RuthieD > Recent Status Updates

yeah so i cried a little :( the parallels to real-world atrocities are just too striking 😭

a constantly displaced, systemically marginalized group; a quest for justice; war; the themes of this book hit harder this time around. whew. delivered alongside nursery rhymes and a slow burn preteen romance (lite) subplot. Suzanne Collins does it all

Just taking a moment to comment on Suzanne Collins’ character-naming! From curse of the warmbloods (2005):

“…two bats named Cassiopeia and Pollux”

It’s giving Mockingjay(2010):

“The one with close-bitten nails introduces himself as Castor and the other, who’s his bother, as Pollux.”

Also all the bats have names from Greek Mythology 🤭 Suzanne Collins with the Easter eggs!!

crazy reading this after covid (plot is seeking the cure for a plague)

Before there was Percy Jackson, Gregor was the low-income nyc kid who got sent on quests in strange lands to fulfill prophecies 🧎‍♀️ also I forgot that this is the book that made me try to learn echolocation 😭 (to this day, if I’m in a dark room I click my tongue in case it helps)

This story did NOT survive trad publishing and I can’t even keep track of secondary characters and worldbuilding 💀 morbid curiosity/my dislike of DNFing is the only thing compelling me to continue 🥀

I didn’t expect this book to hit so close to home. It’s set in rural Iowa (with mentions of Kansas), which I imagine isn’t all too different from the Kansas and northern Oklahoma I grew up in (in terms of nature descriptions, like brown grass and grasshoppers, and food, like cornmeal mush). Makes me want to write about my great grandparents’ homestead and family history 🥹

sick day audiobook :)

sad my time with this book is almost over :,)

I’m already SO invested. This feels like returning to my roots as a stem girlie who watched NASA documentaries on dvd & was obsessed with Interstellar & Hidden Figures 🥹 I LOVE that we get to experience Ryland’s problem-solving in real time, with actual calculations! The dormant physics + astronomy knowledge in my brain is resurfacing (just enough to follow everything lol). I love the fragmented storytelling!