Cinthia > Recent Status Updates

Settling in for a fun ride with dear old Bertie Wooster. Unlike in what seems like most of fiction these days, he has never killed a prince, though Aunt Agatha has come close.

“Shadow realized it had only been a temporary reprieve, his time in the house of the dead, and already it was beginning to feel like it was something that happened to somebody else, a long time ago.”

End of part 1. Neil Gaiman’s brain never ceases to amaze me.

“He said nothing. It seemed the smartest thing to say.”

The author paints such a vivid picture of life in a small apartment with a difficult mother. Impossible not to draw a parallel with my own experience with The General, aka my mother. The arguments and excuses Ellie uses to justify her mother’s behavior. The inevitable jealousy when she visits her friend. Kamali gets this human experience exactly right.

Three chapters in and I'm already in awe. THIS is how you put a reader somewhere. 

I guess the commune pipeline was inevitable 🤣

How many times does Hannah think we need to walk through the same loop?

Oh boy, here we go again. Now casting: one (1) fiercely independent woman. Convention is a cage, men are useless, marriage and children are for fools. Addie LaRue need not reaudition. Second Schwab, same lead character. Is this all she's got?

After two weeks buried in fantastic plots and people grafted into superhuman abilities, this is exactly the hit of mundane reality I needed. No leviathans, no empires, no bodies remade for a purpose. Just a down-on-her-luck governess and one ordinary day that seems about to go sideways in the smallest, most human way. Sometimes all you need is a palate cleanser, and this is shaping up to be a good one.

“To make progress on a change, you need a way to direct the rider, show them where to go, how to act, what destination to pursue. That’s why Bright Spots are so essential; they’re your best hope of directing the rider when you’re trying to bring about change.”

First surprise about change: “What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem”

The chapter on San Francisco’s decline hit me hard. I found myself crying for San Francisco, but I was also mourning my own hometown, Rio, which I still believe is the most beautiful place on earth. It’s terrifying how completely the wrong politics can hollow out a city: first the spirit, then the safety, and eventually the everyday dignity that makes life feel livable.

Part 2 = chef’s kiss

The pulled quotes are the standout feature — genuinely delightful. They do more than serve their journalistic function of supporting the narrative; they also capture the zeitgeist with striking clarity. Reading them now, if I hadn’t lived through that period myself, I would have assumed they were excerpts from dystopian fiction rather than real statements from the time. But boy, things were as bad as I remember.

I’m just wrapping up the intro and can’t help but swoon at Nellie’s every word. She’s the writer I wanted to be when I grew up.

His book is SO unnerving.

Oh, how I missed fantasy <3