Matty Barone > Recent Status Updates

It’s been like falling into a warm hug.

So far this has been everything I wanted from the Paley museum, all panels for 50, and the Jeff Probst Survivor book but in a way that it’s everything that I didn’t get. I know I get it from Rob on the RHAP podcasts but this is compiled and put together in a way that’s beautifully stitched together. I’m eager to see where it goes!
Also it’s just genuinely beautiful to see someone with the same survivor love

I often get into debates with people because they knock audiobooks. They say they’d never be able to focus. I tell them that some narrators blow it out of the water and keep you locked in. This narrator is the opposite of that. I’m missing so many details. But then on the other hand, I don’t think the writing esp of short stories is enough for me to go back again and again

Thinking a lot about Cody being robbed of life. Phone calls to a phone that will never be answered, texted to a number that will never be read, and memories that will never be shared while other less deserving people are walking around. And Gandalf, relax because I’ll add myself into that category. Sad.

Odd deeply intense people. Ethan has always been drawn to people like this. He likes bouncing off the surfaces of their oddness in the same way he prefers to play tennis against a hard hitting player. It’s more difficult to deal with the soft lobs of normal, well adjusted people.

First off, I’m loving this book and excited to see where it goes. It’s early but I’m making my predictions.

I just have to say, anytime a friend dies in a story and they talk about the emotional trauma and aftermath it brings me right back to feeling that about Cody. The idea that we were robbed of the times standing around a fire with beers and paunches in twenty years is so hard. So unfair. Robbed.

I can already tell this is going to be one of the most messed up books I’ve ever read.

I can already tell this is going to be one of the most messed up books I’ve ever read.

…burning up in an instant like paper bags touched with a torch. Before her eyes explode in her head, she has time to see the flesh and sinew blasted off the hands she has raised to protect her face. With her last breath, she can smell the seared pork-and-garlic odor of her own frying skin. She missed lunch and dinner, and the smell, in that last dreadful instant of her life, makes her stomach tighten with hunger.

I’m enjoying this book. People have been hating on it. It’s the kind of sad I want. Relatable but not depressing. Just… real. At least that’s how I feel so far.

My MAJOR gripe with this is that the narrator is reading Ali as ah-lee, like Muhammad Ali. Maybe that’s what it’s supposed to be but it sounds unnatural. But I guess that’s the Swedish way to say the name.

“If you only find one friend like that, you’re insanely fortunate”
And then that friend dies randomly on an October morning. And that’s how grief hits randomly out of no where.

I don’t know how to explain what I just read. When this scene started I literally rolled my eyes at the overuse and ease of what was to come. Holy cannoli was I wrong. I’m shaken. I’m chilled. I’m uncomfortable. I just hope this is a scene that I forget and it doesn’t stick with me forever.

Honestly, I don’t think this is worth this torture. I said I wouldn’t DNF and I rarely do but I just don’t see any payoff on this one.

I’m not loving this book. Like (almost) always, I will see it through but the second person pov is killing me, the names flip flopping is confusing, and the lack of direction makes it hard to know what this is going to be about.
I said I’d read fantasy this year but this is sort of the reason I avoid the genre. You never know what you’re picking up… for 18 hrs.

Okay. There have been a lot of things so far like how much detail was in the council of Elrond. Now I understand how there will be a whole spinoff.
But I had to pause because I’m devastated that the book doesn’t say “You Shall Not Pass” and instead says “You Cannot Pass”. What!?
The speak friend and enter change also seemed like it was done for the better. I’m looking forward to the extended rewatch!

“She had picked up, somewhere—maybe in that one-day class on ASL—that the very best lip-readers could only understand about 70 percent of what they saw, and the majority of deaf fell far short of that.”
The audiobook narrator said ALS 🤦‍♂️

I keep saying I’m not going to read more of her books because I don’t love them but they are so accessible. Always available at the library

This is the kind of book that symbolizes why I love reading. It’s an interest that yes people watch in theaters etc but otherwise it’s so niche. Reading allows you to escape to any world. 📚
I’m only barely cracking it open and already I’m able to see it continue from the Michael Keaton version and seeing all the connections of how it’s tied back to the first movie and John Jackson Miller’s first book.

Two things
I’m understanding of the need for a job but if being an employee of someone this crazy, is obviously not sustainable especially if the crazy starts to show so early.
Secondly, Amanda Seyfried is playing Nina? She’s supposed to be heavier. Fifty pounds heavier than her wedding photo. A size 14. Physical details always throw me as a reader ➡️ movie buff.

Two things
I’m understanding of the need for a job but if being an employee of someone this crazy, is obviously not sustainable especially if the crazy starts to show so early.
Secondly, Amanda Seyfried is playing Nina? She’s supposed to be heavier. Fifty pounds heavier than her wedding photo. A size 14. Physical details always throw me as a reader ➡️ movie buff.

I was really enjoying the details in this book and the writing style of this author but man, do I hate an unreliable narrator.

I absolutely love the story because it helps me reflect, but I do have problems with it. I think they’re big problems actually because I would’ve valued at her life was more average and realistic. This seems so outrageous that she is an Olympic athlete biologist in the Arctic. I wanna know something simple. I wanna know what happens if you did X instead of why not if MJ pursued his baseball career instead of nba

I’m enjoying this book and especially the guy who reads half of the story, but he is messing up words and it’s driving me bananas! Are these recordings not proofed? A word like manic being read like maniac etc.
It is still a good read but man, does it throw me!

So far, this is not my favorite villain story but it has potential. I’m open minded.

Chapter 1: I’m a man in purgatory blind to the sins that chased me here.

Okay I’m only on chapter 7 but I’m here to say that the hype around this is real. I’ve got clear images in my mind of the story due to the elaborate descriptions, I’m enjoying the characters, and I’m laughing at every turn. Worth picking up. It’s early, I know. But so far so good!

At the Io chapter. Love how explanations of different creatures come through classic myths. This piece tells of the peacock

I’m really not enjoying this book. I’m a third through it and I think I have to put it down. Maybe temporarily but maybe forever. There is so much out there that I want to get my hands on and this just is not what I’m looking for. I’ve invested a bunch of time into it but to know I’m only a third of the way and not enjoying it at all, stinks.