Teal > Recent Status Updates

After I finish this reread, I don't think I'll log additional rereads. It's enough that I've admitted to reading the series three times in a row. Y'all don't really need to know the true extent of my obsession.

How can this still be so good on my third (consecutive!) read?!

Also, I have been corrupted by interrobangs.

Jiang Cheng walked over. "What did you do now? Didn't I tell you not to tease him? Can't be happy without courting death at least once a day, can you?"


Nope! 🤭

I felt the need to reread this, but this time in print. So far my path has been: borrowed it from Scribd —> bought the ebook —> bought the paperback. My book budget should be grateful there's not a hardcover version waiting to be bought too.

167 highlights and 33 notes on my Kindle. 😮

His leg was completely covered with the bruising black curse mark. Lan Wangji stared at it for a good moment before he said, greatly embittered at the sight, “I was only gone for a few hours.”


That'll teach you to leave him unsupervised.

If it looks like I’m reading this epic 5-volume, 2000-page story from beginning to end for a third consecutive time without taking a break to read anything else… it’s because I am.

I never imagined, when I started reading volume 1 for the first time, that I'd come to be so obsessed with this story and these characters. And now my buddy-read partners are making the (re)reading experience even more awesome. I am wallowing in book joy.

"Wei Wuxian put away the flute and was just about to clean up the corpse parts strewn on the ground"

I love how this is just a casual, thowaway sentence.

Commence countdown to reread: 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

I finished the story (it ends @ 38%), and the rest of the book consists of Extras. But I'm holding off on those for now and going back to Volume 1 for an immediate reread.

Does anybody know when in real-world time this is set? I know nothing about Chinese history, sadly, so I can't tell if it's set in a kind of quasi-semi-real-but-make-it-fantasy historical timeline, or if it's a completely imaginary AU only "flavored" with a historical setting.

I am asking because of the

If you know, you know.

Oh, come on! This ended with a cliffhanger for both the main storyline AND the flashback! 🤣

I assure you I wouldn't be laughing if I didn't have the next book already on my Kindle.

WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME THIS BOOK IS FUNNY?

What I expected: Badly translated, lots of descriptions of scenery, too many names and clans to keep track of, young guys training in some kind of academy, honestly a bit of a slog unless you like that kind of thing.

What I'm getting: NOT THAT.

Just lots of laughs, entertaining adventures, fun times. Who knew?

I'm now at the stage where my normally intense spoiler-aversion gives way to the need to read reviews in the hope of finding motivation to keep going. In other words, I can see the DNF from here, but I'm still resisting it.

Somehow I failed to realize that this was about two surly teenagers.

😐

Oh well, only 397 more pages to go!

Thank you, book gods.

I'm having a terrible time with fiction nowadays, because no matter how appealing a story seems, I struggle to maintain interest in the characters. Like, okay dude, you're a decent guy and I hope you achieve your goal of [fill in the blank]: defeating the bad guys, reuniting with your lost love, saving the world, or WHATEVER. But I can't make myself care enough about it to stick around — so good luck, and bye!

Looking at the reviews leaves me with a powerful "What's wrong with me for wanting to DNF?" feeling. Guess I'll put it down overnight and see if I can muster up sufficient enthusiasm to pick it up again tomorrow. 😰

Skipping the hog butchering scene... 🙄

Ngl, some skimming has been happening. In the years since I read the last book in the series, I'd forgotten how much I dislike Claire. The scenes from her POV are all domestic, and mostly mind-bogglingly boring.

William's storyline is interesting, but unfortunately parts of it don't make sense to me. Presumably due to not remembering stuff I should remember from previous books...?

Buddy read with Linda!

It's been at least 7 years since I read the previous book in the series (back before I discovered GR, so I wasn't tracking read dates), and whooo boy that's a long time ago for something this complex and jam-packed with characters. 😬

"He shakes his head, then strokes his beard."

Wait a second. This guy, one of the main suspects, has been on page how many times — let's just say a lot, because the MC lives in the same house as him — and now, 3/4 of the way through, we're being told for the first time that he has a beard?

Not to mention, it's 1952? And he's a businessman, in fact basically a CEO? Uhhhhh.... I'm gonna say no. What a weird glitch.

Don't know what I'm going to do now. DNF? Skip ahead? Wait a few days (can't wait too long, it's a library book) then push myself to continue? There's a reason why I don't read books about queer characters in the 1950s, but I went against my usual judgement in order to give this a chance. I'm invested enough in the mystery now that I don't really want to DNF... but I don't know if I can bear to keep reading, either.

Oof, huge anachronism. 😖

Was the author on drugs when he created this? Is it supposed to be this funny? At some point I started thinking "Bill & Ted in space," and now I can't unthink it.