Reading the Poppy War trilogy felt like reading morbid wikipedia articles when I was a kid. I don't mean it in a bad way, but after a certain point you just sort of detach yourself a bit from the subject matter. That's not to say the books weren't good. They were. The prose got the job done without belabouring the point or being too brief. The ( Read more... )

Gods dammit what is wrong with me, I feel like a flimsy net sack absolutely stuffed with tennis balls, except that each tennis ball is an emotion I can only exorcise by listening to the saddest music in existence

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Current reading backlog:

- Harrow the Ninth (again) 
- Tristan and Iseult (again)
- The Eye of the Labyrinth 
- Lord of the Shadows
- Return ( Read more... )

Read a book - came highly recommended as one that would warm the coldest cockles of my heart and reinspire my faith in humanity and stuff.

It was beautiful and charming. The little nods to the fourth wall at the ends of Chapter 19 and the epilogue were very delicate, very light. And somehow... I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.

Linus ( Read more... )

I dreamed an alternate ending for Game of Thrones, where the Starks were doin all good and fine, but then Cthulu rose out of the depths, and everyone's hands melted.

Also, I got a Kobo on the weekend and let me tell you it is a game changer for bubble baths. I had a two hour soak and finished Retribution. I'm looking forward to Covenant but, alas, ( Read more... )

I don't think I've ever read a sequel that represented a bigger jump in quality than The Queen of Attolia, and not because the first book lacked in quality at all. The Thief is fun on the first read and brilliant on the second. The Queen of Attolia just rips everything to bits in the first chapter. It's brutal on the first read, and heartbreaking ( Read more... )

A Daughter's Deadly Deception: The Jennifer Pan Story - Jeremy Grimaldi

• Serviceable writing, as it should be
• Story follows the nonchronological-Ernst Ritter/Machete approach to watching the Star Wars movies
• Middle section bogged down with cell phone subplot
• Fascinating look at a murder close to home
• Victim impact statements (particularly Felix Pan's) ( Read more... )

I brought a book but unexpectedly they had a bunch on a table in the lobby too. I don't know if they were acquired from secondhand stores or left behind (probably the latter, that's why there were so many romances).

Midsummer Magic - Catherine Coulter

• Too much marital rape at the beginning of their relationship, not fun to read
• Heroine turned on by ( Read more... )

Sooo for my birthday I woke up at 9AM and went downtown to do a photoshoot for the news article of sadness. Afterwards I told my prof that my chances of doing a phd were about the same as dropping everything and becoming a carpenter and that the odds were not looking good either way. I also said that if I really wanted to do a phd I would not do it ( Read more... )

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I haven't actually heard that Meghan Whalen Turner is getting a movie deal but I think that, if carefully staged, The Thief and The Queen of Attolia would make pretty awesome adaptations.

They'd have to be careful to preserve the twist, and god forbid they pull something like The Illusionist, with the flashbacks showing how the con was played... ( Read more... )