Stress Reader > Recent Status Updates

"... I can’t ignore someone in need. Not when that girl could have easily been me if you hadn’t intervened.”

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My current brain has bad ADHD so I struggled a bit initially to get into this. The set up is important and necessary but my brain just struggled to stay on task. I hope my old brain returns sooner than later. 🥺 As an American, this quote really hits home today.

"Unlike most people who spent their lives searching for meaning, the girl was given a premade one, no assembly required."

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"Tears choked you. Rage kept you breathing. Anger needed air to fan its flames."

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"Her upcycled bag still strained to carry a downcycled dream."

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Gorgeous prose and a story I'm immediately interested and invested in. 😍

“In what way could you push back without risking your life?”

Well if that isn't apt.

"Crazier things have happened. Well, not to me. Or anyone I’ve ever known. Just fictional characters. Scratch all that. I’ve definitely read too many books. That’s what my problem is."

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"... I refuse to buy into this concept when there is so much suffering of innocent people in this world. I’m supposed to respect an institution that thinks I don’t have a right to exist? That thinks I’m mentally ill? That thinks my cousins don’t deserve rights, respect, and love? Fuck that noise.”

Yes, Brogan!! Said louder for the people in the back.

V: "Is he gay too?”

N: 'Fun fact: we all are. Giuls, too. Oh, and Brogan.'

V: "What about her [Brogan]?"

N: “Him. Or them. Brogan is trans masc and nonbinary.”

V: “See, that makes a lot of sense. I don’t think we had the language for it back then, but Brogan never seemed settled. Like their skin felt wrong."

N: "That's exactly how they explained it, Doc."

🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

The way this book starts gave me a good chuckle. I'm a sucker for 🍆 jokes, puns, etc.

Then hit me hard with this strong, resilient FMC:

"And yes. I would love to find a person of my own, but I refuse to let not having a partner preclude me from enjoying my life. It’d just be nice to share it with someone who appreciates and loves me as is."

"crème of the crème" idk what that means.

There's so much about this book that I'm not loving, yet I'm entertained enough that I don't want to quit reading. Can't say a book has ever made me feel torn in this specific manner.

"What was this world? Where a child, like [redacted], would die and have to be saved from being dumped into a mass grave, with children like her? What was this world, where people spat at my feet for asking to find a place for her to rest, because people I had never known, ancestors I had never met had killed their ancestors?"

This book 😭💜

Ok, this is a fun time. Their banter is solid.

"If it makes you feel any better,” he adds, “I think half of adulthood is pretending to have your shit together when you clearly don’t.” 🍻

“Power is the only way that someone can implement their ideals and make a change in the world.”

"What ideals are those?”

“A world which is fairer, safer, that protects those who cannot protect themselves. That would see an end to poverty, to disease, that would allow the poor to learn, to grow and thrive. That would spread wealth with equity..."

Oh how I'd love to live in a world like that.

Romance fans, GO READ THIS. Especially if you loved The Hating Game, you'll love this.

This book is f*cking amazing - I've cackled and snorted multiple times already. How have I not read anything by this author before? I need my kids to not need to be fed anymore today so I can just read the evening away.

"Must this generation suffer because of the backward beliefs of dead kings?”

I started this book early today and haven't been able to put it down.

*"Posing like the Calvin Klein model of unicorns. He even gave me several “looks” without any prompting."

🦄 "I look absolutely as magnificent as I have been told. This is most pleasing. Do another one. I will make light with my horn."

Prism (Imogen's battle unicorn) is cracking me up.

Battle unicorns!!! 🦄 So far this one has a lot more action than A Dagger of Lightning (which makes sense), having a great time reading it so far.

"You are worthy. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

I need to read To Ride A Rising Storm asap. Such a great book. Frtc


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"I took a breath and tried to convince myself that I wasn’t afraid."

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“All I’ve ever tried to do is the right thing,” I said. “If that’s so very different from how things have been done before, then what’s been done before was wrong."

"... the Anglish have robbed us in so many ways, I can’t condone giving up who we are to become more like them.”

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"Why is it all right to ride a train, but not for me to study how trains are crafted?"

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"I don’t want to be more like them; I want them to take us seriously as a modern people with modern ideas.”

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"The world is changing, Father. We’re going to have to change with it.”

“What, by sweet Fyra’s milky tits, did you think you were doing?”

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"There are lots of girls like me—”
“There are no girls like you, Anequs,”

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"I was going to make sure that the Anglish understood that we had never gone anywhere. That despite their best efforts, we were still living here among them on the lands where we’d always lived. I was going to show them just how many of us there were."

"I can’t be sad about a life I never had.”

“You have a right to be, if you want to,”

I'm 100% aware that part of my emotional reaction is due to my own trauma. But damn, this section made me ugly cry and now my head hurts more than it did.

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"Someday not far in the future, I was going to be able to fly on Kasaqua, and I wasn’t planning to ask anyone’s permission to go looking for answers to questions like that."

“No one has ever given half a damn about the natural rights of nackies.”

"Then someone ought to make them give a damn,” I said.

“Those are the kinds of words that will get you arrested and hanged,” Theod snapped.

“Let them try,” I said. “I’m not friendless, and I’ve made no special effort to stay below anyone’s notice..."

"We may be of the same species of mankind, Miss Anequs, but our circumstances are not especially similar.”

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“Oh—thank you for telling me. I’d hate to have brought up something painful out of ignorance,”

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“If you want to be the darling of jarls and kings, you’ll have to be a lady and a scholar, and marry a gentleman of good breeding, and comport yourself prettily.”

“Like Halya I will,” I said with a snort.

“I suppose I see your point; that which is lost to the depths of time can only be a matter of faith, I suppose.”

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"Daughter of my daughter, you’re going to teach us all how to dance with dragons again.”

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"I had become like Crow, venturing to dangerous and unknown lands to bring fire back to my people. I wondered, as we sat together in one another’s company, what we were going to burn with it."

"No one is ever going to judge you by your school records, not when you’re a filthy savage nackie. You could get a whole string of superlative marks, and they wouldn’t matter to anyone.”

--

“And the Anglish have the nerve to call my people savage and wild and all that nonsense, when they can’t think of any better way to solve a fight than to kill one another over it?'

"I’m here to help my people, Frau Kuiper. I’m not here to make them more like yours.”

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"You need to know the rules of engagement before you can formulate an effective battle strategy.”

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"They don’t feel as inclined to show me my place if they see me where they think I ought to be."

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“Do you have any idea how people will talk?”

"They’ll talk regardless, Theod. Let’s give them something to say.”

“Well,” I said, bending down to pick up Kasaqua because she’d started pawing at the hem of my skirt, “it’s not too late to start being fairer.”

This book has already made me incredibly angry for so many injustices that have occurred & continue to occur. Things I knew but reading them in this manner hits differently, I guess. The refusal to even use Anequs's name as she requested particularly bothers me. Names matter

"There were so many infuriating little presuppositions that everyone made—things that they all knew and expected without it being expressly stated—and no one bothered to explain them to me, who had no way of knowing them."

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“…have you ever met any other nackies before?”

“I have been privileged to live among an enlightened people for all of my life. I’ve been further privileged to be allowed to come and study..."

"It seemed that the only reason to speak, in polite Anglish society, was to please and praise others."

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“It’s so wonderful of you and Karina to take in these savage children and see to their proper education, Elsie..."

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“Did you intend to imply that I’m incapable of reading?”

"Well, it is to be presumed. Your people had no knowledge of written language before it was introduced to them by scholars..."

“Well… If you asked me personally to assist you w/something, that wouldn’t be remiss. If you had emergency mending that needed doing or something like that..."

“Well then, if that’s the case…I may have a sudden emergency tomorrow..."

This book is going to break me, isn't it? But I am so here for it. Loving the world. The dragons!!