Michelle > Recent Status Updates

How many different POVs are there in this book? And can we please have a moratorium on new names starting with L? I'm getting confused.

We begin with a quote from Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands. Yikes.

The world building, writing style, and many characters (Ragne!) make this feel like a 5-star read, but I'm just not buying Vanja as the greedy maid from the goose girl (or Gisele as an innocent princess.) Self preservation can be selfish, but it isn't greedy. Nor is not wanting to be a vitim of abuse or a servant. Owen's insistance on making every character (Vanja included) see her as greedy is making me want to DNF.

Well, that took a turn...

I hate being forced to share Cassie's POV. It goes beyond just unreliable narration; it is so painfully unbelievable that I have no words. Gibby is off his rocker to be interested in her. And all the "bad" characters—so far—are the ones saying and doing what I would. Team Sherrif Barney, Nurse Bower, and Marilou all the way. And her poor dad! She's so creepy with him that I don't trust her version of their history.

Back at it again. This woman is terrible.

I guess Gibby is tired on info dumping for us. Now he just has a random expository letter from Cassie's grandpa, written to apparently no one in particular, ready to give Cassie her answers ala deus ex machina.

Gibby gives Cassie an info dump of the prologue events that completely eviscerates any intrigue or mystery that may have been built (and reinforces that this was written during Satanic Panic.) Also, Gibby, just because Cassie is TSTL doesn't mean the reader is...

I won't slut shame, but I'll parent shame to hell and back. You don't f*ck your (barely) legal boyfriend on a blanket in winter while your underdressed elementary aged child is within view of both you and a thinly iced over lake. It is 100% Cassie's fault Jesse was under water for TWENTY TWO MINUTES without being missed. I'm with the paramedics and LEO, she's a crap mother, no matter how much she protests otherwise.

Wow. I'm not one to slut shame, but it's almost like the author is writing Cassie with the intent of having the reader shut shame her? Like, Cassie's characterization of her sex life is written in the absolute worst way possible to still have respect for her? Unreliable narration, maybe?

Clearly written during the satanic panic era.

Gonna have to take a 48-hour break from this while the book takes a bath in a sandwich bag full of baking soda. The stale cigarette smell is clinging to my hands. 🤢

Oh, WOW. Probably a good thing I didn't remember more of this book as a middle schooler. 😳 Cassie is...not my favorite character.

Biography speed dating. I'm loving the "further reading."

I know this is going to be wonderful when I finish, but I've had to take a LOT of breaks.

I'm so glad that I waited to start this book until Ethan and I were reading aloud together. It is so rare for us to experience a book for the first time together; we should do it more often! We've resolved on four chapters per day this Spring Break, finishing on Friday. We'll see if he sticks to his resolve or if we end up reading ahead.

I'm slowly working my way back online after all the craziness of this pregnancy/birth. Really looking forward to seeing what everyone has been reading while I was away! http://bookevangelist.typepad.com/chr...