Rachel > Recent Status Updates

Another Sourcebooks title with so many copyediting mistakes that some of the sentences don't make any sense. Seriously, if they would take a remote editor, I would so do it. Because this is a pattern for them, and it really pulls me out of the story every time.

Didn't realize until the dedication page that this was a Nutcracker reimagining. In retrospect, the sentence on the back cover that ended, "Clara realizes the magic of her godfather's toys is real" should've tipped me off. Oops. Not mad about it though.

When the author changes a character's name between the first and second books, but only by one letter

At this point, half the fun(?) of this book is seeing how many minor characters Dhonielle will name after other contemporary writers. We're up to 9 so far.

"War didn't prove one country was stronger than another. It just snuffed out lives from each nation until only mourners were left to make sense of it all."

"In children's stories, the hero always learned to love themselves. Only once they accomplished that did they receive their well-earned happy ending. But maybe it didn't have to be that way. Maybe life was messy and love messier still.

Maybe she could still love Alfie while she fought to one day like herself."

"You know just as well as I do that the prince is a six-foot-four stack of feelings."
Honestly, same. Well, except for the tall part.
(Also, the author has really had some creative and amusing phrasing in this book. Earlier we had "the layers of a chaos onion," and I am HERE for it.)

I just learned from this book that UK traffic lights turn yellow before green. So the next time somebody tells you that reading fiction is a pointless waste because you don't gain any useful knowledge from it, please remember that they are rotten liars. That is all.

No, no, no. You did NOT just end the chapter like that. You can't do that to my favorite. And now we're in a different POV, so I have to wait to see whether to cry or not.

As I bookseller, I can confirm that Mrs. Foxglove is exactly like customers that I've dealt with before. Sadly.

"Sometimes I thought the entire city of Washington, DC, smelled like this-like forgotten humanity and despair mixed with exhaust and faint undertones of decay and rot."

Reading this during an election year like 😬

"Our voices, however different, join together to remind us and others that we aren't alone."

"The lie of cultural assimilation is that it leads to belonging."
Shoot, y'all. I'm only on the prologue, and already this book is beautiful and real. I've almost cried twice, and we're not even to numbered pages yet.

Ropa's great, but she's so missing the mark here. The stolen scroll contains the knowledge of how to get to and from otherwise unreachable realms, and the thief literally told her that "the Black Lord needs it for his return," yet she's assuming it was stolen to resell. You were already told that's not it, but okay...
Meanwhile, I've been almost certain on who the thief is (and a potential motive) for 70 pages now.

This feels like an overly dramatic fever dream.

Prince Dafydd just called out a rich man for not caring about sending people to war since he would never have to go and risk his own life. And when the man pretentiously said he'd worked very hard to be where he was, Dafydd said of course, he'd worked very hard to be born rich. And I am here for it.

"...because never in my life had I paid attention to a boy when there was food to attend to."
(She means eating, for the record, not making it.)

Ffion is freaking amazing. I'm loving her strength and sass. And going into this knowing there is going to be a bit of a love triangle (ugh), I'm genuinely hoping that these characteristics don't disappear later on.

"Saving someone else was a wall you couldn't scale unless they threw you a rope."

Don't I know it. Don't most of us know it, one way or another. 💛

"And it's not the walk you should be worried about. It's the climb."
Dang it, Hannah Whitten. Now you've got the other Hannah (Montana, obviously) in my head. I know what song I'll be listening to later.

Wait, so he named this relatively insignificant, minor character Pakson. As in, PacSun? Like, the store? Oh, Brandon, you big goof. I almost missed that one.

I love how Peeta pretty clearly tries to warn them that the Capitol is going to attack, and all the bigwigs in 13 are all like, "Oh, he's being so cryptic. What could this mean?" And then Haymitch basically says, "Hey, dummies, he's telling you that you're going to be attacked."

"Being introverted is a beautiful personality trait, and as such is a strength, not a weakness. Spending your life trying to be an extrovert when God created you to be an introvert is just as big a travesty as being a fear-bound recluse."

Today I learned that this book was written by the same guy who did The Piña Colada Song. So yeah, that's a thing.

“Grief, it seemed, drove Voldemort out...though Dumbledore, of course, would have said that it was love.”

One cannot grieve if one has not loved. That's why grief hurts so much.

Biggest chapter 3 takeaway - God cannot be disappointed in you. It is literally impossible. Disappointing him would mean you took him by surprise, and God cannot be surprised because he is omniscient.
Whoa.

"Is Paul going too far?...Is that the best way to win friends and influence people in Athens?"
I see what you did there, Nick.

I really love this version of Cupid. And how he doesn't make love out to be some perfect, easy, idealized cakewalk. "Love is no game! It is no flowery softness! It is hard work—a quest that never ends. It demands everything from you—especially the truth. Only then does it yield rewards."

That reference to 2 Peter 3:16 showing how relevant the Bible still is for believers. Still common for some believers to twist Paul's words because they are tough, both tough to understand and tough to accept. And sometimes we'd rather just have easy. Even so, we must respond in love. Especially when we disagree. A lot of layers there for me to think about. 💙

"We need faith that makes room for suffering, that refuses to deny the brokenness of this sin-sick world and our place in it. We need theology that honors the ache while clasping tightly to the hand of a God who refuses to abandon us. We need a community that doesn't wait for Jesus to wave a magic wand and fix us before they can accept us."

This. All of this.

"And there is no solution for grief. Only time. The fire might abate, yes, but it will never truly die."

So true.