kris > Recent Status Updates

Not sure how I feel about this yet, but I do love the writing style. Very purposefully detached, distant, and impersonal in a way that feels correct for both a dystopian of this type and a dating reality show where contestants are a dime a dozen. Like although these characters have names, they're generic in a way that makes them feel nameless, with even the MC struggling to remember them

very into this (entertainment-wise, not convinced of its quality yet) but it's slow goings bc I've got so many Big Brother podcasts to listen to T-T

also since when is Poppy such a unique name that everyone needs to comment on it???

I am begging authors to just be *ahem* woke without needing to send their MC on an out-of-place diatribe about wokeness. It feels like you just got here 2 seconds ago and 100% of the time, it's cringe and performative.

Also Pliego LOVES the word sluiced. I don't remember the last time I came across that word so many times before picking up her two books.

This is the first time in a long time that I've felt this tricked by a book. Ande Pliego might not write the most realistic, believable mysteries, but she's very good at lulling me into a false sense of safety. Leading me from breadcrumb to breadcrumb, letting me believe I've got her figured out, just to pull the rug out from under me. And I pride myself on being hard to trick.

Really struggling to get through this one. Reviews have mentioned that it reads like a series of college essays, and I really understand the sentiment. We're already talking about being in LA, which is really late in the relative run of the show. Maybe we're going to backtrack to other anecdotes? It feels like we're always just skimming the surface of everything.

Ok I'm already kinda struggling with the audiobook of this 🥴 I noticed that everything was being read in a kinda unnatural start-stop way. It almost sounds like she couldn't get clean takes of full sentences, so they had to edit around that. It's just sounding a bit choppy and unnatural. I wish I could unhear it, but I can't 😭 especially after JUST listening to another memoir read by the author...

It's actually absurd for Christie to try and convince the reader that Marple wouldn't IMMEDIATELY recognize Mr. Rafiel's name. Half of her sleuthing is her equating people she meets to someone from her mental rolodex of everyone she's ever met. And we're expected to believe she forgot someone who was integral to helping her solve a crime? Ridiculous.

Trying to keep track of all of the characters and their relationships to each other is genuinely a nightmare. I'm listening to the audiobook and keep having to pick up the physical book and flip back to the beginning for the timeline rundown

i'm getting teary-eyed at a nonfiction book about a goofy lil reality show why am i such a loser

screaming crying throwing up thanks to getting an ebook arc from netgalley-- already devouring this!

I fear these characters are absolutely insufferable...

I often reference the Public Radio Alliance podcasts as stories that are similar to a lot of books I read-- Rabbits (duh), House of Leaves, Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore, etc. Rereading this, I'm realizing that THIS is also part of that lineage and perhaps the inspiration for me gravitating toward all of these stories. (I read Penumbra first but didn't *love* it)

some discoveries this time through (spoilers)
- halfway through my first read, I said that pacing-wise, I felt like I should be nearly done, and I'm feeling that again. Definitely feels like I should be at least halfway.
- I remembered the winter saga being part of the slog around the 2/3 mark, but it was very early
- Bunny dies a lot later than I remembered
- Most of what I remember in the book has already happened

the further I get into this, the more criminal it feels to NOT read The Feminine Mystique immediately after.

i've been doing a lot of audiobooks lately, so i was going to listen to this at work, but by chapter 3 i'd decided to read it with my eyeballs bc there are so many dense philosophical discussions that i really wanted to absorb and not allow to pass by without consideration. tl,dr-- i'm taking my time with this one.