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okay this list of dramatis personae has my attention

incredible dialogue here: "you see, if you ever want to commit a murder, the thing you've got to do is prevent people from associating their ideas. most people don't associate anything - their ideas just roll around like peas on a tray - but once you begin lettin 'em string their peas into a necklace, it's going to be strong enough to hang you"
"dear me! what a blessing it is none of my friends have any ideas at all"

i should prbly update this, huh? i'm having fun so far! deeply charming, with a light airy kind of briskness to both its prose and its dialogue. we've got some early breadcrumbs for the mystery and i'm curious to see how it all plays out

one of my goals this year is to read more non-spec fiction so here we go! this one sounded very fun

i'd forgotten about both the eebs AND the ick

HE'S HERE :)))))

thank you dresden files. dresden files thank you

i need a reading win here y'all, of the 4 books i've read so far this year 1 of them has actually been good. save me dresden files. dresden files save me.

rly need a banger after that last one pls do not disappoint me here

"about this time, i found myself, able once more, to see the gardens, with clearness" my guy this is just not necessary

forgot to update page count (︶︹︺)

okay. i'm starting to see it now. this man is doing things to and with commas that i think constitute as some sort of war crime

updating before i forget: enjoying this so far! i can def see where the prose style would be offputting, but i'm doing fine. the swine men are very funny imo lol

curious to see how i feel about this one! i know a lot of ppl rly dislike his prose style

i confess i am mostly reading this bc i want to get to the third & its haunted mine

what the hell happened to the pacing of this all of a sudden it is SLOGGING

still not crazy about the "humor" of this & esp its frequency but i like this cast of monsters & if nothing else it is at least entertaining enough to be a fast read

the degrees to which i am not feeling this whatsoever... alas i am at my parents' still & have limited books from which to choose so. we persevere

enjoying this a lot so far! not a single bad piece so far, some of these have been a BLAST

arrived at the library just in time for me to start reading on christmas eve lmao. excited for this one!

loving the narrative voice so far. really strong opening chapter with some genuinely gorgeous bits of prose interwoven here!

..................now hang on a second. is this pulling a witcher season 1 on me

just finished part ii so this feels like a good spot to update: have decided i am def having fun with this! it's just so unapologetically weird & gross, with all the weird hallucinogenic perfumes & insect toxins & venoms & the ensuing body horror. fascinated by the worldbuilding here, and all the subtle little plot points as they are revealed to us in bits & pieces. i am intrigued to see how this plays out

i swear i am actually reading this lol, just slowly & without updating. can't decide how i feel about this so far: there's smth about the decadent absurdity of this world & its casual uncaring cruelty i'm not sure i like. but then we get things like this: "he feels upside-down under the chandeliers and arching skylights, too used to his light radiating from below, reflected in silver water" & i'm like, oh. okay

back to our dresden files reread! no marcone in this one but should still be fun

this fucking rules so far holy shit

this has been sitting on my shelf for like three weeks now bc i took so long to finish the monk but i'm excited for it!!!!

girl do you even like women. like do you respect them as people. jesus christ.

i'm sure i've seen more sexless depictions of lust than we got in their little sojourn through the court of desire here but i'd be hard pressed to think of them. embarrassingly awkward, like an alien had googled "weird fetishes and kinks," all overlaid with a smug sense of superiority that our MC was Better Than That. all our degrees & the best we can come up with for names are "bone-things" & "barge-type thing."

insipidly dull so far, & a deeply uninteresting interpretation of hell for all that she is clearly trying to be clever & creative with it (i have simply read too much classic weird fiction with all its hells of terrible splendor to find endless plains of sand & dust & some very lazy attempts at non-euclidean geography at all interesting), & interspersed with endless asides of academia & linguistic etymology? for why