Jenny > Recent Status Updates

The main character's personality appears to be *judgemental*.

Actresses are too thin, the police too stupid, bosses are awful, men largely sexist, beauticians all shallow, and anyone who enjoys Atonement is a sheep

Given the attitudes towards birth and pregnancy in this book its unclear why boys aren't sterilised/ girls don't have their ovaries removed as a standard part if growing up. The effort of using contraceptives every time the characters have sex (which is encouraged to be frequent), alongside the fact that no one is ever planning to get pregnant means that leaving the population fertile makes no sense.

My goodness, I am loving this! The atmosphere, the ice, the building horror - really excellent story telling

A heartfelt plea for authors of historical novels to STOP depicting female characters interested in clothes, balls and matrimony as silly, shallow, frivolous etc, in comparison to your scientifically minded, awesomely liberated, straight talking, anachronistic protagonist. It is not feminist to completely dismiss the entire female experience of centuries as foolish fluttering.

The literary equivalent of Five Guys - not exactly good for you, but really well done and guiltily enjoyable!

Still reading what feels like the longest book ever written, and we limp towards a conclusion. By this point I don't care if the answer is black magic, paranoia, or that our protagonist has got sucked into conspiracy theory hell, I'm just so tired of these unenjoyable characters going from place to place with no depth of interaction or development.

Baffled as to how a book with so many cool ideas and characters is so dull. You've got world hopping adventurers, portals to new places, shape shifters, secret societies, other monsters... and the plot is a snore fest as the main character is told snippets of this (but often as incomplete fragments cutting away from resolution). Despite her sparky prose January has thus far done only interesting thing...

Any retelling of the story of Helen of Troy faces the dilemma of Helen's complicity. This is a woman who caused an entire war for her own passions. Is she a fierce heroine, with agency and the sort of hard selfishness to wear her decisions? Is she a tragic dupe, overpowered emotionally by Paris, if not physically?

This book needs a strong character to carry it through but George just makes her unbearably naive.

'I wanted to pit a man freed from all responsibilities but his appetites against women whose lives are shaped by their endless responsibilities.'

Argh. Our heroine is a tough modern girl who sneaks out at night to hunt for clues but also takes the time before sneaking to stroke her dress and revel in the feel of the fabric, then critically analyse her appearance and pinch her cheeks for colour so she looks more becoming sneaking in the shadows...

Possibly one of the most infuriatingly superior, self-deluded, and annoying main characters I've had to read in a while...

Maine's writing beautifully evokes the Scottish coastline:

'A moment later the sun reappeared and lit the ragged edge of cloud, and hung there suspended for a glorious moment before it began its final descent, setting the clouds and sea aflame.'

I forgot how much I love the grishaverse world. I find it one of the most beautiful and enjoyable fantasy worlds to read

Trying to read this for the second time - I so want to love it, but somehow it's not quite working for me. I think partly it feels very rambling at this point - I really don't know what our main character's goals are or where the plot wants to go

I'm hoping the story progresses beyond the Lavinia show soon, as she is quite simply one of the most infuriating characters you'll meet in a book.

I am genuinely surprised our protagonist has survived this far to the age of 16, given she has the self preservation instincts of a lemming

Enjoying this, but my goodness Katherine is being made to be incredibly dense for the sake of the plot!

The house was vile. She shivered and thought, the words coming freely into her mind, Hill House is vile, it is diseased; get away from here at once.

In this modern world the great thing is to have an ideal. Achieving it is considerably less important

If this is a matriarchal society where women are the heads of family it seems odd for wives to take their husbands' names and join their families... I feel like this is a small flaw in the gender setup but it bothers me!

Spicy Moroccan chicken and aubergines - more spiced than spicy, but utterly delicious. Replaced fennel with chopped potatoes for some bulk

Roast Aubergine and Chickpea Salad - a gorgeous salad, rating so highly it appeared a second time in the same week! Raddichio is hard to find, so we replaced with greenery and slice radishes. Slice the aubergine in rounds rather than lengthways to make it easier to eat. Yogurt dressing only needs half quantity.

Aubergine 'canneloni' - very nice, quite indulgent. Would recommend half fat creme fraiche instead of the full fat version. Moderately time consuming

One aspect of this book which really show its age is the relaxed attitude of all the parents to child supervision. With a known child killer on the loose children are merely told to be home by 6, rather than kept in/ in any way guarded

Spanish sweet and sour aubergine - delicious, healthy, not hard to do on a weeknight. I've had this before from a friend (which actually induced me to buy the book), but it's always heartening when the first recipe from a new book is a winner

Spanish sweet and sour aubergine - delicious, healthy, not hard to do on a weeknight. My first winner <3

Beautiful writing, but I'm not falling in love yet due to similarities to books like NOTW and The Magician's Guild - gifted protagonist from lowly background gets into an elite academy, aristocratic student takes a dislike to them instantly, the disadvantages pile up and they fear expulsion but persevere almost on willpower alone... Hoping this will take off on its own course soon, and can't wait to see where it goes

I think Lady Sybil Ramkin is one of my favourite female characters in fiction. She's a woman with an all consuming hobby. It's interesting, it has nothing to do with men, and throughout the book her sheer passion for dragons is just adorable. But she's also intelligent - she doesn't just see a massive dragon and go 'Cool!'. She gets into the science and the physics of its existence. She is amazing.