SarahH > Recent Status Updates

Laughing out loud

Thank you for pink cartoon covered rom-coms. I needed eye-rolling cliché and laughing.

I can’t believe I haven’t read this. The intro puts it on the same level as Little Women. Francie reminds me a little of Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird. Those comparisons make me baffled this isn’t more of an unspoken American must-read.

Second book in my summer of stories set in New York

The start of my summer of stories set in New York…

I am enjoying the book. Ada’s relationship with her parents, however, is giving me anxiety. At one point after a certain newspaper article, it says Ada’s house turned into a prison overnight. Uhhh. It has been a prison from page 1.

I’m amazed this is considered by some to be a children’s book. I’m unsure how I would receive this story had I not been familiar with it. We know that a great revenge is coming. And the story moves us to crave justice for Edmond and to marvel at the intricacy of his plot to achieve it.

The French names and places are difficult to digest. Some of the backstory (Franz and Vampa) seems drawn out. But revenge!

Is it possible that by reading this book that I expected to like directly after Lonesome Dove, a book I didn’t expect to like that I my response is shadowed by Lonesome Dove of all books? Surely I won’t compare them all to LD from now on. How did this happen to me. A WESTERN???

But yeah. It doesn’t hold a candle to Lonesome Dove.

This is persnickety, but on page one, a sentence reads “It had remained that way since a dark figure known as The Villain’s emergence nearly ten years ago.” It should read “ It had remained that way since the emergence ten years ago of a dark figure known as The Villain.” It’s page one.

I’m completely fascinated. Especially with how the author incorporates formal logic which I studied for more years than I care to count as I homeschooled my boys. Premises, conclusions, modus ponens, tautology, S then P, law of excluded middle, validity, truth statements, disjuncts, conjuncts, adjuncts…making it all flood back. I can’t believe this fantasy novel incorporates all of it.

I dislike June so much. I feel gross about the way this book portrays people in the publishing industry. Exploitive, self-promoting, and just plain terrible people. But since I feel a comeuppance must be on the horizon, I’ll keep reading.

The story is gripping. I’m not sure I love the switch between third person and second person prose, but I’m invested enough to keep going.

Considering DNF. When life got intense, I’d gobble up summer rom-coms to relax. Life is a little less intense right now, so I might be over reading about a girl who can step away from her life for months at a time and meets an uber-successful, amazingly functional nice guy with Greek god appearance. Paradise Problem last summer had a similar guy, but the girl at least had bills. It’s not you, rom-com, it’s me.