Candace > Recent Status Updates

Dnf at 50%

I guess I am just not in the mood for this book.
Dnf’ing at halfway mark.

Pausing to read IRL book club pick…
As of right now, as much as I love a few of the characters, I am not enjoying the political and military aspects of the plot.
I do not plan on continuing with the ten book series unless something in the last 200 pages changes my mind.

I enjoyed reading about what led up to the war much more than reading about the battles.

Whereas the German plan was very rigid, the French leaned more toward adaptability and improvisation. Plan 17 also differed in that the French did not believe reserve troops could be effective in active duty. They ignored intelligence that the Germans were using reserves as active troops.

I’m very unfamiliar with these details of pre-WW1 so this is slow reading for me!
This chapter describes in detail the Schlieffen Plan which was Germany’s plan to envelop France by way of invading neutral Belgium. The plan of conquering France was to be completed in 39 days in order to beat the six weeks Russia would need to mobilize.
Germany did not quite make their 39 day timeframe- this I do know!!

Tuchman quotes Clifton Fadiman (book critic) in her preface: “…this book fixes the moments that have led inexorably to our own time….It is [Tuchman’s] conviction that the deadlock of the terrible month of August [1914] determined the future course of the war and the terms of the peace, the shape of the inter-war period and the conditions of the Second Round.” xvii.

I started this book pre-fire and now the dedication to Queen Lili’uokalani is much more thought-provoking:
“When all material resources were denied to her, she transcended the battle and made profound choices to safeguard the spirit of aloha in her islands and in her people, thus preserving this treasure for the whole world.”

I still want to BE Elizabeth but Joyce is my favorite in this book. She has really come into her own. (Or rather Osman is giving her the time she deserves in this book.) She is so lovely, funny, and kind. :-)

Wouldn’t she love that she is my favorite?

I’m enjoying the mystery much better in this book than in book one! Though this Lance and Sue are no Chris and Donna.

“He asked Elizabeth where she had got all the documents, and she said Companies House, and he said these are not the sort of documents you can get at Companies House, and she said that, well, she wouldn’t know about that sort of thing, she was just a seventy-six year old woman.” (83)

Elizabeth cracks me up!

I don’t believe in soul mates anymore and I’m not looking for anything. But if I did believe in them, I’d believe your soul mate was somebody who had all the things you didn’t, that needed all the things you had. Not somebody’s who’s suffering from the same stuff you are. (Karen)

I had no interest in being somebody else’s muse.
I am not a muse.
I am the somebody.
End of fuc*ing story.
(Daisy)

“Just remember, nothing will change, this is Kali Yuga, the losing age, the age of vice.”

Goodbye Neda, your pov was not as good as I had hoped.
Finally, Sunny Wadia. Do not think I am going to like you just because I have a thing for bad boys…

Yes, Neda’s pov has shown her to be more than just the quiet, sweet girl that Ajay portrayed her to be. Or does he see her as she as and still seem to have some kind of feelings for her? They say the servants know everything. They both are hiding things from each other. And our author keeps holding back things from us and I think maybe even purposefully deceiving us…I love it!

On changing from Ajay’s pov to Neda’s—
I love Kapoor’s writing style; she writes in a simple style but her characterization is complex for the character whose pov she is writing in. For the other characters, I feel like I don’t know them, or maybe Ajay does not really know them…? but it makes me excited to get to know them.
For now I will miss Ajay, On to meet the mysterious Journalist Neda….

“Don’t forget who you are,” Sunny says.” (Sunny is our rich playboy, heir to the Wadia crime boss.)
“Who am I?” Ajay calmly replies.

Ajay works 24/7 as a servant for Sunny. He believes work is the most important thing in life.(76)Based on his formative years as an outcaste, and following years akin to being a slave, how can he know who he is?

While I like Ajay, I know very little about his thoughts and feelings. If he was living a “life deferred”(42) until he became part of the Wadia family, what is he now that he is “the beating heart of Sunny’s [Wadia] world. Wordless, faceless, content”? He is still not living, and there is a distance between us because his “outcaste” origins have led to strict discipline and a low self esteem.

Ajay is born an “outcaste” in Uttar Pradesh, unable to drink from the common water source, touch other people or their belongings, wear shoes, etc. ( Apparently violence , including rape and death, is common against outcastes.) - I am somewhat ignorant about India and having to look up a lot of vocabulary: chela, chara, chillum.
But I love reading about Ajay, and what does it mean now that he is a “Wadia man?”

A ten year old boy in the Post Civil-War South has to decide which is more important, loyalty to his father (his blood) or justice.

The book shows that Im on p. 12 because it has page numbers for the frame book and a separate set of page numbers for the book within a book! I am enjoying it so far!