nastya > Recent Status Updates

It’s hard to tolerate Hastings’ stupidity . Why did Agatha decide to write him in this way I wonder

Randall is fantastic and all, but I wish he were not her first cousin! Yikes!

First impressions: This is just a simple puzzle box with characters being nothing more than puppets. I remember loving her in my early teens but these days give me Heyer’s any day, with her beautiful settings, humor, fun characters and good writing

Not as fun as the two previous mysteries ☹️

This book just makes me happy, what the hell?! It's a delicious intricate cake made from the best ingredients. And to think I once thought Heyer was meh.

She was wrong. He did not dislike her; he was even, in a contemptuous way, fond of her, but she had lost her charm and become instead of the blushing, adoring girl he had married, a shrinking, exasperatingly virginal woman who tried nervously to placate him, and whom it was impossible not to bully.

Heyer is an incredible observer of people

The first year since I started reading again I won't hit even 40 books a year! I am transforming from a rabid avid reader into a casual one.

Trying a few of the most beloved Heyer romances before and not enjoying them at all, I thought Heyer was not for me. Yet this mystery is absolutely delightful and I am having such a grand time! There're 11 mysteries for me to look forward to, and then, maybe, I'll try her romances once more?

Not very impressed after the first story; it wasn’t nearly as smart or witty as I’d been led to believe. "It's so online omg!" I guess I am not, cause I don't know these people, thank zeus!

Can someone explain me to myself? Why do I love anything Ancient Greece, but whenever it’s Romans, I’ve got nothing? Is it because Ancient Greece is a mythical place, the land where you can meet Athena or horny Zeus in the woods, and Rome feels like a real place? How do I start appreciating Rome at last??

“I’d normally recommend you investigate the general shelves in your free time, but I doubt you can actually read.’
“‘I can read fine,’ I scowled. ‘My mama taught me.’
“‘Then I’ll be sure to send you a letter when I start giving a damn.’


come on, it was a perfect opportunity for yo mama joke!

This book had 431 “fuck”s in it! It’s sooooo cool!

Persuasion is the most romantic, but this one is the most fun?

“If there is a good fortune on one side, there can be no occasion for any on the other. No matter which has it, so that there is enough. I hate the idea of one great fortune looking out for another. And to marry for money I think the wickedest thing in existence.”

I thought Lizzy got hots for Darcy sometime after she saw his house. And then he saved her family… with his money. Also, “No matter which has it”?Rly?

Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.

And while the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens—there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them.

Gone were the days when men preferred women to be compliant and passive, born to flatter and to praise. At least they might still want these rewards, but they were being trained not to expect them.
…….
She had never been a convivial woman, even when she was much younger, and eventually had realized with something like relief that it was too late for her to change.

“Whatever it is that’s just about to happen, once it’s over we’ll say, oh well, it’s history, should have seen it coming, and right now it’s all I can do to get on with my life. I don’t care to know more than I need to about the mysteries of time,” snorting briefly, lopsidedly smiling. “You’re expecting spiritual wisdom from little G. T. del V.? you’ll be waiting a long time, sucker.”

Some dame, someday. So far he hasn’t got around to sharing any of this with April, who could easily react along the lines of “Oh no, another one of these fragile types pussyfooting into my life, just when I have you figured for some lone warrior out on the edge of a cliff someplace, don’t need a thing from anybody, all the while turns out you’re just one more sentimental sap, well, unobservant me.”

extremely bored so far, this is lifeless. if it wasn’t pynchon and realistically his last novel, I would not be making myself finish this. so I am still trudging through

does this mean I will be able to finally find Laszlo's books in goodwill?? please??

“but suddenly a sort of grumbling mutter came from the chimney corner; it was the man reading his paper in the armchair. he was five foot nine inches tall…”

did you estimate it while he was sitting? how? the writing is so bad so far, so unclear and pedestrian, hope I will be able to get to 20% and then to decide.

so far this is not unlike moby-dick in a few ways

Or, another way to end it: each missile shot from Russia would stop midair, spin around, pummel into its exact point of origin.


reva stole this dream from me how dare she! it helps me to fall asleep often.

She told him about her deal with his granddaughter, the cold math of the agreement to exchange the remaining foreigners plus him, the grandfather, for her lost mother.
“You just made that up,” he said. Nastia blinked. “I didn’t.”
“Sounds a lot like the novel my granddaughter’s been trying to cobble together. She mailed me a draft, fed through one of those internet translation machines.

“And how do you propose the enemy should look, young man? A swastika flag in one hand, a Mein Kampf in the other? The enemy is more subtle now. Hides in plain sight. Inside every Ukrainian.”

what an amateur! personal icon of bandera and sims 3!

In the first year of the war, when I felt guilty for crying (I’m not the one being bombed!) and then guilty for not crying (Think of those being bombed!), I wondered, uselessly, who had a proper claim to grief. I knew expats who mourned dutifully, refusing social engagements, their faces ashen as if U fallen. I also knew friends back in Ukraine who were hiding in basements and still hadn’t stopped cracking jokes.

Sometimes I wonder if she and I are going insane, living two realities at once—the explosions peppering phone calls from Ukraine alongside the dinner parties in Vancouver with laughing, smiling friends in wrinkle-free fabrics who don’t mention the war.

ok so I was harassed in the comments under my review and when I playfully told him to fuck off the guy flagged me to the goodreads and goodreads penalized me, while leaving harassing comments live even though I blocked him. interesting... should I close my comments or it won't help? can anyone flag anything even if it's a joke? asking friends with experience

the moment we left Ukraine and got to Canada and diaspora life, the book instantly improved! almost as if the author has deep connection to the subject and is much more engaging! at least it became readable to me! A few quotes: