Asha > Recent Status Updates

The protagonist of this one is kind of hard to like. I’m curious to see where it goes but he’s insecure, wishy-washy, flies off the handle. He’s a decent person but in a spineless way. Like ehhhhhhhhhh. I’m still reading along and I’m interested is where it’s going to go. It’s just interesting to start with an MC like that.

Was definitely expecting this to be gay given the set up. It appears that it is not. It is currently leaning into the Sex and the City style of rich-white-women and I’m having a big “ew yuck” reaction. I wanted kind of fucked up lesbians with that con artist/cop begrudging mutual respect enemies to lovers thing. Not yoga class and sushi. I’ll give it a little more chance. It doesn’t need to be gay to be ok.

Because this story is based on a play I’ve studied, some of the “twists” are obvious and the way the author handles that is interesting. We know who is on the other end of the line because we know Hamlet but the story plays it straight because it is a mystery to the characters.

Hayden is such a little shit head. Again. I also hated Hamlet. (I think him being a shit head and a pampered rich kid is what the author is shooting for and is just nailing it).

It’s based on Hamlet so my initial “I find all these people unlikeable” is not surprising as I feel the same about Hamlet. But it is fascinating. The sci-fi edge. Whatever the fuck is going on with Hamlet and Horatio. The trapped in one place mystery and the lab with secret rooms. I’m definitely interested.

This thing tears along. Dropping bread crumbs that keep you trying to solve the mystery first. The teenage boy pov is a lot worse than the 44 year old woman pov but those chapters are so short that it doesn’t take anything away from the main arc.

I used to read a lot of crime fiction when I was in my teens and early twenties but I fell off of it as I got older and started to see the violence less as spectacle and more as violence. But it’s nice to be reading a different genre than my usual and this thing rips along at a good pace and isn’t (so far) lurid. It’s more family drama than CSI episode.

It’s cute and funny to see the YA novel in the wings of the main story. Having read lots of YA novels the “and then there was a competent adult involved” element is cute to me. But I’m not actually liking it much. I am not really sold on the pacing. I’m just shy of half way and I’m not sure what the arc is. The romance angle is boring. The world building flies by without getting a chance to shine. Ehhhh?

While I am enjoying the school stuff, as more world building comes out, it is starting to feel like maybe we could have chosen a more interesting window into this world? I assume the author set out to write “magic school from the pov of the teachers” but like go back to demons as weapons in WWI, no not study hall, hey!

I am also in my late 30s working as a head teacher at a much smaller and less prestigious kind of organization but there’s still something about the vibes of the MCs work life that is so on point. “Let me get out of here and finish my marking” is exactly the look everyone gives you on the “any other concerns” moment in the staff meeting.

This book does a great job of selling atmosphere and vibes but not such a good job selling the characters. I do not get why any these people are invested enough in each other to be making it work.

I am finding the main characters difficult to like. Someone is probably very into these two. I don’t know if the other intends them to be endearing or not. It is a horror after all. I’m hooked but more for atmosphere and premise than character

This book is almost more poetry than a story. It is drawing out the emotions though.

I tend towards journalistic style when I read nonfiction which has a greater focus on individual stories. This is a much broader picture with a lot of economic and environmental discussion and it spends a lot of time interrogating sources which is both dense and fascinating

This is very well cited and the author knows her stuff. It is also written in the tone of a tumblr mutual who recently finished an under graduate course and wants to show off what she learned.

sometimes I find that queer media can skew after school special - because this is a period piece, the need to label everything isn’t there. Which makes the lowkey romance work really well for me. (I know label based identity can be super important to people but I haven’t got my shit figured out like that and so a story that isn’t trying to figure things out Like That is really working for me.

Can Lit but make it queer. Rural family. Untranslated French. The spectre of war. It opens with a child dying. There’s a hint of maybe something supernatural going on. We will see.

The first book was so bad. This one is much better. It still falls a bit into “if you weren’t fucking, what would you be doing” but makes that a plot point that the characters have to work through. It’s a little heavy handed but definitely fun.

Continuing on my AI dive. This one is a lot more like a biography so far of both the company and Sam Altman. I’m meh on it but not quite ready to DNF it. I’m more interested in the tech and the social implications than the shitty people building it.

Initial thought was as that the voice of the narrator was too present but I’m warming up to it as the story gets moving. The comedic tone is working for me as I get into it.

Ok the endgame as shit gets really bad?? Very fun.

All these people suck. It’s definitely intentional. I’d like a little more horror and a little less catty family drama but I have this idea rattling in my head where I need to write political/family intrigue so- I’m treating it as a case study.

I am intrigued. The promise of deals with a demon in high corporate governance is intriguing. I don’t like the main character yet but I’m curious where her arc will go. Is she going to get better or worse?

This is a horror novel specifically written to target every ick I’ve got. I cannot look away but everything about it is so awful.

I wonder how this would read if I was younger. I am taking so much psychic damage from the 15 year old logic chains. Again, very intentional. This book is very intentional. But it is upsetting. Give this kid a break. Give them all a break. (Again, that’s the point, the author is evoking the emotion in me).

This one is odd. It’s at turns horrifying and then it’s lololololol teenagers in 1970 hehe and then the next scene is about medical abuse and then it shifts again and it’s making fun of 1970s cooking and then it’s a campy exorcist vomit scene. I think that’s intentional. Like it’s doing the tone mashing on purpose but it’s weird to read.

The thesis of this part of book is basically: you can’t plaster an LLM on a cracked system like a bandaid. If you want to fix peer review or journalism or gaps in health care and education, you have to start at fixing the cracked systems. Chatbots can’t fix this shit.