Mattie > Recent Status Updates

Meh. Not convinced by this one. I watched the film and it was OK, not sure why I thought the book would be better, but this is making my reading progress hit a wall. Too many others to read to sit and shlog it out, I have no qualms about quitting and this might be tossed.

Love that things are starting to unravel and yet piece together at the same time. This part feels original and has actually started to pull me in, which makes the first part seem slightly disappointing when you realise there is a very good story building here that could have started much better. Not that I haven't enjoyed it but the beauty and the beast rip off was just too strong.

At last there is some straying from Beauty and the Beast! It was a bit much - the magic mirror, the forbidden room with his trinket of enchantment, Belle's (Echo's) escape only to be saved by the beast (the wolf). Now I just have simple quibbles like continuity. The wolf first says her name at about page 65, he says it multiple times in fact, before page 104, when Echo "realises he's never said [her] name"...

You can tell someone really liked Beauty and the Beast growing up. This doesn't feel original in any way ATM, but I can't say I'm not enjoying it either.

Mixed views. There's a tad too much "what would Jane Austen do?!", and I find the tropes a bit stupid, not to mention I didn't realise it was That Kind of Romance Novel (perhaps it stays fairly tame in comparison to others - I don't read this) but the characters and the shenanigans of the witches and pirates do make me giggle and I like the plotline in general so far.

Not a fan of Jake's sections flipping between past and present tense so often (makes my brain lurch cause I'm just a bit dumb idk xD) but this has grown on me and I'm glad I've stuck it out

This might be a slow burn, but I don't want to ditch two books in two weeks xD

This is starting to feel messy.

Still think that some of this is really higgledy piggledy, but the fact I like these characters is keeping me going.

Difficult atm because:
- "they walked *beneath* ... children playing in the street with black and white kittens". Are these children really tall? How?
- "her fire crackling and singeing Arren's shirt. He winced, but his shirt was only singed" no shit.
- everyone's OK with Arren's god heart, despite it being y'know, HIPOCRITICAL AF.
- the addition of Arren's pov is chaotic when you already find her narration sketchy.

There's something niggling at me about the way this is written... It's never clear to me who is being described, or who is talking, and shifting between four character is just ruining the continuity for me. I wanted to like it but it feels like a chore more often than not... Maybe it's my brain, idk.

Picked this up because I love watching the movie adaptations and then finding all the differences :P it's actually growing on me.

I love reading about characters reciting lines and petty theatre troupes' arguments that immediately descend into fistfights 🙃 that was a painful chunk. Also sick of teenagers speaking with exactly the same vocabulary and tone as adults, and having Locke and Sabetha have the same conversation on a loop. Are you trying to charm her? Stfu. This one's taken a nose dive on many levels.

Just read the Magnus Holmes one and it feels very much like some seedling for where the left handed booksellers of London came from