Friday, June 19, 2015

48HBC:: 6 Hours Done!

Originally, I was going to post at 4 hours in, but then I got distracted reading. Oh noes! So, I'm six hours in, and have not managed to finish my first book. This is a bit disappointing (just personal disappointment) but it makes sense. My pain is bad enough still, since I posted about how it's been difficult, and the meds I'm taking to manage the pain so I'm functional enough to do anything make me really fuzzy.

But this is one of the reasons I'm so happy with the 48 Hour Book Challenge. Unlike a lot of book challenges, it doesn't focus on number of books read or number of pages read. It simply looks at time commitment. And I'm hoping to commit a lot of time. Not just for the challenge, but for my own personal happiness and well-being.

It's been too long since I've been able to read properly (or close to properly) and considering it's one of the few things that keeps my mood stable, that's really been keeping me from turning the corner. But now that I have a reason to focus and read-read-read, it's easier to push myself to do the things I need to do to get out of this vicious cycle.

I'm almost done with Ender's Shadow and I'm glad that I read it after so recently finishing the Ender Quartet. While it deals with a lot of the same themes, there are some marked differences. Part of me feels that it being written later in his career might have contributed to this; his later writing seems to have a different focus. But it's been too long since I've heavily read any of his books... partially because it's somewhat difficult to reconcile liking his writing whilst finding him as a person so upsetting.

But as I've mentioned, a lot of the things discussed in the Ender Quartet heavily seem to contradict his personal beliefs. Which is pretty confusing for me... Frex, a man with such vitriol for the gay community wrote a book that is almost entirely about not acting in hate against those who are different because you may simply not be understanding where they are coming from. I really just don't get it, how Orson Scott Card could have written a book that speaks to me as much as Speaker for the Dead.

Anyway, I'm almost finished and I'm hoping to check in more than every 6 hours in the future. But it's so easy to simply get absorbed in a book instead.

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