Ascolta > Recent Status Updates

Oy, please tell me this isn't YET ANOTHER Queer-Love-Can-Never-Work mess.

Opens with long analogy about grammar, which is lovely for a grammarian - and also gets pushed a little too far. That said, at 14%, maybe be a love story on the level of Erin Morgenstern's Fate and Time.

Woof. Ch. 9 is where this mess TRULY falls apart. WHO GREEN LIT THIS SLOP 🤯 A book full of unlikable characters, inasmuch as characters so flat and insipid can manage to be unlikable.

Ch. 5 (10% in): where story actually starts.

Possibly the main problem here is the narrator. Was hiring a voice that sounds 13 really a great idea?

Unpromising opening. Maybe will vibe less depressingly childish at 1.2 speed.

40. Temple In The Clouds (SIGH, STARTING TO SKIM) | 41. Snow Storm | 42. A Negotiation With Doves

28. A Thousand Lotuses | 29. Those Who Are Heard | 30. The Cat, The Tree, and The Wind
31. Worthless | 32. Four Pledges | 33. Suspicion
34. A Concubine's Weapon | 35. Beyond the Farthest Crest | 36. A Burning Star
37. A Village Girl's Dream | 38. Red (WHERE THIS BOOK STARTS TO VIBE LIKE TORTURE PORN) | 39. Fleeting Footprints, Lasting Carvings

CW: Child Abuse

Ah, Seems Shen Tao truly hates women more than men.

25. A Wicked Thing (Eric Yang) | 26. A Woman Without A Tongue | 27. Generous Gifts

22. Wet Market | 23. Not Magic | 24. Everlasting Spring (Eric Yang)

19. Rumors | 20. A Traveler's Tale | 21. Beacon in the Storm

1. Fruit From Nothing | 2. Power & Greatness | 3. The Joke of Gui Xian
4. Azelia House | 5. The Fate Of Concubines | 6. Selection day
7. Mercy | 8. To Shoot Down Suns (or Sons) | 9. The One Who Cannot Die
10. Concubines and Empresses | 11. The Currency of the Palace | 12. Nights
13. Days | 14. Worrying Over Lightening | 15. Chess Pieces
16. Malicious Intent | 17. Loyalty | 18. Sanctuary (Eric Yang)

28% = Ch. 20 or 4:20:17

24% where Eric Yang starts narrating, Ch. 18

Ch. 15 major info dump

14% Oh no. Now it's just a dreary story of DV.

This is a story about the toxicity of patriarchal rule and the poverty it engenders. It's a little depressing.

4%: Narration a little slow - bump up to 1.15x

38% and I'm not sure I can take this for another 60. Occurs to me to wonder whether the adolescent vibe is down to the translation, or if it's there in the original.

33%: point where I add definitely HETERONORMATIVITY-FOR-THE-WIN tag. I don't need a novel to have plot & story-w-in-a-story works great for me. It's interesting that so many E-Asian authors who produce this kind of fable-driven story structure get translated into English. Anyway. The profound misogyny of S. Korean culture feels esp. leaky in this part

Reading between the lines, our MC, Penny is - put politely - simple.

Unclear when I started this the first time (if I did) or if the idea that dreams are s/thing bought and sold in fancy department stores struck me as so cynical and distasteful that I immediately put it aside. BUT, what if it is intentionally cynical and distasteful? As a middle-aged millennial, would Lee ever write a sanguine account of capital-controlled sleep & subconscious? As as S. Korean, maybe so.

lotta info dumps

Ch. 18: yikes, way too much tell. These info dumps don't work so well coming from characters other than Ana.