mara > Recent Status Updates

I hate when books pit the female characters against each other. You get the girl who's a clumsy tomboy "not like other girls" girl who, upon meeting the other one, is instantly envious of her, the graceful, feminine, girly girl. Such a boring trope, can we get a little bit more variety in here.
I can't remember a single time I was jealous on site??? like GOLLYYY writers make their female characters so immature

But it all paled compared to the platter in front of her.
this is so odd, why not just use the normal phrase "paled in comparison to"? The writing is lowk so clunky at times.

"Surely you don't mean to say you spent the last fourteen centuries as a slave?"
no freaking way is he OLDER than 1,400 years. this romance is getting worse and worse. how old IS THIS GRANDPA

Dara could pass as a man in his thirties, and he was older than her civilization.
😭😭😭😭 how is this not the weirdest love interest for a book to have. She's eighteen, crushing on someone that not only LOOKS THIRTY but is actually fourteen HUNDRED years old - older than her ENTIRE CIVILIZATION

"Something's going on here. Something we know nothing about."
I SWEAR the dialogue in this book is SO STUPID. duh there's stuff going on that you know nothing about:
1) you've never been to this city
2) you JUST GOT HERE. every single thing that happens is gonna be something you know nothing about
ugh this book is so braindead sometimes

"This looked like a cross between a riot and the Hajj."
how in the world would she know what the Hajj looks like, wasn't she dirt-poor in Cairo? how would she ever have the means to travel to Mecca and actually see/experience a crowd like that?

when his brother takes him underground, and Ali opens one of the scrolls, it says he "glanced at the next page". Scrolls don't have pages. They're scrolls. It's one continuous page.

"You do know that you're in the Citadel? I understand it must be confusing at your age...all these buildings that look nothing alike, located on opposite sides of the city..."
ok this part did make me laugh (in my head)

The sunlight flashed off the dizzying black and gold designs
doesn't black usually ABSORB light? how would black even be dizzying anyway

she'd just spent a month with this man
girl you barely know him. Esp considering he's 1400+ years old, a month is NOTHING to him.

"This is completely inappropriate."
He was right, of course. Not about being inappropriate, Nahri had never much cared about that.
religious girls care a LOT about that, esp the ones religious enough to wear headscarves

promptly tangled his hands in her hair
1) shouldn't it be fingers that are tangled, not hands
2) it doesn't consistently mention this, but in passing it has mentioned her wearing a headscarf. Is this not super against her religion, to not only be sleeping/lying next to a man alone, but with her hair uncovered too? like I keep saying, this is not how a religious person would act, ever.

holy cow Dara and Nahri are so sensitive, they get so butthurt about the stupidest things, going back and forth being sad.
Dara reached for her hand. Nahri flinched, and he immediately pulled back, a flash of hurt in his face. "Forgive me. I'll try not to touch you again."
The sadness in his voice cut her deeply. "Dara, I'm sorry. I didn't mean - "
"There's no time."
what in the world 😭 CRINGE

A blush stole into his cheeks. "I could not bear it if something happened to you. I would never forgive myself."
WHAT.
1) this is a man who fought in a war 1,400 years ago
2) she's 18
3) they've known each other for less than a month (one week? two?)
4) a LOT of telling, no showing. Can't think of a single thing that endears her to him. Especially after his thousands of years of religious conditioning.

WOW I am not enjoying a single page of this book

I hate when authors make the fmc illogical. He tells her he doesn't want to go into the city and that he's gonna leave her outside and she can walk herself into the city - and apparently she's offended bc he's "abandoning" her?? eventually he was gonna leave you, it just happens to be outside instead of inside the city. and you've been tryna get away from him the whole trip, so WHO CARES.

his eyes dimmed
-_- ughhhhhhhsdhfl;kasjf;oiaerj;fljsridgjkslk

She kept her gaze on him
as a girl from a similar background, I would not ever be comfortable staring at a man
studying the broad line of his shoulders
and 100% not in that way
his fingers trembled, and Nahri wondered if they would do the same on her skin.
and I would never ever be thinking about that. She's written in such a secular way, she doesn't seem religious at all.

shes just so forward for someone supposedly very religious, that type of girl is just not like that (not even inwardly), speaking from experience

"She must be a very good cook."
"She was."
"Was?"
"She's dead."
Nahri dropped her bread. "Oh. Dara, I'm sorry, I didn't realize - "
is she an idiot. How is she so stupid that she doesn't realize what his use of past tense implies. This is SO OBVIOUS it's embarrassing. idk if it's the dialogue or the characters, but one of these is badly written and making me cringe

"It was something my mother used to make."
Nahri almost choked; he'd revealed nothing about his past
why would you almost choke at something as mundane as that? So he's telling you something he's never told you before...and?
like girl, you just met him - everything he says is something he hasn't revealed before. None of this should be so shocking that you CHOKE.