ari > Recent Status Updates

Book 12: The Wall

— they interpret the weirdest shit sent from the gods
— hector being cool, as usual, “You tell me to put my trust in birds who flutter by, but birds are meaningless! (…) whether they fly towards the sun and dawn, eastward to the right of us, or westward, left, towards the darkness. (…) Patriotism is the one true bird.”

Book 11: Wounds

- okay, blood rain and more spears to nipples
- agamemnon deserves everything bad that happens to him idgaf
- SAME TO PARIS LMFAO OMG… using bow and arrow on the battlefield… ofc he is…
- priam has 1028361919 sons and they’re all dying
- nestor talks a lot and patrocles is 100000x sweeter than achilles :(
- boring fight scenes of the greeks losing

Book 10: Espionage by Night (this is the coolest book title so far)

(In the comments)

Book 9: The Embassy

(This is all in the comments again because I always write too much for the progress update lol)

Book 8: The Scales Tip

- 200 pages of scheming and games and the second Zeus gathers the gods like eggs in a basket, they’re obedient
- Rip to the Greeks because Helios’ scales tipped in favour of the Trojans and Zeus is shooting shit, though he eventually feels bad bc of Agamemnon and gives them a sacrificial fawn
- Hector eats them up and says some cool shit doing it, though the Greeks have their moments…

August 15th-16th 2026

Book 6: The Price of Honor
-Agamemnon and Nestor going hardcore and wanting to slaughter more “effectively,” let’s say…
- Paris making shit up but getting spurred on to battle AGAIN
- Andromache and Hector, such a tragic scene: a wife mourning her husband whom fate will soon steal, however that may be, knowing her and their infant son’s fate too ends with Hector’s… crying…

August 5th + 14th 2026

Book 5: Gods on the Battlefield
- This was long asf in the audiobook version (1 hr)
- Now Diomedes got the arrow from Pandarus… at that, Diomedes levels up in body and sight because of Athena and sees gods? craziness ensues, no more Pandarus
- Aeneas mentioned wow #bodydoubletreatment #thanksApollo
- Aeneas is so coddled lol
- Aphrodite, Apollo, and Ares, are now Diomedes’ ops lmfaoooooo

August 4th-5th 2026

Book 3: Gifts of the Goddess
-Paris, omg, I am so charmed by him in the worst ways possible. He’s so egotistical yet cowardly
and it’s very entertaining, unfortunately. Hector’s insults towards him are equally entertaining. He hates his ass!
- Priam unable to witness the fight… T_T
- Menelaus dragging Paris by the helmet is so cinematic
- Paris got saved and didn’t do shit for it lol

Dates in which I read each book thus far (and what i’ve remembered, i guess, very vaguely):

Aug 2nd 2026

Book 1: The Quarrel
- Apollo is cooler than I thought…
- Agamemnon & Achilles remind me of the modern sentiment, “we used to send men to war” except men still bicker and act like school boys at war lol
- and the gods are the same
- I actually hate Agamemnon… Achilles… you are on thin ice…

Finished Act 4.

How to explain the feeling that the plot is quick moving yet nothing is happening. Perhaps it’s because I still, even now, cannot connect to these characters, as interesting as they appear. Unfortunately they are made more fascinating by parallels to their roles than as individual actors and people. It proves the point of the story true, but doesn’t make for interesting original characters…

A nothing burger with the aftermath of Richard’s death (i struggled to read through this more than Act 2’s rising build), but i am very intrigued by the whole Meredith/Oliver/James love triangle lol. That whole Romeo and Juliet scene had me gooned… I can’t help but feel very detached from everyone but James and Oliver—Oliver just barely—since they all feel like caricatures of people. I hope that matters.

Finished Act 2.

Things started to happen and I’m now fully immersed in the story. I have to leave but I desperately want to keep reading! Wow! I know Richard is an abusive asshole, but I still feel so shaken at what I can only assume is an even worse fate than simply falling off the dock. (Especially because they are all so young eek.) My one gripe is still the dialogue… too many quotes, too many “fucks” …

Finished Act 1.
This is my impression so far, iykyk:

M.L. Rio: “I actually do cuss a little.”
Interviewer: “What’s your favourite curse word?”
M.L. Rio: “Probably FUCK!”

didn’t read that much yesterday. am i allowed to say i need cassian.

tamlin so damn weird and boring that i too feel trapped in the narrative whenever he’s there, waiting for rhysand to show up and save me. istg. as dumb as rocks as feyre was in the first book, i lowkey get her now… this is so much better than acotar. T_T

finished introduction + translator notes