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Amanda Hirschmann

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Amanda is Currently Reading

Amanda Hirschmann is currently reading

The Romanovs, 1613-1918

by Simon Sebag Montefiore (Goodreads Author)

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(9%)
— Aug 19, 2026 05:45PM

Aug 19, 2026 05:45PM

Amanda Hirschmann is currently reading

Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)

by Rebecca Yarros (Goodreads Author)

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Reading for the 2nd time

read in August 2026

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Amanda Hirschmann said: " Ch 1: In this world where carriages and wagons are frequently used, we also use the word "word-vomit". Okay. Ahh! She has different colored hair, that means we know that she's special! No character or personality required. Gee, I wonder if the guy wi Ch 1: In this world where carriages and wagons are frequently used, we also use the word "word-vomit". Okay. Ahh! She has different colored hair, that means we know that she's special! No character or personality required. Gee, I wonder if the guy with a loving mother and devoted girlfriend will die during the first challenge? Maybe he could pull out a photograph (do those exist in this world?) and show everyone his loved ones.

Ch 2: Oh no, he died! 🙄 You know, for a woman who is apparently uninterested in sex, Violet spends an awful lot of time cataloging how attractive the guys around her are. Also, with the exception of Xaden, I don't understand why everyone else resents her or wants her to die; the book states that a lot of the students are legacies, so wouldn't the environment be one where students are sucking-up to the kids from now prominent families in the hope of favor? And why is being a dragon rider a punishment for the children of traitors when it's an accomplishment with extra privileges for everyone else? They get more leniency than the other quadrants. Xaden's physical description made me roll my eyes so hard I saw out the back of my head. It is propulsion, though. Also, notes on her history lesson thing and boots.

Ch 3: Hey, look! It's the hometown guy she's going to abandon for the more dangerous, darker, brooding, sexier, out of bounds guy. Again, the narration and her actions do not line up when it comes to Violet's level of interest in sex.

Ch 4 & 5: It's subtle, but in case you didn't catch it at the beginning, Violet has *unique* hair. Yet again, she's an inexperienced virgin with no interest in sex who cannot also help drooling over the shirtless boys. Also, Dain's confirmed his feelings for her. Why isn't she reacting? Didn't she say that she's been daydreaming about him for ages?

Ch 6: Her dead brother is actually alive isn't he? Again, if the students are mostly legacies, how do they not also know this top-secret information her brother left for her?

Ch 7: Okay. It's been a 10 day jump, and so far Violet is stuck in a tree collecting berries, hoping that the rebel kids won't notice her, but the moon illuminates everything, and she is creeping closer to their conversation. So, if her hair is so eye-catching and unique, why can't they see her? Furthermore, has anything changed in her relationship with Dain? Or was that earlier flirtation just a way to establish that she is hot enough to be desirable while also telegraphing to the reader that she's innocent and pure too? Does Xaden know she's there? The rebel kids' conversation flirts with being interesting. The sense of camaraderie they have is good, and the death stakes have been developed well enough that the older students giving the younger students advice and help carries real weight, but the most well-crafted part is the sideways way it's established that the official history is incorrect. That being said, who calls their cousin "cousin" except to exposit needlessly? Also, the rebellion was a while ago, so why is Violet a target when it doesn't sound like her brother or sister were? Hey, he did know she was there! "His voice is like rough velvet," 🙄 Kill me.

Note: Chapters 6 and 7 have terrible closing lines.

Ch 8: Violet's going to get the black dragon, right? The most special girl gets the most special dragon. Oh my gosh. Why does everyone feel the need to tell Violet she's so smart? This book is huge; you'd think there'd be more room for showing than telling here.

Ch 9: We flew through the interesting stuff of Violet poisoning her opponents just to come out the other side and spend several times that amount of space fixated on a fight scene which is textually- doesn't even bother to be subtext-- a stand in for a sex scene. Because this is what the book is about. There are no more interesting themes or points or whatever. This book, with it's massive fan base, has so far had nothing to say except Violet is smart and special and Xaden is violent and hot. I am 4 hours and 40 minutes into this book, which means that I could have watched A Few Good Men twice in this span of time, and just one watch of that film would have provided several times more interesting insights into soldier-on-soldier violence and the military industrial complex. Also: "Almost everything about bonds are off limits for discussion." Well, that's convenient, then the world building can be whatever you want it to be!

Ch 10: For the obstacle course, all I could picture was that reality tv show, Wipeout. Xaden says that one of the reasons that so many people want to kill her is because "she's really good at pissing people off," but that hasn't exactly been a consistent issue? I did like that little moment of mourning and terror from Violet; it's one of the few times that her woe is me attitude actually seems earned. ...more "

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(18%)
— Aug 18, 2026 05:21PM

Aug 19, 2026 09:50PM · see review

Amanda Hirschmann is currently reading

A Pale View of Hills

by Kazuo Ishiguro (Goodreads Author)

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(page 67 of 183)
— Aug 16, 2026 11:29PM

Aug 16, 2026 11:29PM

See all 4 books that Amanda is reading…

Amanda’s Quotes

“When a child first catches adults out -- when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not always have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just -- his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

tags: coming-of-age, fall-of-the-gods, growing-up, parents

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