Karen > Recent Status Updates

This book bores me to TEARS

After 3 years of this book sitting abandoned on my shelves, I finally picked it back up and forced myself to trudge through it. Only have a bit left, think I'll finish it in one day. It is not my cup of tea, but I can't stand seeing it on my 'currently reading' list anymore.

Is this another neverseen tactic? Keefe's alone with less guard so he'll just get taken because he's vulnerable and alone. I just can't get over how stupid everything feels.

See this is exactly why she shouldn't know, she can't even keep it secret for 10 minutes

Peak stupidity. All the caution she had minutes ago flew out just like that. She's a teenager, not stupid. I dislike the decision to make teenagers seem incapable and reckless 100% of the time because there are always a variation. The adults are no better either.

Sophie can't keep secrets from anyone and expects Forkle to let her into one of the biggest? What's wrong with you. I despise the execution of everything: their conversation, their way of thinking, their actions. They're totally different people from the first book where they were calm, collected, and intelligent. It's getting too sad that I kept reading when there's no hope of betterment. This is lame.

In a group of adults and children, there's not a single brain cell between them. Blind to everything. It was said pieces have been stolen, and when Nubiti said she wore one to keep her head clear, it was pretty clear what the pieces were stolen for. Ugh.

So close to solving of the case. It's been fun - I forgot about all the American-English asynchrony the moment the case gets hot. So far we knew that they did something real bad: cleaning up a scene they shouldn't have. I'm leaning toward accidents that eventually had to be covered with murders. I couldn't think of a suspect, which is the case for all books in this series for me, that kept me buying the prequels.

Finally seeing a clear picture of the crime. It's better for me to read the Merryweather chapters in American instead of English because most of the words were American with sprinkles of English terms, which is distracting. As per usual, the past crime is more interesting than the contemporary setting. Stevie is as bland as ever - the blank canvas as to not distract readers. Lazy, but at least still enjoyable.

The English countryside section is a pain to read. So obvious that an American is trying to emulate English behaviour and vocabulary, and it didn't work. Should've had an English editor rewrite the whole thing instead. Poor writing distracted me from actually caring about these people.

Fitz admitted he liked Sophie, but I felt like something is amiss. Am I reading too much into this? Also, having Sophie's hand forced into an alliance by emergency is just... not okay.

Still flying through the pages. At this point we're so far into fantasyland that I don't know how to picture anyone or anything anymore. Things are colourful and sparkly, and I need more reasonable teenagers and adults in the story.

I still fly through the book, thankfully, so that hasn't changed. I can't help but notice that Keefe is so childish and oftentimes annoying: kept talking about making shirts of this and that, and stupid remarks everywhere. I don't remember anyone being like that in middle school, and I won't accept explanations of coping mechanism either, because there are other ways the author could translate his humor, better ways.

I cannot help but think that the Council appears too much in the story. We see them since book one, perhaps too much, every few chapters it feels like. There is no balance of small stake stuff and high stake stuff - everything is always high stake and it's exhausting. When the villains appear, they talk too much; I don't think any villain would be happy to explain what they're doing and boast about it. It's odd.

I previously forgot to set the update in percent. I think the story gets fun, however it's still written in a way that's very juvenile, messy and confusing sometimes. Continuing the first book, everything has happened in a span of a week, I still think pacing is an issue, a huge one. I like it simply because of the idea of the story but the writing is not my favorite.

I don't know what about this 'not like other girl' ness is attractive. There's nothing wrong about main character who can dance well and know many languages and can learn fast. This part of the book is just a contest of how Gwen can humiliate herself further.

I wonder if the translator is English or American, because sometimes they use the correct English term like using the word term instead of semester, but then use the word college instead of uni. Since the book is set in England these things stand out.

I'm so far in this book and yet this is only day 3 in the story. I think the time should've been stretched further. I don't find the writing as good as I used to, probably because I've gotten older and Gwen's inner thoughts sounds very juvenile and loud - so many things going on at the same time. It's also the reason why 3 days felt like 3 weeks; too much too soon.

I find Gwen very unkind for criticizing Charlotte so much. Charlotte is not a know-it-all, she knows because she had to study for time-travel. She has good grades because she started training and was pressured very early. Charlotte is aware that Gwen thinks of her as a snob and crazy, so Charlotte is the mature one because she doesn't let it bother her and treated Gwen with as much civility as she was offered.

I have so much sympathy for Charlotte. Her world literally fell apart in minutes, I have no idea how she's supposed to rebuilt her identity after that. She studied for 10 years so that she can time-travel safely, and she built her identity around this because she's been told so all her life. She had so much pressure from her Mother and at the last minute told that no, she was just imagining it.

I found Jamie to be a very comforting character, very boyish and says nice things to make people feel better.