Stephen > Recent Status Updates

Yup. Still love this book. It’s so stupidly dense and weird and it’s like it’s made for me to love.

I am enjoying the book so far (the trans joy in being yourself and being perceived as you truly are is real), it’s not… doing Darcy correctly (at this time, it may change! Maybe Novoa will fix it!). This is a common problem in most P&P retellings. Darcy is currently just a misogynist, not classist. Novoa has removed the class part. Not great.

Most Ardently was my pick for the Trans Rights Readathon for 2025! I love a Pride and Prejudice retelling and heard great things about this book, I’m really hoping it lives up to the hype!

Sanderson isn’t… great(?) at writing political intrigue. His “on the nose” style of prose doesn’t lend itself well to the political twists that Push this story, his characters love over explaining and expositing. But when Sanderson withholds shit… when he is clever, man, it does make up for the weakness.

Oooh this is fun yall. This is fun. The premise is solid, the execution is pretty good (not blow me away fantastic, but v solid), I can see why Boon wanted to adapt this.

First short story is a reprint of a previously published short story, a Date for Dinner. It’s still bad. And filled with typos. Did he not edit? Before copy/pasting?? It’s horrific, truly. No suspense, action is bad, it’s all bad, burn it down.

Even though I’m not the biggest fan of Sanderson’s writing voice in this book (the dialogue tends to be clunky and prose is… fine), it’s still an engaging read!

Ooh… oh no, this isn’t good lol. Between the grammar errors and the shoddy writing, this books will not be above a 2 star read. The AI cover was a warning…

The Daughters’ War and The Traitor Baru Cormorant - books with queer women protagonists kicking ass in their respective fields in a beautifully written world. I need more books like this, please and thank you

A cool character trait I’ve been noticing is the narrator generally describes locations by their architecture first. We lead with descriptions and histories of why places look the way they do. Love that

First off, didn’t know this was a prequel. Second, I’m really enjoying this. The writing style is artistically “clunky” (reminiscent of older, “formal” fantasies), but it’s clear the author has an amazing grip on this style of prose. I’m hopeful for this book, I’m feeling like it might be a four star read?

Ok, I took a step back from this book, now we’re buckling down and finishing. I am enjoying it, honestly the show is a pretty solid adaptation of the source material so far!