1. Name a ship that feels like home.
Bitterblue/Giddon from the Graceling Realms series by Kristin Cashore! It reminds me of this quote from Anne of Avonlea:
Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one's side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps. . . perhaps. . .love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath.
It just makes me happy and content and has since I read the book where they first become best friends. That book came out nine years ago, and I reread it recently (to prepare for a new book in the series) and all my cozy feelings about the ship havenât palled at all.
10. Name a ship that is funny.
21. Name your favorite ship from a book.
Okay, well, I have read Anna Smaillâs The Chimes twice since last October and I still havenât stopped thinking about the main pairing, Simon/Lucien, so Iâm gonna have to go with them at the moment.
Itâs kind of a miracle Iâm even talking about them because theyâre in a novel with tropes  I normally avoid â 1) a dystopian world and 2) where the government rules over the people via memory loss (transmitted through music). I have a major squick for anything involving memory loss and I generally find  dystopias depressing, but I think the reason I loved this book is because itâs also a grown up fairy tale where our heroes are making off to set the world to rights by bringing back stories and memory. Without giving too much away, itâs also a fairy tale the of Farmboy who leaves on a heroic Quest and falls for the Prince whoâs ran away from the tower â and I loved their relationship a LOT.
The book is in Simonâs (the Farmboy character) POV and I enjoyed how I could kind of see him fall in love bit by bit just based on his narration thatâs like:
âI look at his fierce, hooded, unseeing eyes. Lucien springs fully formed out of the Thames. Lucien emerges clean and pale, untouched by Chimes. Lucien leads us with his miracle hearing under the cityâŚâ
And how itâs extra poignant because Lucienâs partially sighted and has to rely on sounds and body memory to get around and lead people, and Simon finds his physicality beautiful (which: words like beauty or attraction are never really said, I believe, but you just know it based on the words chosen, and thatâs an authorial skill that I like!) And I love how a huge draw for Lucien is the way Simon can determinedly build words and memory together despite the music!memoryloss erasing them every day, which is some neat meta in itself â Simon is narrating this story, to you the reader, in first person POV, and his ability to do so is one reason Lucien falls for him? Idk, thatâs how I interpreted it.
Itâs also just a really tender and loving friends-to-lovers romance. I love that the author said she didnât quite realize she was writing a slow burn friends-to-lovers at first and it just happened.
And yeah, like it tends to go in dystopias, their ultimate goal is to take down the government and bring memory and the sense of linear time back and without spoiling anything, both of them realize they have key roles  â Chosen One type roles (though the actual identity of *a* Chosen One is pretty debatable) that make it unclear whether theyâll actually survive setting the word to rights.
But Simon and Lucien approach it like: Okay, but for as long as we can, letâs have our love â we both know full well we could die saving our world and we are fine with dying for a good cause, but right now, in this moment, letâs have our love.â Which is another thing I was SUPER INTO. I basicallyâŚdonât often see love stories where both halves equally understand that for their significant other, the greater good has to first, but they love them even more for putting it first?
ALSO SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
They both survive and are together in the end, and thereâs still a long way to go for their world, but you somehow know theyâll both be okay. Â It isnât the way youâd usually expect this type of story to go (I mean: dystopia and also theyâre both guys â I donât have to spell it out, right?), but I for one am very happy this is how it went.