Calvin Sears > Recent Status Updates

Almost to the end but I got distracted so now I am stopping.

9 months is far too long to read a book that isn’t *Infinite Jest* or *The Bible* or something. I’m completely glazed over and frankly just want to be done with it.

I gotta stop going months without reading this thing. Talking about losing all sense of plot, character, and momentum…

The epistolary form is fun but it’s more than a little tedious trying to keep the characters & their relationships straight in my head (especially when you put the book down for several months without doing any re-reading…).

I’m starting to understand the macro (more the. halfway in), but the micro still eludes me, and I find it deeply frustrating. This is just such a dense text and I don’t think it really needs to be. Perhaps I will find my path through the jungle as I continue on.

I feel like this book is padded out by way too much unnecessary description. I don’t think we need this level of excruciating detail about every room Gideon steps in and every interaction she has— if anything, it honestly makes these things harder to visualize rather than easier.

Fantasy authors have a predilection for cramming their stories chock full of proper nouns, and I gotta be honest it wears on you. I am Lord Lady Duchess Harrowhark Nonagesimus of the Ninth House of the Empire of the Lord God King Eternally Undying of the Sword of the Blade of the Capitalized Letters and the Etcetera, Etcetera. Give it a rest!

There's a lot going on. Too much, one could say. I'm glazing over. Should come back to this when it isn't 3 AM.

I have not yet been truly intrigued by much of this, but maybe the clopening chapter will turn it all around…

Maybe it’s a function of the fact that I’m reading this book almost ten years after it was published, but I get the feeling Cathy O’Neil thinks she’s blowing the lid off of something super scandalous and revealing and she just… isn’t. She doesn’t go deep enough! This is already stuff I know!

So far I have not encountered anything I did not already know… I’ve been beaten over the head with exposés about 2008 and the nefarious instruments underpinning it for like six years at this point.

I’m glad there was a chapter dedicated to dunking on Maria. She deserves to get dunked on. I really hope these people figure themselves out because their blasé aimlessness is starting to drive me crazy (which I assume is the point, but still).

Hmm. Wrestling with the question of whether or not I like the narration style anymore. Leaning towards “no” but am willing to lend it some grace. I do still appreciate how breezy all the little chapters(?) are. You can knock out 50 pages and not even really notice. Hopefully Maria gets a clue one of these days.

I like the narration. The book is a bit of a page-turner even though it isn’t particularly exciting. Two notes:

1.) Everyone who lived in New York wants to convince me that New York is unique and beautiful and special. I don’t give a shit. Fuck New York, New York sucks.

2.) Not sure this half-narrative, half-hey-it’s-me-Imogen-and-here-are-my-opinions thing is gonna work for me the whole time. We shall see.

Little connections between the seemingly distant pieces that comprise the novel are starting to avail themselves to me. Excited to see how they develop further!

So… Saul wants to fuck the Backstreet Boys? Or *NSYNC or whoever? That’s his trigger? Does he not find metal guys hot? What a poser!

There is no such thing as Christian grindcore.

Wanted to press through the chapter but had to tap out for the night. Don’t even really have anything interesting to say. I just want this book to be over.

The Rose-Lisa confrontation might have been the first time I was almost compelled to feel an emotion while reading this book, but the flat matter-of-fact-ness of the prose took me right out of it. And the bit where she invents her own Bible verses, YEESH.

I think I like the raw ideas here — I like them a lot, actually — I just wish they were written by someone with a stronger pen. The amount of times Rose has said “I might be X, but even I know Y” or “I have to face this simple truth: [something obvious we could have gleaned through subtext]” so far is enough to make me want to scream.

So… I guess the answer is no, we don’t care anymore? And I guess we’re going to have Rose’s backstory just conveniently appear out of nowhere because we couldn’t think of a more interesting or natural way to do it?

Kirkpatrick’s writing style is evocative, poetic, and indeed genuinely funny (I am often misled by novels which claim to be funny when they are not). It remains to be seen whether or not this format he’s chosen will be my cup of tea, however.

Normally I try to press on through the chapter before I settle in for the night, but I just couldn’t muster the will. The prose is SO flat. Why do we devote so little space to such critical events as Martina’s death? Was I supposed to care that this happened? Could’ve fooled me.

The writing is proving competent enough but is still reading as YA to me. I tire of these tortured Biblical similes and Tingle’s relentless assault on subtext. There are bits I like, but nothing I love.

This book is plagued by enormously unsubtle prose, which leads me to believe I have been unceremoniously duped into reading a YA novel against my better judgement. This is perhaps the gravest sin of them all.

What’s becoming increasingly clear to me is that you have to be a complete nut job to want to work in this industry.