Mel > Recent Status Updates

I’m not going to post spoilers but I am gonna vague post. Anyway, not even on chapter one. I am still in the interlude and it’s spectacular already. All I’m gonna say is I’m a monarchist now. That’s MY Princess.

I think I’m giving up. I know without a doubt that if I had found it as a preteen my entire personality would have revolved around this series. But without that nostalgia to guide me, I’m struggling to maintain interest and I need to stop lying to myself that I will pick this back up.

HUGE fan of how unabashedly this dunks on Caroline Bingley. We can empathize with women being trapped by the customs of the time and sexism in general without becoming bully apologists. Other than that…not much is happening. I’m realizing that the show was forced to deviate from the novel simply because it needed a tiny crumb of conflict to propel the story.

I love what’s happening with murderbots emotional state. I’m struggling with the utter lack of ART. It feels like a small betrayal which is dramatic to say but it’s how I feel.

After watching the show I could not understand all of the mixed reviews I had seen for this book. The fact that it takes 200 pages to get Mary to London makes that make much more sense. If I hadn’t already formed a love for these characters and I didn’t know what was coming, I think I also would have struggled to make it through the first half. As it is, I do know. And I love them all deeply.

I’m not sure if it is because of how Protestant everything is, but Nevare is the most prudish and most hetero character Hobb has ever written. This is what Fitz would have become if he’d been raised as a prince and not a bastard. And if The Fool had not been there being all flamboyant and mysterious with elegant fingers or however else Fitz describes his best friend who he is totally not gay for.

Poor Nevare just wants to ride horses and collect rocks and he is being forced on spirit quests and bullied into seances. Leave my dude alone.

All of Epiny’s arguments about society and womanhood are watertight, but the way she keeps cornering people and forcing situations especially spiritual ones is pissing me off. You simply cannot force your cousin to have a seance. Or to believe in mediums. It’s giving girl at a party who won’t stop lecturing you about your star sign after you’ve repeatedly reminded her you don’t believe in astrology. Ick.

Let’s go let’s go let’s go!

Trist sucks and Spink is a good kid and I want him to win this battle of juvenile wills we are witnessing through Navare.

I would like the world to know that I am sincerely enjoying this book even if my updates seem sarcastic. It’s really really well structured and Hobb is unmatched when it comes to the character/plot introduction slow boil. I am currently in the happy and warm frog in the pot stage. I will soon be cooked and consumed. Can’t wait (:

I would love to love Epiny, but given the placement of her introduction in the story, and the variations of what her name meaning implies…she is most likely going to be Nevares foil and I’m betting turn evil at some point. And if that doesn’t happen she will more than likely die tragically for the man pain/heroes journey transformation of it all. Womp.

Cannot wait for Nevare to go to the academy and be away from his father. This man’s Protestant flavored kink for productivity and honor and practical worthiness is tiresome.

…And then out of nowhere mr micromanaged teen with daddy issues is pressured by another male authority figure to go on this world’s version of a peyote trip where his deeply held beliefs are challenged by otherworldly forces. Plus he comes home with extreme injuries and painful scars he’ll carry for the rest of his life??? Yeah, close enough, I guess. Welcome back, Fitzchivalry Farseer. 🎉

Don’t mind me, just basking in the slowly spun world building and character introductions of a 500 page epic fantasy published before the take over of online book culture.

Nevare’s 8 years old and has been separated from his sisters/mom because they let him have a doll and future soldiers cant have dolls. God, Robin, I missed the way you riddle your protagonists with familial and political trauma right out the gate. Can’t wait to poke him with a stick later on and watch all the emotional constipation spill out.

Hey, so this was supposed to be some silly fun court dynamics with a sprinkle of welsh mythology and some romance on the side. What I’m getting is pure emotional and physical yearning set against the backdrop of carefully handled but brutally expressed anti-colonial politics. And it’s DRIPPING in love for the lore that inspired it. It’s delicious. I’ll take ten more just like this, please.

This better be the catalyst that turns Mary in THE Mary Anning. Because so far all I see is a moderate woman who is abandoning the working poor and other women

Am I supposed to like Henry? Every time he says “Low skilled labor” I want Mary to resurrect a diplodocus to trample him.

I’m in heaven. A historical fantasy with an immaculately constructed magic systems based on FOSSIL MAGIC.

SPOILERS!!!!





So, is the horror here just traumatized children moving the rotting corpse of their granny around like a doll? I signed up for old gods of the wood…but this is delightfully gross and messed up too.

Um…yuck.

color coded and botanically named sisters? a good kinda creepy.

I’m sorry but did I just hear this character describe a coyote as bigger than a large pit bull? Have yall seen a coyote irl?

This started as an A- and now it’s struggling to keep itself at a C. Why is that 17 year old hoping the 14 year old who may be his half sister isn’t related to him cus he has a crush on her? Why is the 18 year old also obviously into the 14 year old???? There is nothing to be gained by creating a love triangle? Especially a creepy one.

Shifting POVs that are all interesting and good and original world building? I’ve been in such a slump and this is going to save me.

Part two has captured my attention!

Moira Quirk narrating a queer regency romance? I suppose this is a good enough reason to be convinced to try another bodice ripper.

Just a quick reread before next month (:

Obviously there was the vaguest of foreshadows or I would not have picked up enough to even make the joke. But I’m annoyed that I was right tbh.