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This morning, my mom saw I was reading Tusk Love, and asked if it was a novel about elephants. I tried to explain what it was to her, but I doubt she really understood. I'm now 200 pages into it, and I will finish it, but honestly, my feelings about it are kind of mixed. I think the one conclusion I can draw in relation to it is that romance novels, and romantasy novels with them, really aren't for me. Because I should like this book. I really liked Guinevere from the first page onward, and I like Oscar, too, though he's a little more bland. If their love story was a side-plot in a novel about the turning point in her life, I'd totally ship it. But instead I keep getting annoyed at their whole plowing solidly through the cliche tropey plot they are obliged to follow, and when there are even ( much more interesting things going on... )
I don't really fault Guanzon for the book's flaws; she was hired to defictionalize what's supposed to be a romance novel, so that's what she did. And while I was initially wary when I heard of her Reylo background, I actually think this book being written by a fanfic writer is a good thing; there are definitely moments that are better for the influence from that background, both in the sex scenes and elsewhere. It also meant she's used to playing in a preconstructed world, and some of the books best moments, like the whole saga of the Bonecrusher clan, are when she makes use of the various things Exandria provided her with.

My sister finally came over, if only because she really wanted to get us both to Kaiser and get us both vaccinated for the year before RFK went and made that harder today. That, at least, got accomplished. The poor nurses were obliged to tell me the Covid shot hadn't been approved for people my age, but being presented as my mom's caretaker got them to quickly agree I should get it anyway. I got my flu shot, too, and currently my shoulders are taking turns throbbing a bit, but it's been worse.
We were also hoping to order a new stove, and finally put in for the switch to Fios. But for the latter things went weird, with us being told we had to create a separate Verizon account from the one we're currently getting our landline through, and then being told we couldn't because the email (mom's) was in use. We made the account under my email instead but even then it wouldn't behave itself. So we have given up for the day. Ever since I learned it probably won't even fix our internet problems, I have gotten very tired of all of this. We ended up not ordering the stove either, because apparently I now need to decide which one of the candidates we looked at I prefer. I don't really see much difference.
Next up is actually mom helping my sister by paying off her credit card debts, since that'll make her life post-layoff much more manageable. I'm not sure when any of that is happening, though.