Nrosenberg > Recent Status Updates

“Uncharacteristically, I turn down food.”

At what point does an author who wants to bring more “fat positivity into fantasy” cross the line into just being mean to fat people?

Barely into the book and if I hadn’t bought it, I’d be DNF’ing it. It’s giving two star review.

… and she misses her bae…

I think I hate this book

Throwing your hands up at an organization like the KGB was no way to solve anything. You had to join, and then you did as many good things as you could, until the evil was a little bit less. He believed that. Or, he had used to. The fact was that to a little girl whose parents were taken away and whose dog was shot, it didn’t matter if the person with the gun was a psychopath or someone who wanted to do good.

“…That means you will probably die of it. Do you know what dying is?”

She nodded again. “You stop, and you turn back into stars. Mum says everyone’s made of stars. Is that true?”

(After three books by Pulley, I’m still not convinced that she has ever actually met a child or spoken to one)

It was a truth universally acknowledged that beautiful women tended despite their natural disadvantages to be virtuous, while beautiful men were invariably bastards.

Every other chapter of this book just has me like Selina Meyer laughing nervously and saying “what the fuck?”

It is dangerous to assume anything like this is ridiculous. It is the very fact that so many people believe some things are unthinkably ridiculous that makes them so vulnerable to those who are willing not only to think but to do the ridiculous thing. That’s how Stalin arrested tens of millions of innocent people without provoking a revolution; it’s so absurd that people didn’t believe it was happening

Josef Mengele jump scare, Jesus

without bothering to say who it was or how he had overheard from two hundred metres away in the security office, from beyond eight closed doors, “whip the student population into dissident protests in your first week?”

“Actually they don’t look very convinced, I think we’re all right,” Valery said.

(oh this is definitely a Pulley novel, that’s for sure…)

“… So one in seven people has been to a labour camp, and if you believe KGB record-keeping, then one in ten of those is dead.”

The phone rang into the silence that followed. It was by Valery, so he picked it up. “Biology Lab.”

“Can you not,” Shenkov said at the other end…

Against my better judgement, I am enjoying this. I am a sucker for a Jane Austen retelling 😭

In this household, Cat Sebastian is queen.

S-tier audiobook. Molly Shannon is a queen.

I can forgive many choices an author makes, but I cannot excuse a character working in a cat café.

“… Me and Sir Gabriel -“ he liked the sound of that “ - we just cannot put our fingers on it…”

If Wright and Ward don’t hook up by the end, we riot.

SPOILERS

… The point was not rehabilitation but a stripping down to form, to show that humans were blindly writhing worms, rooting about to feel anything at all. Oh, God, she thought frantically, why did you create us, why foul the universe with our failing, why not rest after the fourth day, and be content with the silent stars…

SPOILERS

Was this the end point of existence? Alice could have wept with the ridiculousness of it. Now she understood Hell in full. She saw its intricate design; could understand that it was no random imitation of kibitzing rituals but a cruel mirror; that all its karmic reflection just was to show life’s worthlessness to begin with…

Perhaps human intelligence was a mistake, and everyone who celebrated the escape from the Garden of Eden was wrong. Perhaps the gift of rationality did not outweigh the debilitating agony that came with it.

“… And always, always, it ends with draining their blood. They fill up their bladder sacks, they drench their chalk sticks, and off they go.”

“That’s sick,” said Peter.

“That’s research,” said Elspeth.

**Idk who in academia hurt RF Kuang, but Jesus does she hate academia lol**

… We might share the same cells, bodily continuity, and memories as previous iterations of ourselves. But that is all. There is no further fact of the matter - no essential /us/ hovering like a specter. We bear the same relationship to the version of ourselves from ten years ago as we might to a sibling.

… that is to say, no special essence of personhood that remains stable across one’s lifetime. Using a number of thought experiments involving brain transplants, brain divisions, and tele-transportation, Parfit argued that the qualities which we think define essential personhood - psychological connectedness, for instance - do not actually ground any deeper fact…

That summer, the philosopher Derek Parfit publishes the very controversial “Reasons and Persons”, and for a while it was all that anyone at Cambridge or Oxford would talk about. Alice read it with great interest. In fact, it helped her sort through much of her confusion. “Reasons and Person” argues for a reductionist account of personal identity: …

It is insane how much this book is just Red White and Royal Blue fanfiction - realizing your bi, hotel visits, the Waterloo Vase…

The revolution he would lead. From his death sprung a new kind of life, one filled with blood, speed, and power Willie never dreamed possible. But it had been bestowed upon him and already he was being called to lead. It was akin to bestowing a kingdom onto a child unable to speak, let alone rule. His power was immense, yes, but it alone did not a leader make. The trouble was, he had no idea what else did.