liz > Recent Status Updates

DNF, awful MC

DNFed for quality of prose; story didn’t feel original or especially well crafted, and I was immediately bored of the love interest on his introduction, so I’m out. I’ll try one of Mafi’s more recent releases at some point.

DNF around 1/3 thru; loved the concept but lost my tolerance for French colonialism in translation.

this just isn’t very good

gosh this is bad

Hard pass. This is awful.

Absolutely awful.

this is dreadfully overwritten.

this is really good and really intersectionality feminist without beating you over the head with how woke it is. it really needs to be gayer though. much gayer.

I’m about to start chapter 6, “Throwing up and down,” and I am very excited

O'Hagan is clearly enjoying this opportunity to roast Assange, and I'm into it.

This is insufferable.

This book is driving me nuts. It has all the elements of what should be catnip for me: paranormal happenings, misfit smart kid protagonists, kids visiting museums to solve ancient(ish) mysteries by looking at art, and a familiar midwestern setting. It's almost really good! But the author is so fucking smug and lecturey in the kids' inner monologues about art and the public's response to the main Art Mystery.

Definitely could have done without the graphic rape in the beginning of the book. The constant POV shifts w/headers within chapters read a little immature. Since the characters' stories don't significantly overlap in the first half of the book, this would have been better handled with alternate POV chapters.

I was hoping this would be the diabolical lady version of Bruno and Boots that I've always wished for, but the book is half over and nothing has happened.

First 25% was absolutely dreadful.

This is the ex-pat artists in Paris book that I always wanted to read but couldn't find. Sally Jay is a perfect dirtbag and I love her.

please make this book be over

I was right to be nervous. The content isn't egregiously bad so far, but the writing sure is. Goodness.

Kinda nervous about this one. I loved the first book as a kid and I obsessively hunted for a sequel for a long time. In retrospect some parts of the prequel are real creepy, so we'll see what this is like.

forgot that a) I've already read this and b) it is relentlessly unpleasant.

The only problems I'm having so far are that the pacing is awfully slow and I strongly admire the French approach to handling monarchs.

I really want this to be more compelling and less misogynist than it is.

This book is extremely silly.