johnny dangerously > Recent Status Updates

took me a while but i finally understand the point of the dual narrative: both of them are obsessed with becoming the victim, denying luciana any agency in her own life, and becoming the protagonists of her story, all while reassuring themselves that they are helping her. interested to see where this goes, bc while its fascinating, it is comparing a nazi pedophile to a woman who is neither of those things, or white.

do u ever read a book and you're like 'wow i hope the author is [the minority being written about] bc otherwise this is really questionable!' anyway heather parry is not cuban.

im gonna keep reading this bc it's actually competently written on a prose level but lol, lmao. lord give me the confidence of a white british author

super odd that this book is expanding on the worst part of the 1st (drug plotline). bardugo doesnt seem to know how to write addiction and doesnt seem to be interested in writing lower-class crime. everything is a heist or a mystery, which is fine! but not tonally fitting for this subplot.

character development earned in last book is interesting to see now, like a good investment. not looking forward to the inevitable return of the onceler-- uh i mean darlington

really genuinely enjoying this more than i thought i would, so it's having its intended instructive effect (getting me to be less pretentious abt what i read)

the book really picks up at ~25% and continues strong. so far this is one of the better paced books ive read in a while. it doesn't meander forever and something moves the plot forward every chapter. a small ask, and yet something a lot of books are incapable of. (i need to stop reading debuts)

i kind of wish this book would go a little harder-- let its characters be meaner, be unsure longer, and not so quick to forgive each other-- but i can tell that's just not the kind of book this is, rather than a gap between expectation and payoff. there is a much crueler, sleeker, gorier horror version of this book that is just not what bardugo wanted to write, and she makes that clear. i just have my preferences.

this book is a little bit terrified of being misinterpreted-- it confirms things we should be able to infer almost immediately after we get the clues, characterization feels slightly spoonfed-- which is hilarious considering how many reviews are screeches about how the book isnt even more black and white.

leaving jupiter to get less stupider

first leg of my 2026 'be less fucking pretentious' tour

[horny intensifies]

this book is insanely shlocky & horny & evil. love it

this is exactly the sort of grimy fantasy i would have eaten up when i was younger. it's interesting that this came out so recently (2022) when this type of book was at its height of popularity in the 90s-10s. that would explain how much pearl clutching is in the reviews.

this book is already head and shoulders above the first one lol. down with sentence fragments

the book is at its strongest when explaining the mechanisms of power, something jones is clearly very interested in. he doesn't quite know how to relate characterization thru praise-- its clear he feels deeply for his characters, but a lot is left implied bc hes still working out how to write a prose novel. its interesting to see him get better at it page by page.

rough prose in places, this is clearly a debut novel, but it evens out v quickly, and it's not like jones is the only author to ever overuse sentence fragments. i am enamored enough of the concept-- historical fiction about poor people-- to forgive the somewhat clunky prose. the heart is there and it's very real. this is a treat for lovers of grim fiction.

if slash fandom read these kinds of books it would be HUGE

did not expect dwale to feature heavily in the plots of two books i read this year but im good for it

I continue to be bowed over by this book. While not much happens at a time, the prose is so lush and gorgeous that I don't really care-- I can feel every word deeply.

This book would be immeasurably worse if it was about a rich princess. The book's commitment to being about a poor woman who has to work very hard to survive makes it truly unique and so flavorful and fascinating.

Incredibly lush and rich prose, interesting world. Reading this book doesn't feel like trying to suck flavor out of cardboard, or like it exists to serve me fanfic tropes in vacuum sealed plastic. I want books to feel like they enjoy being books, and this revels in it.

FINALLY! A BOOK WHERE EVERYONE IS POOR.

some repetitive phrasing but vibes + emotions v strong. you can tell its by a comedy writer but in a good way, vibrancy of images comes off tragicomic, uncomfortable, kind of greasy interaction where everyone is insane and cruel and self-serving. the horror of being a joke when your life has no punchline.

first novelitus-- the pacing is way too fast. every scene is The Big Scene, and it makes characters feel like puppets pulled up to yawp, punch judy, and disappear. less like a movie, more like a video game with only cut scenes. everything else is good to fine, tho i dont like the bona dea scandal being reframed around clodius' curiosity, rather than him fucking other women, just bc the mc is his wife.

i dont honestly know why every author who writes this period insists on making politicians revolutionaries-- probably because of graves. and god knows it's better than making them all modern feminists circa 30 bce. it just always sticks out to me. not really a complaint tho, just interesting 2 note

tentatively optimistic for this one. i have been disappointed by a lot (almost all) retellings, esp if they have the style of cover this book does. luckily this novel so far avoids many of the pitfalls in the 'feminist retelling' thread. it isnt hard to do that with fulvia, rome's most forgotten & most ambitious woman in the late repub. era. some quibbles but v minor & all make sense for what the book is trying to do

weve reached the point in the year where im totally stuck for what to read and its driving me insane-- the last 2yrs ive 'solved' this by reading crappy ya, this year im gonna reread something i was obsessed with when i was in middle school and see if its still good.

excellent stuff im just not in the mood for pure horror rn

got half way thru to realize most scenes were written over rather than happening on the page. taking a break bc i want to read a book where things happen in front of me.