Evelyn > Recent Status Updates

August 9 2026 - and so the voyage of the Demeter draws to a close. I should watch the movie tonight...

I read Bk2 1st lol so didn't know for sure but considered Bryan Irish for fun, what w/his giant hounds (so I thought likely wolfhounds) +the casual way he got along w/the fairy/tuatha dé danann & let them use his dogs to hunt. I was right! Irish! The "EVERYONE in his fam is a ging except him & his dad w/jet-black hair" is a bit lol tho- kinda veering to a stereotype there! But at least we see the black Irish hair rep

"As she pondered what Vaughan had said, she began to recognize the richness of her life: a relationship with Brody more rewarding than any Larry Vaughan would ever experience" wow took her long enough. I mean 3 kids, 1 is like 14, and only now is she actually ok with her life with the guy she says she loves. All the while prior making it out like he needed somehow to make things right bc she gave her up rich life

"I only hope Martin appreciates the treasure he has" weird enough for Larry to bring up, on the heels of talking about how his wife loves him, that Ellen and him would have been a great couple, but then to act like Martin doesn't know how good he has it. Damn. The rich acting like the middle/poor are receiving a gift when they lower themselves into marriages to them. Like Martin needs to make it up to Ellen

The shark again at last! Brody's side of the story is so much better than ones like Ellen's which isn't about the shark at all.

I thought this was about a killer shark but instead I just had to read horniness and cheating - not another cheating book 🙃 where has the shark gone???

Nooo not to Delilah girl get out of your dumb Sam world brain wake up

Ugh Sam didn't wanna talk to Percy bc of what she did (after, lbr, Sam was a shit bf then said let's take a break and made her feel unwanted) but he's also mad at her bc she "left and never came back" while he was ~always there for her to return too~ .... all while ignoring her calls and emails??? You can't accuse someone of running away while actively ignoring them REACHING OUT. Sam stop pissing me off

Sam sending a whole "let's talk less so I can focus on my studies and my future i need to work hard" to his gf but when she calls a girl picks up his phone and they're partying getting drunk... dude wtf are you doing. Can barely string a sentence together for months while talking to her and now this ugh Sam pisses me off. Charlie at least gives a shit and is trying to get her to do things for herself again fuck Sam

"I think my brother was a coward to keep the course a secret. & if it were me, I would have called you as soon as I got to Kingston." + "Sam has it in his head that you belong to him... he has a belief that everything is meant to work out btwn you 2 in the end. & I think that's pretty much bullshit." (& so he doesn't think he needs to fight for her) I may read the Charlie sequel he's the only one not pissing me OFFFF

It's pissing me off these boys all trying to stake a claim on Percy like she's something to be had and it seems to always circle back to the physical

Took Percy long enough to think Sam was being cruel and decided she didn't deserve to be yanked around GEEZ

Charlie is right Sam is a fucking idiot. Idk why he thinks he can say that he as Percy need to stay platonic after confessing and kissing (while she is dating Mason btw....), but he gets mad/jealous if she gets a boyfriend. Oh but it's ok for him to kiss other girls. Bro either date her or back off it's crazy he thinks she should just wait for him for an undetermined amount of time until HE thinks they're ready......

I wanted to go into this book with an open mind despite this not being my typical genre bc my sis really enjoys these summer reads... but I'm struggling bc I reallyyyy hate cheating. It seems so unnecessary to add all this messiness to present time. I can get past teen silliness but at 30? Get it together. I love the lake country Ontario refs tho - home turf! Refreshing to have a familiar setting despite the rest

"For next week's class, [Ho Sam] thought he would share an excerpt from One Hundred Years of Solitude... He recalled a part of the novel vividly. After witnessing the banana company massacre, José Arcadio Segundo desperately tried to tell everyone about the blood and the bodies. But his fellow villagers treated him like a madman. They said it never happened." - A book on my TBR! Literally waiting on my sidetable oops

"Ning On felt like puking. The world had gone mad.

People like Little Professor seemed to expect the pain and anger of everyone to be calibrated into a single, precise aim and fired at a common enemy. Instead, this hate festered like spores of mold, scattering in fine specks, multiplying, floating aimlessly, seeping into everyone's system."

"That was when Ah Mak began to realize that his willingness to endure and his inability to act could hurt the people around him."

"People who think too much usually aren't very happy"

Mystey 2 of 2 done, "Why Did the Well Wheel Creak?" - 3.5/5 I enjoyed this one much more! An epistolary mystery told through the letters of the sister wrapped up in the case, and a few newspaper clippings. It was an interesting game of suspicion contained in a short story, I read through the whole thing in 1 sitting. What was also interesting was that Kindaichi was actually not the one who solved this one!

Mystery 1 of 2 done. Murder at the Black Cat Cafe - ~2/5 stars... Definitely felt like Yokomizo wanted to play around with the "faceless corpse" trope - well, he told us as much in his meta conversation with our main character detective, Kosuke Kindaichi! However there was too much explaining, not enough building intrigue - I'm sure he had fun trying to make a known trope different, but not his best mystery.

The Burial of the Rats - TENSE (he was foolish from the get-go though but what a chase)

The Squaw - The American character... :/ Propensity for violence and arrogance well communicated. Anyways, VENGEANCE shall be hers! Good for her!

Gibbet Hill - ok strange.... but I can see the British "fear of the other" at play similar to Dracula

Gibbet Hill - "The stars swam out into the sky, which had now a darker blue, and a soft light fell on the scene. I sat on and on, and drank in the wondrous beauty in which I was immersed. Weariness of mind and body seemed of the dim past, and as if they could never again be other than a sad memory. In such moments a man seems almost to be born again, and to have every faculty renewed to the full."

The Judge's House - ohhh that was good

The Judge's House - "Rats is bogies, I tell you, and bogies is rats; and don't you get to think anything else!" *sage nod* rats is bogies

Dracula's Guest - Dracula before Dracula! Very cool short story that was either the original beginning of Dracula or a stand-alone where Bran Stoker played around with ideas he would later expand on the novel

Page 329 onwards contains all the sources and specific details cited throughout the book via the Appendix, Bibliography, Notes, and Index.

"As a collector investigating Austen's favorite women authors, I found the warmth and affirmation of models. I didn't 'discover' these writers; I reconnected with them, like my predecessors had done before me. I gave a chance to writers like Radcliffe, Inchbald, and Edgeworth, and I loved their books so much that they're now part of my personal canon. I hope you find yours, too." Nice conclusion

Why Read the Classics? by Italo Calvino "A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say."