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There are good parts but parts where I'm too untherapied and too homosexual to connect
On further reflection: the problem is this book tells not shows and then tells you over and over and over again
The #1 post-reality generation device approved for home use! This manual will prepare you to …
A lot of stories are just Not Good. Like I really dislike edgelord vibes, I dislike overwrought metaphors for queerness even when you lampshade the fact that you're doing it, I don't need every trans story to involve "and then she FUCKS with her DICK" in a tone that's so self-congratulatory it's anti-erotic
Some stories were really good though.
What Cheer was the good kind of melancholy
Thieves and Lovers was just interesting and compelling in that "snippet of a life" way
Imago, though, was amazing. Basically worth the price of admission. I'm glad I didn't DNF early because oh my god I loved it so much.
This is such an odd book, really. If you go look on Goodreads you'll see a bunch of reviews that are basically "I just didn't like the main character".
Which, and I don't want to presume other people's feelings, I don't think is exactly the problem. It's not just that she's self-centered and self-destructive, because those can be good traits for a character, it's that her self-destructive behavior feels less and less well-developed as the novel goes on.
She doesn't just impulsively do things to guarantee her freedom, at the cost of everything she finds good in life, it's that the book just tells us that she's like this and you watch her do things one after the other with no time to pause.
Other characters also don't really have discernable motives, they just hang like props as the plot arcs towards its pessimistic conclusion.
Like you can write a …
This is such an odd book, really. If you go look on Goodreads you'll see a bunch of reviews that are basically "I just didn't like the main character".
Which, and I don't want to presume other people's feelings, I don't think is exactly the problem. It's not just that she's self-centered and self-destructive, because those can be good traits for a character, it's that her self-destructive behavior feels less and less well-developed as the novel goes on.
She doesn't just impulsively do things to guarantee her freedom, at the cost of everything she finds good in life, it's that the book just tells us that she's like this and you watch her do things one after the other with no time to pause.
Other characters also don't really have discernable motives, they just hang like props as the plot arcs towards its pessimistic conclusion.
Like you can write a book that comes down to "emotionally unstable people make bad decisions". I like early Zadie Smith and Don Delilo for goodness' sake! Those characters are like universally awful people but they're interesting.
This is such an odd book, really. If you go look on Goodreads you'll see a bunch of reviews that are basically "I just didn't like the main character".
Which, and I don't want to presume other people's feelings, I don't think is exactly the problem. It's not just that she's self-centered and self-destructive, because those can be good traits for a character, it's that her self-destructive behavior feels less and less well-developed as the novel goes on.
She doesn't just impulsively do things to guarantee her freedom, at the cost of everything she finds good in life, it's that the book just tells us that she's like this and you watch her do things one after the other with no time to pause.
Other characters also don't really have discernable motives, they just hang like props as the plot arcs towards its pessimistic conclusion.
Like you can write a …
This is such an odd book, really. If you go look on Goodreads you'll see a bunch of reviews that are basically "I just didn't like the main character".
Which, and I don't want to presume other people's feelings, I don't think is exactly the problem. It's not just that she's self-centered and self-destructive, because those can be good traits for a character, it's that her self-destructive behavior feels less and less well-developed as the novel goes on.
She doesn't just impulsively do things to guarantee her freedom, at the cost of everything she finds good in life, it's that the book just tells us that she's like this and you watch her do things one after the other with no time to pause.
Other characters also don't really have discernable motives, they just hang like props as the plot arcs towards its pessimistic conclusion.
Like you can write a book that comes down to "emotionally unstable people make bad decisions". I like early Zadie Smith and Don Delilo for goodness' sake! Those characters are like universally awful people but they're interesting.
Presents the complete adventures of the demon-turned-paranormal-investigator, beginning with his attempts to discover his own origins.
During the real estate crash of the late 2000s, Christopher Brown purchased an empty lot …
It's...hrmm
I don't know
I think this is a book for drivers. I mean people who never walk places, never have stared out a bus window, who are used to going from home to business or park without any other experience of the outside world.
I think if you're that kind of person this might be really really good in terms of opening your eyes to a lot of things
But, but, this book felt weirdly unedited too because there were so many parts that, like I said earlier, made me go "didn't I already read this part??" and no it's just that he repeats himself A Lot
and the book itself feels very meandering like it was a series of blog posts not really meant to be read as a book but rather just a bunch of loosely themed diary-in-retrospect entries
During the real estate crash of the late 2000s, Christopher Brown purchased an empty lot …
I feel bad that I think there's interesting bits of this book but a lot of it is just is just a miss for me, it feels very unedited and repetitive where I keep finding myself reading a sentence and thinking "wait, I already read this part...no it's just almost the identical text"
Content warning spoilings
Honestly just a really fun series. I'm very amused that the author only started turning up the dial labeled homosexuality at the end of the second book but kept turning it up til by the end the two leads are kissing on board the ship while both looking like young men
yes technically deryn "is a girl" but by the end of the third book subtext becomes text that she has no plans in the foreseeable future of being seen as a woman by anyone if she can help it and that alek is attracted to her not in spite, but perhaps because, she passes as a tall muscular young man easily
Also honestly I respect building your sci-fi alt history around a "okay what if the way the early 20th century goes the armenian genocide and the rise of the nazis never has to happen" premise
usually alt history stories have more genocide not less
