Luke Smith > Recent Status Updates

Literally such an interesting book!! It needs an English translation for all my friends who can't read Japanese. Literally such a fun story omg

The story is getting interesting. I'm still not a massive fan of Harry especially with the way he cannot connect two facts to come to a conclusion. However i also found out that most likely the aggression in Harry's character voice is from the actors own voice of how to present his voice. Sad but whatever

Thank goodness for Remus Lupin talking some sense into Harry. I cannot believe how unreasonably and obsessively he hates Snape. It's absolutely ridiculous.

Still not the perfect book but I'm surprised some teachers are finally being portrayed as actually good at their job. Slughorn knows what he's doing offering a prize at the end of the class.

Finally some perspectives in the story that aren't centered around Harry!!! Good lord. Snape is actually one of my favourite characters at this point and the way he called out the fact that Harry is just a lucky idiot with main character syndrome was one of the most gratifying parts of this series. I don't know if Rowling meant him to sound rude or evil, but he seems to be the most sane character in the series lol

I get that Rowling wants to make the wizarding world seem strange and mysterious but it's so silly that the students can get more than 100% in exams

Harry Potter is such an incel lmfao theres this part where Rowling shares his apparent thoughts with the reader and he says "that's what they ought to teach us here at hogwarts" while thinking of how he doesnt understand girls' minds. He's such a bratty and ignorant kid and i am getting so sick and tired of having such a lousy, dim witted moron of a main character to follow the story through lmfao

I find the logical inconsitencies of the story to be a bit annoying. For Rowling, in the tension between making more than half the teacher characters as dislikable as possible, and genuinely demonstrate the claim that Hogwarts is supposedly the best school for witchcraft and wizardry in their region of the world, unfortunately her desire to make us hate the teachers wins out. I wouldn't entrust Hogwarts with my child

Also, for some reason Rowling seems to have a vendetta against fat people? She loves to describe in great detail how fat and ugly specific characters are and uses extreme hyperbole about how heavy characters like Dudley are... it feels a bit excessive and rude.

I find it thoroughly frustrating how the narration paints Harry as a victim of the world and Harry is constantly complaining about how difficult his life is. Like yes, his life is hard, absolutely; but the people working so hard to protect him because they know a dark wizard is trying to end his life certainly have it a lot harder, and he doesn't pay any mind to that. Harry potter is a little brat.

These books are getting significantly longer but I'm pretty sure this one is the longest one. I liked that we can learn more about the Order of the Phoenix, and what they're up to outside of school time. The thing I find annoying is how thick Harry is about everything. I think Rowling is intentionally including this since some characters call him out on his stupidity and rage. But it's still infuriating.

The re-explaining of everything is quite annoying.

It's been way too long since I last read this book lol

I don’t think I find this one quite as funny as “Guards! Guards!”, but certainly does a good job of the typical desert story, with lots of references to the Bible and other ancient stories from Egypt and surrounding countries. I’m also loving the way Pratchett plays with “quantum” things (e.g. Ptclasp saying “…you better come and see. I think something quantum has happened to him.”). Also time loops

Good stuff! I didn’t realise the end of the Fellowship movie took from the beginning of this book! 😂😂

Trying to find a book that is appropriate for my tutoring student to read, that fits into the comedy genre and is also at the right reading level, yet engaging enough to be entertaining. So far this one hasn’t been particularly intriguing unfortunately… will see how it goes later on

I put this one down for a while. It’s pretty intense and I think I needed a bit of a break and some more light hearted content (hence the newly acquired appreciation for Terry Pratchett), but it’s good to be back in the world of the Karamazovs after a few weeks and to be well on my way to finishing reading this monstrously huge masterpiece of a novel.

BROOOO what a good book so far

It’s my second time reading through this book (last time I made it about 68% of the way through) and I am very glad I picked up the version narrated by Andy Serkis, and that I read the Hobbit before restarting, because I understood much more of this (and I suspect taking my listening a bit slower this time meant that I picked up more that I hadn’t previously). Also, audio + ebook is a great combo.

Book 10: “The Boys” was one of my absolute favourite parts of this story 😭😭😭 brought me to tears many times. Book 11: “Ivan” has been hard to get through and I’m currently dreading to continue 🥶

The Grand Inquisitor is bloody dense 💀💀💀💀💀

Restarted this book this week. I am loving it so far, and there are many concepts and terms that upon first reading I did not understand, which the second time through are making a lot more sense. I find it pretty amusing how often Alyosha basically says nothing and the person speaking with him tells all purely because of his charming and gentle, non-judgemental demeanour. It’s quite intense, and also quite fun.

As I get further and further into this book, I continue to become more and more convinced that those in more conservative political stances who call society “Orwellian” and talk about how “It’s like 1984” have likely never read this book or noticed the themes of this book, considering the left leaning themes and the rhetoric of the rebellion’s head figure being quite a left leaning one.

This book is absolutely amazing so far. I’ve never really been hugely interested in politics or social issues until more recently, and now I feel I’ve been missing out on a rich experience of literature. I don’t necessarily fall into the exact same political camp as bell hooks, yet her writing makes me feel seen as a man, and my struggles brought to light in a gentle and useful way for all.

Not sure about this one. I’ve heard good things but I don’t know that it’s going to tell me anything I don’t already know.

This is gonna be a long read….

This book is a tough one. I must confess I haven’t touched it in a few years, and when I did crack into it, it was the audiobook version. I remember riding my bike to and from places with headphones in, listening to the book and constantly having to rewind to understand what was being said. It’s a rich book and it was quite challenging for 19yo Luke. Hoping to try again some time soon, hopefully will be better.

This book is rich in details, and any reader/listener (I have the audiobook copy) can tell not only by the author’s note at the beginning, but also by the text itself, that this book was written to not only tell a story, but to build a world. What a beautiful world at that!

Brother…. I am actually finding it so hard to follow this guy’s points. He starts saying something and then introduces 500 different caveats and modifications to his statement to the point that he gets lost in all of his addendums and tangents and I lose track of what he is talking about at all. This guy is so pretentious and frustrating that I want to bash HIS head into the stone wall that he keeps bringing up

I never even thought I would try to listen to a book like this. Fiction written about the story of an actress and a journalist interviewing said actress about her life. Raunchy at times, giving details that I felt a bit uncomfy hearing 😬 I am honestly surprised how much I am enjoying it, even though it is also quite a tragic story. Evelyn Hugo is kinda messed up, and I don’t blame her. I feel sorry for her