Kristin > Recent Status Updates

A particular pet peeve of mine: the strict color codes associated with half mourning were Victorian not regency. I know this is a time travel book and I shouldn’t care, but I can’t help it. It’s an automatic dnf for me dawg

Try again just not on audio.

This may sound weird, but my first take is when French writes dialogue for her first American main character, it sounds like she learned American English by reading a whole lotta Stephen king.

There are things about the time traveling in this that are making me so frustrated. Like: if the future has figured out how to send multiple people through the time machines at once, how doesn't everyone know. They can only go back and not forward, so the minute that the future figured out how to send multiples through it should have become common knowledge, especially to the people who run the machines.

Wait...why didn’t anyone tell me this was an “a room with a view” retelling?

Ok...the first story in this book is straight up genius.

Rereading this because because of osf play mother road. I want to make sure I get all the references.

I am trying to like this one...but the subtext for me feels weirdly anti-asexuality...or at least implies that asexuality can be "cured" by applying appropriate foreplay. But that minimizes the struggles of ASD adults with sensory issues who may not be otherwise asexual. Since I'm neither ace nor do I have an ASD diagnosis, I'm not sure why this is resonating so problematically, but I may need to abandon.

I'm struggling with the fact that this book is set in the south during a civil war and there's really no discussion of the USA's problematic history with race. I know the author isn't trying to make points about race in this novel...but the absence of any discussion at all about race is disconcerting. I find it hard to believe that by 2075 we will have changed so much that race will be a non-issue in the south.

Worth. The. Hype.

rereading because of similar plot to current review title "And Then There Were Four"...remember fondly for youth!

Seriously...the authors who wrote blurbs on the back alone...wowza

Putting this here before I finish so it's uncolored by the denouement. I don't think I realized going in that this would be an allegory of modern black America. I'm fascinated by what Whitehead has done with this novel...and totally want to find folks who want to discuss.

It's like sci if die hard. Hooray!

I can tell an experienced non-fiction author wrote this...in a v v good way.

I love sloane already. She's exactly the kind of smart ass I wanted to be in hs.

Not sure if I will be able to finish. Too heavy on the cult of the great white male novelist. Giving it till the end of the current disc to redeem itself. My inner cynic thinks he had a female read the audio so the bias wouldn't be so obvious.

Dear Blurb Writers: If you don't know teen literature well, you aren't really qualified to use superlatives when blurbing teen literature. I'm looking at you, Augusten Burroughs and Gary Shteyngart. #justsayin

It's kinda like having a novel mansplained to you. Not a fan of the narrative voice. Going to finish this disk and decide if I'm interested enough in the story to put up with my intense dislike of the first person narrator (not the reader of the audio).

It is impossible to experience this book without being profoundly sad that it is unfinished. What an amazing talent.

I put this book down in February because it was too real and it was making me uncomfortable...and now it's July and it's even more relevant and disquieting....and IMPORTANT.

I did not see that coming. Well played.

If Vera Deitz and Eleanor & Park had a baby...it would be this amazing book. So good.

You know that feeling that you get after reading a few pages and just KNOWING that you're reading something special...this is one of those books. ❤️

I know I will have enjoyed the journey when I finish this one, but it seems to me these books rely more heavily on telling than showing...and I occasionally find Darrow's internal monologue overwrought and redundant. But then we jump back into snappy dialogue and Star Wars references and I'm happy again.

It's like the parent trap with teen boys and lots of gross humor. It is unseemly that I am enjoying this so much. Lots of lols.

I am increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that, though I adore Frank, the trope of the adorably quirky autistic kid is ultimately problematic in many ways. Also with the cartoonishly bad ways some adults (esp. the new principal) respond to him. Definitely a first novel.