La La > Recent Status Updates

Approximately forty percent. We're reading the Iowa section before continuing on with By the Shores of Silver Lake for our Little House series buddy re-read. The Ingalls lived in Iowa between the Plum Creek book and the Silver Lake book which were both set in Minnesota. Laura did not write a children's book about their Iowa stay.

I am glad I stuck with this story. Around 28 percent it started to settle in. It's still not really "cozy" fantasy like Legends & Lattes; its more like light Discworld. I am keeping myself from saying cozy Discworld because I don't think it's simple enough, and there are some pretty complex socio-economic and political concepts being considered.

This book is good, but yet it's not. I can't quite put my finger on it. I want to love it, but something in the back of my mind keeps saying meh. Then there's discrepancies like this, "Even her terrible turnip soup improved marginally, though they still had the flavor of disappointment." It, "... it still had the flavor of disappoint." A clever phrase was ruined by unskilled proofreading; if there even was any. ☕︎

At 36% I had to purchase the ebook and return the audiobook, I borrowed from Libby, because all of a sudden the narrator's breath intakes became noticeable and extremely annoying. It's strange they took off the filter that masks breath sounds. The narrator also read the word "angle" as "angel". I wonder how many other words she misread that I didn't notice. Blah. The ebook is only $2.99, but still. ☕︎

Finally! After three disastrous witch-themed books I am enjoying this one. It reminds me of Practical Magic a bit, but it's better than the Hoffman book. I hope it stays that way. ☕︎

“I’m making a wish.” Her voice is small. “You forgot to make one earlier? “What did we pile that cake with candles for?” “In the old days, people used to do this,” Riham says, turning back toward the window. Outside the moon is a crescent, slender as a fingernail in the sky. “I read about it. They’d make their wishes by the moonlight. They believed that smoke carried the wish all the way up.” ~Riham's ninth birthday.

Somewhere around 70% the cheesy, eye-rolly sex scenes started to be nonstop. When characters aren't groping, grabbing, grunting and gasping they are having sexual thoughts. Ugh. Why isn't "romance" listed as one of the categories on the first page of "shelved as"? I would have liked a warning. If this wasn't a review ARC I would have DNFed it. ☕︎

I'm only at 17% and there have already been two cheap, cheesy, poorly written sex scenes. Blah. They belong in a drugstore paperback romance and stick out like a sore thumb within the rest of the writing. It seems like most authors/publishers nowadays think there needs to be erotica in all books with witches. Dumb. ☕︎

I was growing extremely weary of keeping track of the seventy-seven some characters in this story: who they are, their occupations, significant others, and motivations, so I took a break and read another book. Upon taking up this novel anew today I find myself just as tired of it all as before. I think I'm getting a headache. Ha!

This book is too long. It feels like things should be wrapping up, but there are three more hours of the audiobook left. Pffft... ☕︎

Is there any suggestion anywhere that all Grecian women walked around with their eyes downcast while in public, and never looked into the faces of men, in the 11th century? Seems a bit off to me. Also the author keeps incorrectly using "further" instead of farther when talking about physical distance. ☕︎

I should have read some reviews about this interpretation of the Atalanta myth before wasting a Hoopla borrow on it. The long amateurish strings of bland, basic descriptors used are boring me to death; and it's speedily developing into a radical Feminist man-hating story. It will more than likely be a DNF. I am also suspicious of what liberties the author may have taken with the story to push her agenda. ☕︎

Mullygrubs: a gloomy mood, the blues, sulkiness, or a vague feeling of being unwell or out of sorts. ☕︎

Pa pointed out that most of the pioneers in Minnesota were Norwegian and they were in the minority speaking English among their fellow homesteaders. A good bit of American history to realize for when you hear people complaining about others not speaking English in the US today.

It seems like I've been reading this book forever. Blah. No wonder I didn't read much of it as a young teen. I don't even like it now. Ha! I thought it odd I hadn't read this seeing I was an avid Dickens reader in my early teens. I will keep reading it until the end of the year, as my slow read, and then set it aside. Possibly never to return. ☕︎

Hokey romance alert! Ugh. The library history sections are wonderful, but the character interactions are limp and the setting descriptions drab. ☕︎

"I have a very bad feeling about what's coming."
"You mean Reagan?"
"No, It feels like we've opened the door to something." — Joan Kennedy

I cannot hold my anger in any longer. This author has changed numerous plot facts about Jane Eyre, so she can twist Edward into an evil man, when he is not in Jane Eyre. Now I know why people on IG keep saying if one reads this book they won't like Jane Eyre anymore, but calling this fanfic a prequel is a crime. Characters should be defined by the story they originated in, not by another author's confabulations. ☕︎

Ugh. The author is the audio narrator and she does that annoying Kardashian vocal grind "burp talking". She also uses those now outdated (thank gawd) similes that sound great, but in context are nonsense. She gets the actual meaning of some of the big vocabulary words she uses wrong. This appears to be a rich privileged kid sob story. A likely DNF. I'm sorry I wasted one of my only three Hoopla borrows on it. ☕︎

"...he relieved his feelings by a little flowery language, with which it is not necessary to strew the present page. A bouquet or two of the choicest blossoms fell on the unperturbed head of one Mr. Graves... with a second nosegay he gifted another young gentleman in his train; but the full corbeille of blushing bloom fell to the lot of meddling womankind, en masse."

Mrs. Pryor's opinion on romance novels, "My dear, romances are pernicious. You do not read them, I hope?” Pernicious: highly damaging or destructive often in a way that is not easily seen or noticed.

"When I hear Messrs... chatter about the authority of the church, the dignity and claims of the priesthood, the deference due to them as clergymen; when I hear the outbreaks of their small spite against Dissenters; when I witness their silly, narrow jealousies and assumptions; when I behold their insolent carriage to the poor, their often base servility to the rich—I think the Establishment is indeed in a poor way,"

The first mention and description of Shirley is at thirty percent. "She holds her head high, and probably can be saucy enough where she dare." ✯

" ...unromantic as Monday morning,.. It is not positively affirmed that you shall not have a taste of the exciting, perhaps towards the middle and close of the meal, but it is resolved that the first dish... shall be cold lentils and vinegar without oil; it shall be unleavened bread with bitter herbs, and no roast lamb." ~ Charlotte Brontë. And yes, the first 12% was quite boring. Ha ha. It's much better now. ☕︎

"If you think, from this prelude, that anything like a romance is preparing for you, reader, you never were more mistaken. Do you anticipate sentiment, and poetry, and reverie? Do you expect passion, and stimulus, and melodrama? Calm your expectations; reduce them to a lowly standard. Something real, cool, and solid lies before you; something unromantic as Monday morning..." Charlotte Brontë

When I finished my breakfast (reading while eating) I had only six more pages of the book to read, but it's so very dreadful I couldn't bring myself to read them. Blah. I guess I'll finish during lunch. ☕︎

“Our Michael,” replied the host, “had the look of a dog with a bottle at its tail, and wore a coat, every rag of which was bidding good-day to the rest.”

If it wasn't for FOMO on the great stories sprinkled throughout the book, I would have ditched it. Too many are bait and switch... an author will write a paragraph, or two sentences about being disabled and then the story will be about Feminism in general, or what it's like to be LGBTQ in general. There are tons of books about political movements and broader human rights activism; the stories should reflect the title

"In the discussion that follows, I argue that choice is illusory in a context of pervasive inequality. Choices are structured by oppression. We shouldn’t offer assistance with suicide until we all have the assistance we need to get out of bed in the morning and live a good life. Common causes of suicidality—dependence, institutional confinement, being a burden—are entirely curable." — Harriet McBryde Johnson