Armina > Recent Status Updates

"...for Efrem was always fascinated by what people did with their hands: It is how people interact with the world, he told her once. The soul might be within the eyes, but the subconscious, the matter of their behavior, that is in the hands. Watch a man’s hands, and you watch his heart. And perhaps he was right, for Efrem was always touching things...

Love this! ^^^

"..that must insult and incense the very people you were sent here to work with! Sigrud!” The giant man stands. “Since the maintenance staff responds so slowly to voices other than CD Troonyi’s, please remove that painting and break it over your knee. And Troonyi— please sit down. We need to discuss the conditions of your retirement.”
Well done, Shara! :) And Sigrud is gonna be a fave character, I see!

“What is this astonishing foolishness, that shines brighter than all my father’s gold? Can you teach me to be such a fool too, Caz?”

Very heartwarming moment and I didn't see this 'meeting' coming up so it felt great emotionally!
Also this was 2 days ago so practically I'm at around 85% but wanted to quote this :)))

“I don’t duel, boy. I kill as a soldier kills, which is as a butcher kills, as quickly, efficiently, and with as least risk to myself as I can arrange. If I decide you die, you will die when I choose, where I choose, by what means I choose, and you will never see the blow coming.”

You go, Caz! I like your wit, prudence and foresight but damn this felt satisfying!

“Do you understand what it means to be a saint?”
Cazaril cleared his throat uncomfortably. “You must be very virtuous, I suppose.”
“No, in fact. One need not be good. Or even nice.” Umegat looked wry of a sudden. “Grant you, once one experiences… what one experiences, one’s tastes change. Material ambition seems immaterial. Greed, pride, vanity, wrath, just grow too dull to bother with.”

I like Umegat!

"I found there is a place beyond fear. When the body and the mind just can't sustain it anymore. The world, time... reordered themselves. My heartbeat slowed down, I stopped sweating and salivating... it was almost like some holy trance."

Crucial and heartbreaking to learn this part of Caz's story! ❤️

Loving Cazaril already!

Very promising start!
Just met an intriguing set of characters who are well fleshed so early in the story and with the mystery all around it's a lot more to come I guess.
Had the luxury to both read and listen to the book so far and the narrator is doing a great job (tiny little cringe when I first heard his voice for Riyu, male narrator doing a female voice or vice versa - always a challenge-but he's getting there)!

“Rose is my friend. And she likes you. But if you hurt her, or make her unhappy, I will hurt you back.”
“So noted.” Dav could be just as cool as a thinking system. Just as clipped.

I hope these two will warm up to each other. I like them both :)
I'm listening to the audio version for the last 10% and Christina Delaine narrates Sazo a tad more psychotic than I imagined him till now just by reading the book.

He chuckled, a rumble that vibrated through her. "Do all females in your race have such large breasts?" There was no escaping the male interest in his voice.
She made an inarticulate sound. "I come all the way to the other side of the galaxy, and what do you know, it's still populated by boob man."

Lol, this is so much fun!
The guy here is actually very honourable(in case someone gets fooled by the text! :)

Argh! I want to kick Jinni's ass!!! I'm heartbroken! And of course at the same time I understand him! Grief oftentimes takes a big toll!

Since I started the book till around the 40% I was making slow progress. Reading a chapter here and there - nice, comfortable story, new interesting characters but nothing extremely engaging to push me forward faster. Yesterday evening I went from 40% to ~60% and I'm hooked now!

I loved the prologue!

All the threads are coming together now, racing in front of each other and I can't put the book down/stop listening although I'm at work........:)

Had completely different plans for my GR activities today but postponing all and just reading.........sorry guys!
Probably finishing this today although there's the Wold Cup final .........hmm

"A man might desire something for a moment, while a larger part of him rejects it. You'll need to learn to judge people by their actions, not their thoughts."
I'm in the beginning but I already can feel this is gonna be one of those books which ponder at the meaning of life and what it takes to be human and I will love it!
Met the 2 main characters and I'm fascinated by them as magical creatures! Reading on.

Nooooooo! Please, find a way to undo this!!! I cannot.... *sobbing*

And what a fascinating gift! Hopefully it could be used in a way that will lead to something good! Pleaseee!

For five days and five nights, they strung minutes like beads - each one a jewel, shining and precious.

I really love these two and I hope they will have a happy ending after all that has been stolen from them and all the suffering they endured!
I'm at an event in Krakow and barely had time to read but at least a little progress :)

Finally back to Kora and Nova and just seeing Kora's full name which speaks volumes how she/they will be intertwined in the whole story.....

Previous chapter was pretty intense!

Want to read moooore but I have an early flight tomorrow morning ...
Hopefully I'll manage to do updates on my trip!

The unconscious mind is open terrain—no walls or barriers, for better or worse. Thoughts and feelings are free to wander, like characters leaving their books to taste life in other stories. Terrors roam, and so do yearnings. Secrets are turned out like pockets, and old memories meet new. They dance and leave their scents on each other,like perfume transferred between lovers.
That's why^ I love Laini's writing!

He did that to her. Over and over.
If she would only give up on him, he could stop destroying her.

Oh my! Feelings too close to home!...

And that’s how you go on. You lay laughter over the dark parts. The more dark parts, the more you have to laugh. With defiance, with abandon, with hysteria, any way you can.

I just love it! I haven't been in the mood to post many updates since they kinda stay unnoticed and believe me I can because I'm highlighting like crazy.....:) it's Laini Taylor's writing .....hello! :)))

Anyhow....reading on!

The Prologue felt very bizarre .... in a good way! But look how chapter 1 is starting:
Names may be lost or forgotten. No one new that better than Lazlo Strange. He'd had another name first, but it had died like a song wit no one left to sing it

and this is after I've just finished Tigana ...feels like a continuation of the whole idea how important names are. Now I know I'm where I'm supposed to be :)

‘Red vixen,’ he said, ‘how do you like to play?’

My god, I think this is the happening (let's say) that will unlock the avalanche of events which I'm expecting till the end of the book...
3 hours and 9 mins in audio till the finish but I'll probably use my kindle since it's faster and I'm kinda impatient..... :)

Everything building up with the end approaching...
I'm catching myself thinking "I don't know what I would like the end to look like..."
There are many intertwined fates of characters that I care for and I know it's almost impossible all of them to have a happy endind if any at all....... having in mind the beautiful sadness with which GKK's writing is filled with :)

She searched her heart and knew, with an enormous grief, that it was his, it had not come back to her after all. Yet even so, and most terribly of all, she knew what was about to come, what she was going to do."

I'm so fascinated by this relationship! I want to just hate Brandin but GGK is shaping his character in such a complex manner...layers of layers...

Fearing the moment when Dianora meets Baerd again!

In the silence that followed Devin felt a sadness come over him, an echo of his mood at the end of the night. A sense of the terrible spaces that always seemed to lie between people. The gulfs that had to be crossed for even a simple touching.
And how much wider those gulfs must be for men such as these two, with their long dreams and the burdens of being who they were, and what.

Love all the nuances!

This chapter gives me hope there will be happiness for Baerd at some point. I really like him! Very interesting and kinda abstract happenings as a whole. On to chapter 12 and back to my other favorite Devin :)

There are no wrong turnings. Only paths we had not known we were meant to walk."

I always loved the romantic fatalism...