Graceish ✨ > Recent Status Updates

[HER KNITTING NEEDLES rested in a leather pouch in pairs, two matching sticks of wood, side by side like the delicate bones of the wrist wrapped in dried and ancient flesh. Wood and leather. Artifacts like clues handed down from generation to generation, innocuous winks from her ancestors, harmless things like children's books and wood carvings that managed to survive the uprising and the purge.]

This prose is great

[Holston lifted an old boot to an old step, pressed down, and did it again. He lost himself in what the untold years had done, the ablation of molecules and lives, layers and layers ground to fine dust. And he thought, not for the first time, that neither life nor staircase had been meant for such an existence.]

Y’aaalllll. I made the right choice in DNFing my last book and picking this one up. I can already tell.

[“…Use it to escape."
"Will they hurt your family if I escape?"
"They may try," he growls. "That is the consequence of your decision and mine."]

I think Lorn is the second character that I actually respect in this series.

[Lorn stares quietly at the rain falling against the pulseShield.]

Two pages ago it was a pulseBubble. Are these interchangeable terms?!

["I can defend my own honor, my goodman. But from Pliny, such insults are to be expected After all, I would be bitter too if my..."]

Missing period.

[“Consider that I was vulnerable… that perhaps I fell into Cassius' bed because I was hurt & needed a salve to my pain. Can you imagine that? You may answer."

... "I suppose."

"Good. Now shove that idea up your ass… I am not some frill-wearing tramp. I am a genius. I say this because it is a fact. I am smarter than any person you've ever met, except perhaps my twin. My heart does not make my brain a fool.]

I think this series would have been better delivered in third person rather than first. I can’t stand Darrow, and I think it’s partially to do with the first-person narration. I think if I had been told about the story, rather than through Darrow’s perspective, I would like it more.

[At first, I thought the tattoos on her hands featured floral lines. Then I note a stream of mathematical notations: the Larmor formula. Maxwell's equations in curved-space time. Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory. And a hundred others that even I don't recognize.]

This is a prime example of the MC being completely unbelievable. This level of mathematical ability was never explained in his training. It’s nonsense.

How can a planetary system-wide drama feel SO white coded? You can sprinkle in the occasional POC, but so much of this is futuristic-WASPy shite.

[When the hole in the door is the size of a torso, he removes his helmet. A hairless, pale face stares as me. Eyes black. Wind-weathered cheeks armored with calluses like the hide of a rhinoceros.]

What am I not understanding about this? “A hairless, pale face stares as me.”? Should it be at?!

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Darrow is an idiot, and an insufferable MC. Why on earth is he willing to trust <spoiler>Tactus, but has twice doubted Mustang?! I knew both times that Mustang wasn’t betraying. How did Darrow miss that?! But when Cassius betrayed him, when Tactus betrayed him and he was blindsided?!</spoiler> An absolute numb nut.

[This is exactly why I build my reputation as a killer, to leverage in situations like these. If they knew my heart, they'd kill my friends one by one. This is a gamble.]

What a farce. Darrow is delusional about himself.

Darrow was an idiot in the first book, and he’s continues to be an idiot. What an unlikeable MC.

[Lightning lashes through the clouds outside; thunder rumbles. And I hear something. A howling. It is not the wind. Another flash of lightning and he appears, floating in the bitter storm like the ugliest angel ever shit out of heaven.]

Poetry. 🤌

[All these Praetors, all these politicians and sinewy men and women of war. I hold back a chuckle. Amazing the power you have when you're bloody up to the sleeves and none of it is your own.]

Not technically true. Page 117: “a blade scratches my forearm.”

Call me pedantic, but if you’re going to assert something as bold as how terrifying you are because off of the blood is none of yours, then be sure.

["In a world of killers, it takes more to be kind than to be wicked. But men like you and me, we're just passing time before death reaches down for us."]

Particularly applicable IRL, atm.

["I thought you were Tactus come to beg me to shoot some stims before the gala. He always thinks because I'm reading, I'm not doing anything. There is no greater plague to an introvert than the extroverted…”]

100% yes. I might tattoo on my forehead.

[I try to kill him in my heart before I kill him in the flesh.
Can I add him to the list of those I've already sent to the grave?]

Okay, FINE. I’m a damn dirty liar and even though I wanted to DNF this, here I am.

I need Darrow to actually STFU about what Evey has done. He is obnoxiously sanctimonious.

I’ve given this 7 chapters. I graciously gave the first book 4 stars. I cannot any longer with this series. DNF.

[And every night she sighs in sadness… : "It is clear I am unloved. If I were loved, there would be a heart here to sate my hunger for vengeance. If I were loved, my boy's murderer would no longer draw breath. If I were loved, my family would honor their brother. But I am not. He is not. They do not. What have I done to deserve such a hateful family?"]

A lovely woman, I’m sure. Wish I could meet her.

I’m wildly confused by this game. If Darrow’s fleet had several ships and the opponents down to 1, why would his man-of-war be the losing piece?! He still has several other ships. And, again, what happened to not real harm being done?!

I should DNF this soon, probably.

I thought all attacks were simulated to not harm the ships?! So why is everyone in actual panic? Was it a genuine attack instead??

Man, I think I made a mistake picking up the second in this series. It’s taken me three days to read 14 pages.

Okay. I’m mildly annoyed that it was never explained why the same clan of low Reds consistently won the Laurel? What benefit would it serve the Golds to show favoritism to one clan over the other?!

[When I found out my diagnosis, the first thought that popped into my head was that I was one stamp away from earning a free massage at the spa, and also that I shouldn't have stocked up on so much toilet paper and laundry detergent during my last shopping trip.]

Legit.

How often are classes admitted to the Institute? I’ve wondered this since learning that Cassius and Julian were brothers (not twins) in the same class. Now we’re several months into a game that only ends when it ends. Which means it could take more than a year.

Also, what’s the thing with “other schools” mentioned by a proctor? Other institutes? Or other schools?!

["Why waste my breath?" He shrugs. "You know what I'm going to say."]

So wait, does Pax know, then?! I don’t remember Darrow telling him.

["What would you like for me to do to him?" I ask her. I don't reach out to comfort her. She doesn't need it, even though I think I do. She reminds me of Evey too.]

Who is Evey?! I canNOT follow these characters and houses.

[We can just barely see Tactus curled into the hollow of Pax's armpit. The two men snuggle together and wake like lovers, only to flinch away from one another when their ice-crusted eyelids flutter open.
"Wonder which is Romeo," Mustang whispers, her throat rasps.]

Again. Why?! This doesn’t add anything. These two pages are just misogyny and homophobia without any real substance to the story.

[Tactus tries pairing with Milia, but she tells him to go slag himself.
"If you look at it properly, I was trying to do you a favor," ... “You're about as pretty as a gargoyle's wart. So when else would you get a chance to snuggle with the likes of me? Ungrateful sow."]

We already know Tactus sucks. Why employee this misogyny here? This actually doesn’t add anything to the narrative, and is just -ugh-.