Gili > Recent Status Updates

I have zero expectations for this book to be something that caters to my specific feelings given current events and the political climate, but I was not ready for the main character to lament feeling like she’s on the wrong side of things when she’s usually doing things like cheering on the Intifada. Boy do I have feelings about that.

מסתבר שגם אני בן שקל להרשים כי גם אני מתלהבת מגיבורה שאוהבת את monkey island

Maybe it’s just me being too old for this shit, but I just find it hard to believe that key military positions are chosen by who rides dragons better in a dual, and I’ve served in the army so I know how stupid promotions can be.

I thought I was over Hazelwood’s writing about virginal demisexuals but now that I see the alternative maybe those were better 😬

Well I put off reading this for quite a few years because I thought it wouldn’t be for me and now I know that past me was right. Not sure whether to dnf at this point.

Why is Elsie a cartoon villain? Who wanted this?

I don’t get this book and I doubt reading the last 30% is going to make things better

I wanted to like this book, why did it have to be so cringy

I both adore and suffer from the way Lex Croucher can make me dread for the fates of obnoxious teenagers 🥰

Not sure why this book feels so hollow

I wonder if this is explained in some way, but it feels like the author didn’t decide (or hasn’t thought through the consequences of) how experienced with magic the protagonist is or how knowledgeable about magic the rest of the world is or how healing works in this world.
I find this lack of internal logic to the world building unsatisfying.

Holy fuck, don’t know why I wasn’t expecting to find a book about reproductive rights triggering

Ok, so these books are definitely entertaining, but they are also deeply unsexy to me for some that is at least in part a romance.

It’s been a long long time since I’ve read anything this fatphobic.

This is really sweet and like 10 times less cringe than the previous installments (which I liked, but still).

Is it weird to say it seems a book aged badly for something that came out two years ago?

Ok, this book took a turn for the (borderline?) offensive notion that it can “diagnose” characters as autistic. I don’t mind an anachronistic interpretation of Austen, but the reasoning is… lacking.

This book is so not for me, I don’t know whether to continue, or “hate” read.
Anything work related the mc does is 100% cringe, either because of how unprofessional it is or because I’m Israeli and American workplace speak is super fake to me (“I’m so so so excited to be working here” yeah you said you might leave two seconds later).
Also boss-employee romance consent is such an issue.

“This conclusion, that Charlotte purposefully sits in an unattractive room to avoid Mr. Collins, goes too far. Elizabeth has no reason to believe, for example, that any difference in pleasantness even registers with Mr. Collins, who is hardly an aesthete. Elizabeth,[…] is trying too hard to appreciate Charlotte’s strategicness.”
What? Charlotte IS strategic, that’s the point of her character. 🤦‍♀️

There is some interesting insight here, but I fell like it takes a very flat and uncomplicated view of Austen’s texts, sometimes taking very seriously things that I would read as ironic, etc. It kind of takes the joy out of Austen for me.
Most glaringly for me, the answer to why did Elizabeth change her mind about Darcy. Is it gratitude? In my opinion the change started earlier. It’s a bit frustrating.