Natasha > Recent Status Updates

“This guy wasn’t an oil exec or a healthcare insurance ceo - I felt bad for scamming him” DAMN ALI GET IT 😌🫶😭😂🙌

I’m also realizing that my last update makes me look completely nutty. The audiobook on Libby has the HBO cover, not the one that shows up here and I had already started the book before adding it to GR/SG/Fable. The original cover would have left me able to judge this book accurately 😂

What on earth is this narration? Did they just ignore all of the graphic descriptions of self harm for the tv show?? Maybe I need to stop going into books completely blind lmao

The audiobook quality is not the best and it’s really putting me off the story. It’s going to have to wait until I have time on my physical/digital list

“The past appears in this story also as a coercive tool employed by national movements to manipulate people”

When people study this book in high school are they discussing how rampant the misogyny is? Obviously I’m not done yet but I have a feeling we’re not going to unpack a lot of the violent and aggressive attitudes towards women here.

(it was optional in one of my English classes and I chose something else, so I have no clue how it’s presented and analyzed for high school students)

Need to find a physical copy of this book because I can’t deal with the audiobook narrator 😭

“If you miss your family just go back to them” words of wisdom, truly. The dialogue is not my favourite so far lol

A snippet of the more subtle signs of the rise of fascism in the modern era “[governments] ready to give up due process and the rule of law, seeking mass support by nationalist and racialist demagoguery”

Sounds familiar (in more than one current administration)

I wasn’t expecting to hear bombastic and Mussolini in the same sentence

“Young people who had never voted before responded enthusiastically to fascism’s brand of anti-political politics”

Oof that’s familiar

Coming from The Anatomy of Fascism discussing the Nazi’s fascination of Nietzsche’s work to the opening of this novel being a Nietzsche quote was WILD MAN

“Whoever battles monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster himself. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you” was the quote

Incredibly interesting how many scholars that were quoted and loved by fascists later came out staunchly against those people and their regimes

For some reason it feels important to refresh my memory on what the rise of fascism looks like. Also the narrator of the audiobook for this rocks. There’s only so much you can do while reading a textbook out loud but I haven’t come across better

WAIT WAIT WAIT why are we in gaslight gatekeep girlboss territory??? The friend is blaming Mal????? I don’t like all of the conflicts in the book being painted as her fault????? Am I NUTS??????

It’s been a long time since I last read this book (AHS folks, grade 9??); but this Orwell quote from the beginning “Every line of serious work I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.” is even more relevant now than it was back then

Please let the voice of Julia Whelan turn this reading day around 😩

Bro you can’t just declare you’re going to “take” someone as your wife?? Y’all just met?? You’re not even in a relationship?? Take like property??? Huh????

Lol okay I get the conflict but I hate intentional miscommunication like this. Why can’t they have a full conversation??

… what is the rest of the conflict in this. I’m scared for them. Also all the comments about wanting to shake these two or slap them are right on

Okay update on the stupid illegal age gap. It’s like an arranged betrothal in the 1800s and the man is literally never around so don’t let the initial “wtf child bride” moment keep you from this book. Could still turn a weird direction since I’m not done yet but I have high hopes

… the leopard’s name is lynx? Really??

Take a shot every time this author calls something *blank*ling??

I’m sorry 16 and 37????

Just popping in here to say that SJM came up on a list of zionist authors on insta for me today. I can’t find explicit support for the Israeli gov on her socials but I am finding a very large silence on the Palestinian genocide. I own this series already and will continue to not rate them according to author boycott best practices. If you have more info on this pls feel free to share it.

The BEST unlikely friendship!!!!!!

(I know I said I didn’t want to read new stuff but this is an audiobook while I’m working - sue me)

Tis the season for re-reads. SAD has me too sad for anything new lmao