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simplyn2deep posting in comment_ficsimplyn2deep, and I’m back to host another week! 🔀comment_ficrocky41_7 posting in booknookThe other book I finished during my voyage through the southwest was How to Love Your Daughter by Hila Blum, translated from Hebrew by Daniella Zamir. This was book [checks notes] #17 from the “Women in Translation” rec list. It’s about an estranged mother and daughter; as the mother peers through the windows of her adult daughter’s house from across the street, she ponders what went wrong in their formerly loving relationship.
How to Love Your Daughter is a cerebral kind of novel that swims back and forth between Yoella’s present, desperately reaching after the daughter who’s walked out of her life, and Yoella’s recollections of raising Leah.
The twists and turns of their relationship are subtle, almost too subtle. Both characters come off slightly neurotic, fussing about every minor interaction and seeming, to me, to invent problems where none really existed. In the end, it’s not so much a long-deteriorating relationship, which is what I expected, as it is Yoella making one decision that forever alters Leah’s perception of her.
“No one warned me my love could destroy her,” Yoella says about Leah at one point and that’s the core of it. Yoella adores her daughter, almost beyond reason. And it’s that very willingness to put Leah above everyone and everything else that eventually pushes Leah away from her, which is such a perfect tragedy.
I saw another review that said this book was both too long and too short, and I think there’s some truth to that. There are drawn out middle sections which don’t necessarily add much, but the ultimate break and subsequent efforts at reconciliation by Yoella don’t get as much room to breathe as might have benefitted them.
However, the ending is an exquisite microcosm of the tension of the whole novel, leaving you wondering about unreliable narrators and perceptions. Some people felt that Yoella gets off too easy—I would recommend rereading the section where Leah talks to Yoella about her reality/fantasy of Dennis writing her a letter.
I don’t know that either Yoella or Leah comes off as really sympathetic here, but they do come off very human, full of flaws and self-justifications and irrational reactions. And maybe sometimes it’s just human nature to create a tragedy where there didn’t have to be one.
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simplyn2deep posting in comment_ficsimplyn2deep, and I’m back to host another week! ✨🎬comment_ficrocky41_7 posting in booknookI went out of town for my little sister’s graduation this weekend and finished two books on the trip! The first was Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee, a fantasy-in-space story about a young infantry captain who has the soul of a famous traitor embedded into her mind to assist with a tricky military campaign.
I nearly had to eat crow on this book because I’ve said so many times I prefer when SFF books just dump you into their world rather than giving you an expositional primer, but Ninefox Gambit really tested my commitment to that. The first third of this book is a whirlwind of terms, practices, and concepts that not only are never explained, but for which the context is nearly nonexistent. I think you simply have to accept being confused to enjoy this one, which is why many reviews did not.
Semi-related, this may dress itself up as sci-fi, but it is fantasy. This is a magic system. A magic system that makes use of mathematics, but a magic system nonetheless. Accepting that going in will make dealing with the practical jargon much easier.
All that said, I ended up really enjoying this one, and I do plan to read the next two in the series. There’s just oodles of machinations and scheming and recontextualizations that I think are great fun and the end payoff was worth sticking with it.
As is the case with any story of this nature, our resident omnicidal traitor, Jedao, eclipses the book’s actual protagonist, Cheris. It’s just hard for our young, inexperienced infantryman to be as engaging as someone with as much history and baggage as Jedao. But I do think Cheris holds her own and doesn’t become just Jedao’s shadow. Additionally, Jedao, who is the most tactically brilliant mind the empire ever produced, gets plenty of opportunity to shine without making Cheris look like an idiot in comparison, which is a difficult needle to thread as the author. Furthermore, Cheris comes into her own more over the course of the book, which makes sense for her rapidly expanding level of experience.
Jedao is great fun to poke at and learn about, though I won’t say too much here to avoid spoilers. I hope we get to hear more from him in the next books.
Lee tees up the next book perfectly here without ending on a total cliffhanger. Nevertheless, I’ll be getting my hands on book 2: Raven Stratagem as soon as I can.
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creepy_shetan posting in comment_ficcomment_fic on a Sunday, you can either request previous prompts to be filled or share your recent fills for prompts. (Or do both, of course!) ✎ comment_fic tellshannon815creepy_shetan posting in comment_ficcomment_fic abyss_valkyrie posting in stocklove_icstocklove_ic , permission graciously given by sietepecados . I'm extending the current challenge's deadline by a week. Check it out below.
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chocolatefrogs littlemissnovella templefugate posting in comment_ficcreepy_shetan in comment_fic - Lonely Prompts Sunday, Week 20 [DW Edition]abyss_valkyrie in stocklove_ic - Challenge 127: Votingcreepy_shetan in comment_fic - Free for All Saturday, Week 20 [DW Edition]abyss_valkyrie in stocklove_ic - Challenge 127:Last Reminder.simplyn2deep in comment_fic - Thursday: ❓ What If... ❓silversea in booknook - RIP (Read in Progress) Wednesdayseverina - Wednesday Reading Memerocky41_7 in booknook - Book review: How to Love Your Daughternarnialover7 in stocklove_ic - Challenge #127 - Cuddlysimplyn2deep in comment_fic - Tuesday - 🚫💬 No Dialogue 💬🚫rocky41_7 in booknook - Book review: Ninefox Gambitabyss_valkyrie in stocklove_ic - Challenge 127:Second Reminder.abyss_valkyrie in stocklove_ic - Challenge 127-Cuddlythesleepingbeauty in stocklove_ic - Challenge 127: Cuddly by thesleepingbeautycreepy_shetan in comment_fic - Lonely Prompts Sunday, Week 19 [DW Edition]tellshannon815 - (no subject)creepy_shetan in comment_fic - Free for All Saturday, Week 19 [DW Edition]abyss_valkyrie in stocklove_ic - Challenge 127:Reminder.abyss_valkyrie in stocklove_ic - Challenge 126: Winnerstemplefugate in comment_fic - Thursday: The Letter "F"
Lonely Prompts Sunday, Week 20 [DW Edition]
May. 17th, 2026 10:04 am↑↑↑ Available dates:
May 19 & 21
May 26 & 28
June 2 & 4
Hi there! Hope the weekend's been treating you well. :3 Welcome to our weekly Lonely Prompts day. If this is your first time at
How to look for prompts:
We have plenty of prompts that might just nibble away at your brain today. You can browse through the comm's calendar archive (here on LJ or here on DW) for themed and Free For All posts, or perhaps check out Sunday posts for Lonely Prompt requests. (Or, you can be like me, and try to save interesting prompts as you see 'em... and then end up with multiple text doc files full of [themes + links + prompts] that you can easily look through and search for keywords.) Multiple fills for one prompt are welcome, by the way! Oh, and you are very likely to find some awesome fills to read as well, and wouldn't it be nice to leave a comment on those lovely little writing distractions? ~_^
Whichever you decide to do, prompt or fill (or both), please remember:
1. You can only request five prompts to be filled.
2. You can request no more than three prompts from a particular fandom.
3. You can, however, fill as many prompts in as many fandoms as you'd like!
4. In the subject line, be sure to say whether it is a request or a fill!
5. You must link back to wherever the prompt is in the community archive (whether filling or requesting), and, if you're filling the prompt, please post the fill as a reply to the original prompt.
6. If you are filling an "any/any" prompt, please let us know what fandom you've written it for (or if it's original!).
8. If there are possible triggers in your story, please warn for them in the subject line!
7. If you've filled any lonely prompts in the past week, this is the place to share them!
9. Finally, please remember to add your prompt fills to our AO3 collection: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2026 collection. See further notes on this option here.
How to link:
[a href="http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/449155.html?thread=70682755#t70682755">MCU, Tony Stark/Pepper Potts, She's wearing daisy dukes and one of his button-down shirts.[/a]
(change the brackets to "<" and ">" respectively)
or:
http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/139897.html?thread=30155641#t30155641
Burn Notice, Sam/Michael/Fi, "It's always been you. And it's always gonna be you."
We are on AO3! If you fill a prompt and post it to AO3, please add it to the Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2026 collection.
If you are viewing this post on our Dreamwidth site: please know that fills posted here will not show up as comments on our LiveJournal site, but you are still more than welcome to participate. =)
If you have a Dreamwidth account and would feel more comfortable participating there, please feel free to do so… and spread the word!
A friendly reminder about our posting schedule: Themed posts for new prompts go up on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Saturdays are a Free for All day for new prompts of any flavor. Sundays are for showing Lonely Prompts some love, whether by requesting for someone to adopt them or by sharing any fills that you've recently completed.