Jukaschar > Recent Status Updates

I'm only on the first page and there's a hoopoe?!! In love already! ❤️❤️

This is lovely, very wholesome, but with bits of sadness sprinkled in between. Frederick is one of the nicest characters I've come across in my books this year.

I love how Half a Soul makes an appearance in this book. That passage created a lot of immersion for me. Loving it so far, especially Ollie!

The Clown - Tisha Pitkin: ⭐⭐⭐
Well written, leaving behind an unsettling feeling. Written in second person, whilst unusual, works very well here in my opinion.

My Hands are Squirrels - Rebecca Portela: ⭐⭐
Clunky writing, overly simplistic sentence structure. This seems to be autobiographical in some form, but for me it's hard to make more sense of it outside of the obvious.

I just finished chapter 20. I was afraid of and very unprepared for the violent outburst in a book hasn't had many such scenes thus far. I feel so uncertain about continuing now. I'll put it aside for the evening and give myself a little time to get over the shock.

Lois McMaster Bujold is working on upping the stakes at this point in the novel and I'm so curious to see how she will weave together all the strings that have been laid out over the first two thirds.
My only critique at this point is very subjective and I feel like a little superficial; I would've really wanted to learn a bit more about the main female character Ijada, mostly about her view on what she goes through.

The pace of The Hallowed Hunt is rather slow, but now around the half-way mark the story seems to come to a first culmination. Interestingly, the book feels old-fashioned in a good way, it reminds me a lot of the epic fantasy books from Tolkien to Guy Gavriel Kay, it just seems more focused on the characters than the story.

The amount of substance in this book is astonishing, there's no room for any superficiality. It's not flashy, but it's also not lacking when it comes to descriptions, they're just not in the foreground.
The main characters are likeable, but with a good amount of issues for further development.

At WbtM we discussed stories that are the most inventive last week. Had I already read this book then, I would've selected it for sure.
It's a very unique blend of prose and verse, of sci fi vocabulary and ideas from the realm of the fantastic. Like other books I mentioned in said thread, In the Watchful City is full of philosophical questions.
It's very enjoyable to read.

The introductory part to the story, before A Death Made Manifold, is breathtaking. Very beautifully written, leaving more questions than answers in its wake. The three entities that are most prominent in this short section all use neopronouns, which is awesome!

I just realized I finished seven chapters in two sittings, so the books seems to have drawn me in quite well. It's rather short, so I'm just going to finish it.

it me, ur smol: short and cozy story about a friendly AI

This Cold Red Dust: eerie and depressing, but ultimately hopeful, this story is an impressive beginning for this collection.
I wanted to read something by this author for some time now and I'm feeling this might be yet another future favourite.

She - John Ajvide Lindqvist: DNF (too violent)

I hope to continue with the next story in some time, I still hope I'll find some stories in here that I'm ok with.

I was so happy to find this anthology. Now I'm stuck on the first story which is horror and a bit too much, too graphic for me at the moment and don't know how to continue. I really wish I had less of a problem with graphic descriptions.

Why not start another book, right? But Solomon really hits me spot on having the main character, Chandler, wear a Sleater-Kinney t-shirt. I was already excited for the book, now I'm more excited.

DNF at about 30%.
I just can't continue. I really don't like the main character and her attitude. There are some other things I find annoying, too, absolutely subjectively, like the constant smoking, the disregard for material things, the dragging descriptions of seemingly every-day tasks. I might be a bit harsh here, but I was annoyed right from the beginning and pushed through to here - and now I'm done.

Many essays in this issue, and they make me realize again and again, that neurodivergence and disability are my tribes.

The book is a child of its time (1926), which is quite obvious in the use of the word 'queer' in its original meaning, different, odd, which is a lot closer to its German relative 'quer' - not easily translatable, but best explained as part of a composite 'Querschnitt', cross section, quer + Schnitt (cut). The history of the word 'queer' to its colloquial modern meaning is rather interesting!

Nearly everyone is saying the book starts making sense at this point and I can see where you're coming from. But I'm just tired of the amount of violence and gore.... And that doesn't seem to get any different from here on. I will continue, but Harrow seriously feels like a wench thrown into my reading progression right now.

Loving it so far! This short book helps me leave reading slump territory, I'm very glad.

There's still a bit less than a third left and this is already dragging so much. I have no idea what the author's going to fill the rest of the pages with, probably repetition. And the book's already repetitive at this point. Do you know these people who tell you everything three times in a row, with just a bit of change in vocabulary, sentence structure or their tone? Yeah, just like that. Sheesh.

Halfway through I'm very glad I picked this up. The stories I've read so far are intense, beautiful and first and foremost filled with hope. This is just what I needed.

Wow, I love this collection. Even though there are some rather unpolished stories, every single one I've read is just so powerful.
In a sense I can feel the writer's desperation, and that's just extraordinary!

Just finished chapter 10. This is one of the most terrifying dystopias I've ever read about. I will put it aside for some time to let the story sink in. The main and secondary characters are well written and it's very enjoyable to have openly autistic characters in a sci fi book. I do however think that some additional editing would have been a good idea.

Aysha U. Farah - The Tailor and the Beast: 4 stars. Lovely adaption of Beauty and the Beast. Very well written, kind of cozy.

Karlo Yeager Rodríguez - This Is Not My Adventure: 5 stars. Melancholy, but hopeful short story about a man not wanting to let go of his fairy tale childhood in the aftermath of his mother's death. Having not long ago experienced the death of a parent myself, I can relate to this story. I also don't think I know another work in the fairy tale genre where the main protagonist is a middle-aged adult.