Sarah > Recent Status Updates

Ooph. So, this isn't as strong as Book 1. There are major pacing issues: 25% in and we're still focusing on anticipatory grief without new plot developments. The characters also feel a bit flat: everyone's life revolves around Vasily/Dmitri. Lastly, the anticipatory grief is stifling and lends itself to melodrama. The dialogue, similarly, feels a bit overwrought. Not a bad story, just not as good as the first so far.

AHHHHHH!!!! IT CAME EARLY!!!!!!

Okay, I'm devouring this. I absolutely love Ashe's writing. His interiority is THE best. And it's in first person, which I usually dislike, but he's knocking it out of the fucking park, here. The other thing I love about Ashe's stories are how gritty and ugly and stark they are. He doesn't shy away from giving his characters flaws.

Not a bad book but the pacing is starting to lag and the tension isn't taut. The vibe is a bit too saccharine and sanitized? The conflict between Adam and his family feels superficial and rote. There's no stark ugliness here, which feels weird to say considering the events prior to the novel's start. Anyway, Gregory Ashe just released a book that I really want to read, so I'm putting this one on the back burner.

Had the itch to revisit this old favorite...

I cannot put this down. Holy fuck.

This started strong, but there are a couple of cliches that bored me. Kissen’s actions in the tavern and Arren faux-attacking Elo are both scenes I’ve seen in many other stories, and there was no twist to either of these here to make them fresh or interesting. The other comment I have so far is that the relationship between Elo and Arren should be LEAKING with tensions and conflict and messy emotions, but it’s not.

Pausing for now because I had to return this to the library before I could finish it, and because I'm re-reading The Sins on Their Bones. BUT, I will get back to it!

This story is so hard to put down. From the get-go, I knew it was going to destroy me, and it's a slow-burn destruction that hasn't hit yet, but when it does, oh boy.

Lovely writing, gut-wrenching plot, fucked-up characters. It's making me feral.

The ONLY quibbles I have: one of the MCs is a bit too woobified for my tastes, but it looks like he's getting better, so...

Wow. This is just...astoundingly bad.

So...I have no excuse for this other than I'm absolutely desperate for something extremely commercial and that falls into some of the tropes I've been craving lately...

(Yes, even desperate enough to pick this up despite reading that it has *shudders* werewolves...)

(Oh, my life...)

FINALLY a good fucking read. I love the setting (Nigeria!) and the characters (Aminat!) and the concept (a sinister alien dome!). And the writing is simple yet elegant and has me turning pages and losing time--the hallmarks of a well-crafted story. Also, I'm a SUCKER for the vocabulary. If I read words like "stultifying" and "peripatetic" with regularity, it's pretty much guaranteed that I'm going to keep on reading.

I have had a spate of "DNFs" lately, so I'm sort of disillusioned by fiction and feeling like I'll never like anything again.

Then, I started this novel, which I picked up on a whim at a used bookstore.

While it prob won't be a fav, nor will I likely re-read it, so far the story is compelling (with several interesting twists to a mythos I love) and the writing is adroit. Therefore, I might break my DNF-streak!

DF

Intriguing story and characters with pretty good pacing. But—and I don’t THINK this is intentional—the tenses are all over the place and it keeps throwing me out of the story. Not enough for me to give up, but it’s distracting all the same.

DNF at page 156. I wish I could have liked it, but the pacing was too slow and the stakes not high enough to really drive the characters. This was a soft romance and it felt a bit too indulgent? I would have liked to see more conflict.

Ooph, not off to a good start. A lot of exposition, kind of clunky story-telling. It's pretty easy to put down...

Aaaaand I completely lost it again at “Uncle Walt’s Comedy Summer Camp Bigger Laughs Guaranteed Split Sides Have Them Rolling In The Aisles June to August Kids 8-12.”

Just taking a moment from reading to document the fact that I absolutely lost it at “A1 Private Investigations Emery Hazard Cheap Discreet Homosexual.”

Omg. This novel has the best goddamn dialogue I’ve ever read. It literally makes me laugh aloud. These two dumpster fire MCs? Perfection. JFC.