Brett Marcus Cook > Recent Status Updates

I haven't been able to shake off the Southern Reach trilogy since finishing it, and the books I've been reading since have been missing something those novels had in spades. But I wasn't ready yet for Absolution, not ready to return to Area X, so picking this up from the bargain section at work felt like a good call.

I can feel its talons starting to sink in already.

First four chapters, the entirety of book 1 of this release, done. I read book 2 by itself a couple years ago and loved it, but will definitely be rereading it to have a full picture in my head of this epic.

Roughly halfway through and this is a very good read, if a little uncomfortable and painful at times, but this line at night hit me like a bolt of lightning, a feeling I've struggled to articulate for years regarding my own alienating social awkwardness:

"Despite always being invited in, I buzzed around the fringes, unable to wholly connect."

This is my first Terry Pratchett novel, my first Discworld novel, and I'm kind of awestruck by how I'm already almost halfway through it in a week's time, especially considering that it's part of a long running series and is apparently the third or fourth to focus on this group of characters. No prior knowledge of any of it, but it's still just such a fun, lively read without ever feeling like I'm missing something.

I don't feel right commenting on a book I'm not too deep into, but...

I dig the protagonist being a painter living in isolation and the developing strangeness, but him being divorced, sleeping with other women who are students of his, it bugs me. And now I'm in a scene where another man is describing the wild sex he had with another woman and...

...not a single woman in this book has a name. What the fuck is that?

Finished the first novel, which is quite close to the original movie, with only a few unique differences. Godzilla Raids Again is a lesser film, so we'll see how the novelization reads!