Katie P > Recent Status Updates

I'm learning that the fantasy scene from the 70s-80s was not big on cohesion, and/or I've forgotten how to read.

Should I read more Diana Wynne Jones? I'm thinking yes.

It's not you, it's the prawn living in my ankle.

The ongoing dilemma of whether I devour the new Spy x Family all at once vs try to make it last, as if it's a delicious slice of chocolate cake.

I'm a simple woman -- to me, if it's in space, it's sci-fi.

Thought I knew how to read until I read this book.

First 46 pages: Hard to follow, with 5-6 unnamed first person narrators. I wrote down everything I knew about each narrator/a basic timeline of events, which helped make sense of things, but I wonder if I shouldn't try for it to make sense.

47-? - Epistolary. Big 19th century gothic / horror vibes, with the caveat that the narrator is unreliable.

The format of this novel is really unique, and it feels like it shouldn't work as well as it does.

get a job, stay away from her

NONE of this is how you should treat a snakebite.

English degrees are all about reading 100-200 pages of a book you don't care about in under a week (I love my English degree) (I don't love this book)

This book assumes that the reader knows nothing and is incapable of inferring anything, unfortunately.

Rereading this, again for school. Was not enamored with it the first time, but maybe this time I'll change my mind.

Miranda says "There’s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple" aka "he's cute, so he's a good person" which is also probably how I evaluated people at 15

"Hamlet is Shakespeare's best," okay, but have you considered that Macbeth is much better?

Probably only going to read to page 846, which is where the stories stop - the final pages of this book feel like they're for reference, not for reading through.

What I'm learning from the author bios in this book is that a lot of authors were MESSY and that a lot of their loved ones must have been exhausted.

Maybe society would be a little bit better off if rich people went back to paying a silly guy to live in their house and tell them all of their flaws and also sing songs sometimes

First skip of the anthology (other than some stories I've read before and don't feel like rereading -- I will definitely also be skipping the Joyce Carol Oates story) because I read the biography of Yukio Mishima and it... seems like he was a fascist (and I'm reading this book for fun so I'm not gonna make myself read his story)? If you like him or get why people do, please explain it to me.

There's a reason why no one reads this one

My (20F) husband (25m) plans to risk my life, play God, and defy the laws of nature in order to remove the birthmark on my cheek. Is it wrong to feel hurt?
("The Birthmark" Nathaniel Hawthorne)

Strong stories in this section:
"The Little Room" by Madeleine Yale Wynne
"The Plattner Story" by H.G. Wells
" The Princess Baladina - Her Adventure" by Willa Cather
"The Reluctant Dragon" by Kenneth Grahame
"Iktomi Tales" by Zitkala-Ša.

"The Little Room" is my favorite here (might as well have been written to pander to my interests), but I love that Baladina is an awful child that doesn't learn anything.

I'm skipping Prince Alberic and the Snake Lady by Vernon Lee despite the fact that it seems to be about a magical (cursed?) tapestry, and I am on record as loving magical fiber art stories. It's my first DNF of this collection, I just can't get into it.

Speaking of magical fiber art stories, Susanna Clarke gives us two in The Laries Of Grace Adieu, which is maybe a perfect anthology.