Beth > Recent Status Updates

Questions were opened early on that I hoped would be central to the story moving forward, but it seems the emphasis will be different.

I recently discovered the entire Spititwalker series was available for less than $6 each in audio on Audible, and decided to take my reread of the series forward in that format. The narrator is really good, and I'm enjoying this different take on the series a lot.

The sense of absurdity seems absent in the sexy parts, which could use some in lieu of overblown, tempestuous metaphors.

I'm having a good time, minor grammar stumbles notwithstanding. Funnier and a lot less gruesome than I expected.

I'm pretty sure we've got the MCs of the next couple of books lined up already, category romance-style.

I haven't read one of these "killer of serial killers" things before, so we'll see how it goes. I can say with complete confidence, less than 20 pages in, that they're unlikely to be something I turn to frequently, but so far it's keeping my attention.

I've been at this one for nine months off and on. (Mostly off, obviously.) I'm not sure why I'm being so stubborn about it, since it's obviously failing to keep my attention.

A very good balance of interpersonal friction and background information. Maybe it says something about me that I haven't been even slightly curious about what any of these rich people looked like, but immediately went on the hunt for images of their Newport manses.

You don't have to use cute flippant asides and short chapters to keep my attention. The result is almost the opposite, actually. There's enough else going on here that I'm willing to stick with it.

Things have improved quite a bit since my last update. I twigged onto the main message of the first story a few pages before the pov character did, but that's okay. I'm enjoying the vibe of this book and will be just fine hanging out in the café for another 150 pages or so.

A slow start, with dialogues that go on and on like this. Thing = plot element:
"Thing?"
"Thing."
"Really thing?"
"Yes, really thing."
Pov character tests out thing.
"I told you. Thing."

Plot points out of nowhere and interminable blah-blah-blah.

A big box store on top of a swamp on top of a panopticon-style prison was bound to have some bad energy...

Inevitably reminds me of _Finna_, which I read first, though already I'm enjoying the characters here far more. I have some predictions about what is going on and what might happen. i.e. the store itself is malevolent and/or ill. Matt and Trinity are in Orsk after hours and are marked for death, being sex-havers. Basil likes Amy romantically. Amy is the last girl standing...

"It was a terrible, horrible fact, but the outcome was set in stone since the day I'd fallen into that open manhole."

I think this is an acknowledgement that isekai can be pretty absurd sometimes. I enjoyed the reunion in this chapter that also illuminated some of the story's main plot.

Hoping to finish this before the end of the year, after some unavoidable delays.

I hope it's just this first story that's kind of boring, too 101 level on-the-nose.

"Lucifugous": I appreciated the vibes early on, but a little more than halfway through this first story, I'm ready for it to be over with. I care very little about these throwaway characters and their sexual and/or vampiric tensions with each other.

There's something deeply moving about a mangaka who doesn't 100% know what they're up to with their first chapter, and who figures it out as they go along. Halfway through this anthology, I'm confident putting myself in Urushibara's hands.

Got this used for $7.50. It was even signed by the author, "To John and Judy."

Going to see if I can get this read for the SFFBC discussion. That's been a lost cause for most (or all?) of 2025, so there's no reason to be hopeful, but we'll see...

I have no recollection of anyone from the first book except the handful of central characters, so seeing a pair of second-stringers starting a relationship gets a "good for you, whoever you are" from me.

For fun, I gave my partner a choice of three books for me to read next. He decided on this one because "the characters on the cover look happy." If nothing else, this will be quite a contrast with current audiobook Best Served Cold. ^^;

So much blood and over-the-top emotion! But as usual for a light novel, it's easy going, quick reading, just right for my current situation.

I've tried and stalled out on this and _The Blade Itself_ I dunno how many times by now. And I have to say, I think I finally kind of get what's going on here. A book starts with "The sunrise was the colour of bad blood. It leaked out of the east," etc., there's no way it's meant to be taken entirely seriously.

It was foolish to start a 500-page book after finishing a 600-page one, and I knew it. This is the shortest book in my travel box, so here's to a quick win while I gather strength for another chonker.

As was also true of the Gaskell I finished recently, I've read two different introductions to this one: B&N in paper, OWC in ebook. On the whole I appreciated the B&N one more, though the OWC had at least one element I intend to keep an eye out for as I read this for the second time (first was about thirty years ago).

Having listened to a volume of the "Anita Blake" series right before this, Jean-Claude's inspiration is painfully obvious, from the hair color, to the blue or green eyes, to the French accent. Rice is a much better writer, though, and I have a far better idea of what our MC here is like in about 20 pages or so than I've gotten from J-C in two books.