Jessica > Recent Status Updates

I can't believe this book hasn't mentioned scurvy yet... how can it be a part of this series without the scurvy mentions

The chapter on the physics of melanin was good. Otherwise, this so desperately needed an editor!!

heaven help me she's called the universe queer and has mentioned a spouse (exactly that word—no gender mentioned. It's a man). Like bro just say your husband 🙄

Noooo don't give baru another chemical escape... it's bad for her, but it's really bad for everyone else... miss cormorant should NOT be on cocaine

it sometimes feels like the oriati mbo culture is mary-sueified but also whatever it's nice to have some cultural element in this be, like, worth rooting for. but also woah you have multiple genders and your social system is based on generosity and kindness and the people you're fighting want to institute a eugenics program and rule your land? who should I root for here 🤔

The first book had very obvious parallels to historical empires/ideas. The second continued and acknowledged its connections to the real world in the end acknowledgments. This third one fully starts with a blurb about vasco de gama. Yes, Mr. Dickinson I understand that this series is actually secretly about our world I got that from the eugenics/hygiene as oppressive tools and central banking policy parts

Back at it again with the woman with seemingly no ethical boundaries ✌🏻 love you baru you absolute sicko

Oh yeah baby we have eugenics and central banking policy this is a good fantasy book 👍🏻

Anybody want to use the map from one city to navigate a different one with me

This book is making me come to a conclusion that I thought I was "too enlightened" to have, which is that butch/femme culture is conservative and regressive. :/ alas I think fetishizing gender roles can't be anything but

I just don't find gender sexy...

I wish I hadn't fead high femme camp antics before reading this, because I think this book is well written and uses the subjectivity of the MC as a fascinating lens. Unfortunately I hated the essay (it feels like the author is living an entirely parallel life to mine) and also the book is exhausting even if well written

I'm starting to 🤔 at some of the data here and there (saying GDP is majorly flawed because it doesn't include unpaid labor and then talking about the success of childcare programs in relation to the GDP gains they'd produce) but still... the kind of book that makes you want to grab "society" by the shoulders and shake it and cry, "why are we letting this happen??"

Admittedly I have not partaken in middle grade fiction for quite awhile but not sure this is for me. I think every single character seems like a kate mckinnon sketch character. In fact, it all seems like a kate mckinnon sketch, which makes sense, but I'm not used to sketches going this long. The jokey asides per minute are so high compared to my usual fare (see first sentence).

sometimes spending too long in john green's head feels like spending too long in my own head... feels a bit navel gazey (for both of us) but still, I learn stuff!

I'm apparently working my way through the john green cinematic universe

this is sooo interesting sarah waters you are so cool

E+RP mention!!!

🗡🗡🗡 kill maim destroy

See I want to know the information, but the author likes doing history through the people involved and I can't for the life of me keep the names and bios straight in my mind. Maybe I should make a chart. I've never done that for a leisure read before but tbh maybe it'd be good practice for when I return to middlemarch shortly (which inspired me to read this book).

I thought I was doing well at remembering how everyone was related. I am no longer doing well at remembering how everyone is related.

Jane Chambers Mention !!!!

The author Loves wheat, is baffled but respectful that people like rice, and cannot for the life of him figure out why people eat corn unless they would starve to death otherwise. Very interesting so far but so very written by a French guy in the 60s, even though he is probably more respectful of non-western european life than many of his contemporaries.

It was interesting but didn't keep my attention as the interest came in the form of enthnographic and political intrigue and not plot.

I had to return this because I got an email to my WORK ACCOUNT that this was overdue. Embarassing!! And frankly, I'm not too sad. Kind of giving The Pull of the Stars vibes, which was disappointing because I didn't care for TPOTS and I used up my patience for detail-driven, short-time period historical fiction on it.

I wish the glossary in the back was footnotes! I flip-flop so much and not all words are in the glossary so I never know when I need to flip or just go on context

With Gentleman Jack starting where it did, it missed out on representing the batshit arrangement in 1821 where Anne was staying with Isabella Norcliffe at Langton Hall, where she was playing musical beds by sleeping with Isabella, Anne Belcome [sister to her long-term lover Mariana], and their houseguest, Miss Vallance. And then made them all jealous by flirting with Mariana's other sister who was also there.

I wish this was complete with no redactions even for length but god. She's so cool

It feels hubristic to add this to my currently reading shelf at 20 pages in

This unfortunately seems to suffer from the same issue as the last emma donoghue book I read, which is that, in an effort to pass on the research she did about the subject, the historical facts kind of just get told to you instead of being integrated throughout... I miss Sarah Waters :(