Leilin > Recent Status Updates

Reading ebooks is really not working for me right now - switching to audio, and looking forward to see how this unfolds.

This is good so far, I just have it as an ebook and I am not using my e-reader much these days, so it's taking forever.

The author is local to me, so I'm all the more motivated to read it. I mean, not that it matters, but always nice to support your local young writers :)

I did not realize this was part of a series. Not that it needs to be, it's fairly standalone-like so far, but I am assuming it would give more context/depth + up the stakes (I mean, those are there either way, I'm just assuming they might feel even higher if I already knew well some of the characters). Either way, I am liking it!

(Picked this up after hearing the author talk at my local book festival!)

Ok, this is very unbelievable so far - there are a lot of ways the situation that is kickstarting the story could be ended, without much effort: it's a very weak conflict... Also anticipating that this is going to be somewhat anticlimactic: tone-wise, it just doesn't feel this is going to go dark, so I expect the protagonist to end up exonerated.

I think I'll just DNF it.

We're reaching the end and at this stage it's fair to say that I am resisting it by reading extremely slowly. Also, this is HEAVY and I can only take so much at once.

This is going to be the best book of my year.

If you see this and have not read it yet, just please do (read the Wikipedia page of the Marias massacre first - it's kind of assumed you are familiar with it, and the amplitude of what happened then).

Ok, it has music and sounds effect in very chapters. I dearly hate it!

It's not constant at least, so there's that, but it's so distracting, takes me out every time it comes up and makes hearing clearly the narrator (who's already not the most articulate out there) a lot harder. From the reviews, people seem to like it though... to each their own, I'd DNF if not for the fact I have nothing else to listen to rn.

Still amazing

"How is your heart, Three-Persons?" [...]
"It is weak, Good Stab, it is weak, but it is willing."
Then I said it as I must: "I listen."

Ok, apparently I'm reading this, because Alchemised is all over my GR thread and I wanted to know what was up with that.

There's something about fanfic that's so bingeable, and I think a lot of it as to do with the fact it takes a known base to tweak/build upon, so we skip a lot of the heavy lifting necessary to establish a full cast + worldbuilding.

Adding it all back again later for trad pub has to be clunky, no?

Are background ambience sounds the sprayed edges of audiobooks? Ugh, I really could do without all the garnishing, just give me the story and let it create its own ambience and visuals. I had to keep rewinding because I listen on my commute and I just couldn't distinctively hear the narrator well with that adding river sound in the back. I'm sure it's fine if you listen at home, I'm just being a grump ^^

I don't care whether I am barely 15% in, this is a work of art - Etsy transcribes the story of the priest who reports the story of Good-Stab. Not only do all 3 have distinct voices, but it is so well conveyed that to some extent you can tell subtle switches like maybe inaccurate reporting from the priest at times, or code-switching from Good-Stab when he gives his confession vs converses with the priest, and so on.

It's a ride... I have now switched sides as to who I want to succeed in their quest and fully expecting to switch a few more times ^^

Really liking this so far, and still as stumped as ever as to why the low ratings. The characterization is impeccable, the subtlety and care brought into this only serves to make Calla's pain all the more visceral and wrenching. I really like the oneiric quality of the prose and the absence of clear boundary between mundane, trauma and supernatural horror - all coalescing into a feverish flow that sweeps you along.

Listening to this one and the voice acting is impeccable. But to be fair the characterization is quite impeccable so far, so they're working with pretty great material. Now I'm left wondering why this has such low ratings - I mean, things can still go wrong, but it's off to a pretty great start.

The writing is functional and that's a page turner but this got so much hype that I was expecting a little more - if not with the writing, I still hope it pushes a bit further and beyond with the themes. We'll see. Still a good read even if it doesn't, I can do with a bit more of a popcorn horror for this once.

Ok, I finally found a stride with this but... I'm not very impressed actually.

There is a lot in this, but also surprisingly very little: entire galaxies, infinite parallel universes and even simulated worlds, but it's an exercise in garnishing. A lot of it is redundant in what it brings and serves no purpose for the plot, whose main ideas could have been leveraged with a lot less. It's imaginative, but to a fault.

Quite liking it so far - an example of a book using flashbacks smartly + I like the sibling dynamics. Flora is such an interesting protagonist, not to say she's not being stupid at times, but she's so in ways that make sense for her. Her anxiety is also well portrayed - I'm afraid the talk around it could become a bit repetitive now that we get it, but we get it because it's been characterized so well, so we'll see.

I don't know if that's because it's happening at unfamiliar scales (galaxies + parallel universes) or because of the particular way of interspersing descriptive elements (distilled slowly over several paragraphs, which means I often misimagined sth and feel compelled to backtrack) or just because I haven't read space opera with a lot of imagined nomenclature in a while and I'm rusty.... But this is taking me FOREVER

The writing is different and I need to get used to it - not a bad thing, I'm just tripping on it a bit more than average, I assume, because it uses French words (or adjacently French words) and I never know if that's local/dialect usage or purely invented vocabulary. I also needed to realize that this is not our world with added fantastical elements, but an entirely different one. Hoping it all helps the flow, now.

Ted Chiang is now one of my favorite authors - I absolutely love all of his stories. They start as a sort of thought experiment, asking "what if", with the "if" in question sprouting from concepts in science or religion, but then used to explore the human psyche in sharp and incisive ways that leave you ruminating on those ideas, and the many more sprouting in their wake, long after you close the book.

Ok, the ending is getting a bit clumsy, but this has been a very decent read so far, apart from that - loved the quests, the characters, the British mythology... deploring a little bit of the veering toward Manicheism at the end there, though. But we shall see...

It's been a while that I had not read a book that makes me really pause and wonder about math and logic and spirituality and inner working of my mind and so on. I'm reminded I love this author so much!

Read so far:
Tower of Babylon
Understand
Division by Zero

Really getting a kick out of the distinction between maths and applied scientists (bio / ecology) that shows through too <3

Ok, this is extremely sweet and wholesome, so I'm inclined to pass it a lot of things, but Cameron better have a hard come to Jesus moment soon (we are going through a last minute infantile and poor-me regression right now, and it's hard to summon any more patience for this spoiled 30 yo). Also getting tired of the "you can't be happy alone" take here, but it's partly due to Tova's grieving POV, I suppose

An example of cozy well done so far - things tend to happen conveniently and neatly, for sure + it's not trying to take you out of your comfort zone (this octopus is extremely anthropomorphized, for one) but the characters are also very engaging and likeable, which is really all this needed to ace (and so far it's delivering!)

Great so far: fast paced and unrelenting, very visual too, with endearing or straight up frightening characters... I have so many questions, I hope this is not 'all premises and no resolution'. We shall see. Thoroughly enjoying it meanwhile, in any case!

Ok, so for someone who is said to be distrustful, our man sure is surprisingly eager to discard red flags as big as "they just roofied you" and "she said her nurse will hurt her if she talks", not to mention the literal monster he ran from in his backyard (look, 73 is not that old, there's no reason he'd think he is losing his mind instead of trying to sell and move out!!) In general this reads like he's 90+!

There have been 3 major revelations so far - one makes sense (wasn't obvious, but wasn't a shock either), one is genius, and one is a total fail (there's an early scene that becomes extremely unnatural once this is revealed - why wasn't this rewritten? I don't even mean foreshadowing, just consistency).

This is going to be a hard book to rate. A lot of great stuff but also a lot of misses...

Everything has been exposition so far. This feels very American (while the setting is Tokyo and the MC is supposed to be Japanese or, at the very least, the clients clearly should be). It's also a romance (my bad for not realizing), which became evident when the only man of marriageable age so far was described - hint: no book that's not a romance will need to tell you about the sharpness of an attractive man's jaw.

So far so good - soft SF, liking the Nigerian culture (though there isn't a lot of it since the alien (?) uses Nigerian words but speaks with... what, a 90's US police/army movie slang? Not even sure what that is!) and pretty invested in the murder investigation!

I can already tell it's not going to be good -_-
Within the first 5%, world building and writing already both managed to be shaky.

Didn't realize I was headed into a Little Mermaid retelling and, even so, it's less a retelling and more plagiarism of the Disney movie. Sigh.

Whether I keep listening or DNF will only depend on how much time I have to fill with an audio book, in the next days.

It's not groundbreaking and it's not very subtle. It's also not really making use of the setting (this could happen almost anywhere/when) but I will say that it does feel heartfelt. I didn't feel that come through as much / at all from Someone You Can Build a Nest In, so this is an improvement imo. I think it is perfectly fine for what it sets out to be (I just don't personally seek this in my readings)