a complete spoiler, mostly. I think I saw one at one point and promptly totally forgot all context to find it again.

But I liked the bat stuff.

My reactions were kind of like this:

1. [BLANK], YOU CAD


2. This book was grim as fuck in some places.


3. My favourite Watchman that only showed up once before showed up in this!


4. My favourite girl wizard that only showed up once before showed up in this!


5. I think Pratchett tried to pack in a novel worth of characters into a two chapter appearance (Mrs Proust and her crew).


6. I like Preston.


7. Someone's gonna have to explain the whore and knave thing to me.

Now, before I started reading this, in-between giving me misinformation because she is old and thus her memory is spotty, Ann told me that the book was dark, but at no point was she worried about Tiffany's safety. Because, in Ann's words, 'She's Tiffany FUCKING Aching'. That said, the book kept surprising me in various places. And not just the places Ann had confused me.

It is good to bear in mind. She's all growed up now. :(

And so ends my reading of I Shall Wear Midnight, the fourth Tiffany Aching book.

Next: Anne of Green Gables and how her adoptive mom doesn't want any damn London street Arabs to adopt. Oh, the past.

(no subject)

Behold: Anne of Green Gables.

This is a classic! It has tons of sequels, and seems to be beloved by quite a few people. I remember liking it as a kid, not that I admitted it. See, it was 'girly' and like most young boys, I was terrified of confessing I liked girl things.

Well, except my My Little Pony collection.

So this is a re-read without shame.

First off, here's the first chapters:

CHAPTER I. -- Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised
CHAPTER II. -- Matthew Cuthbert is surprised
CHAPTER III. -- Marilla Cuthbert is Surprised

This is a good idea how it starts.

To people who haven't read, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert have decided to adopt a kid. A boy. They want some help around the farm.

Mrs. Rachel Lynde is their neighbour, who explains in detail how adopted kids are gonna set fire to your house, put poison in the well, and god knows what else. Marilla is all 'lol it's okay, we're getting a Canadian kid. No London street Arabs for me!*'

So Matthew, who is terrified of women and hates little girls because he thinks they're laughing at him (a profile that if presented today on a tv show would be a prelude to finding a bunch of bodies in his basement), finds out that it's a girl waiting for him at the station. Best line so far is from the train manager on the discovery of Anne:

"Maybe they were out of boys of the brand you wanted."

Good way of pointing out it's like they're shopping for kids.

I'm nearly done talking, which Anne isn't.

See, Anne talks. Anne talks a lot.

"well, what colour would you call this?"

She twitched one of her long glossy braids over her thin shoulder and held it up before Matthew's eyes. Matthew was not used to deciding on the tints of ladies' tresses, but in this case there couldn't be much doubt.

"It's red, ain't it?" he said.

The girl let the braid drop back with a sigh that seemed to come from her very toes and to exhale forth all the sorrows of the ages.

"Yes, it's red," she said resignedly. "Now you see why I can't be perfectly happy. Nobody could who has red hair. I don't mind the other things so much—the freckles and the green eyes and my skinniness. I can imagine them away. I can imagine that I have a beautiful rose-leaf complexion and lovely starry violet eyes. But I CANNOT imagine that red hair away. I do my best. I think to myself, 'Now my hair is a glorious black, black as the raven's wing.' But all the time I KNOW it is just plain red and it breaks my heart. It will be my lifelong sorrow. I read of a girl once in a novel who had a lifelong sorrow but it wasn't red hair. Her hair was pure gold rippling back from her alabaster brow. What is an alabaster brow? I never could find out. Can you tell me?"

"Well now, I'm afraid I can't," said Matthew, who was getting a little dizzy. He felt as he had once felt in his rash youth when another boy had enticed him on the merry-go-round at a picnic.

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

That is an unusually small paragraph of Anne-talk.

Anyway, Matthew likes her a lot and she's just completed delighted with Prince Edward Island and SO glad she's adopted and going to live there.

And Matthew's like 'Sure glad it's Marilla that's gonna tell her we're not adopting her because she's not a boy.'

And so begins my reading of Anne of Green Gables.


*that one's a quote. OH THE PAST