Leilin > Recent Status Updates

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)

This is becoming a case of wasted potential. Great ideas with absolutely no foundational work. Characters also have stopped making sense by lack of grounding: they have the one defining past event/trait each we keep getting back to, but it's just not enough. It's a starting point, ok, but can't be the only thing grounding them through change. Because of that, all their character growth feels accidental, if not random

I am loving the story but the writing is throwing me a bit: American modernisms all over the place (and it takes a lot to have me notice it), descriptions of action or characters' emotions can get confusing (is that due to the writer favoring "vibes" over effective writing? Not sure yet but possible / also weird focus on romance-like feelings and romance-like writing of those at times)... All in all, a bit jarring

There should be a quotas on how many "convenient interruptions" you can use to derail and delay your plot's resolution. We're way beyond any number that would still be dignified at this point.

In the last 7% I listened to, we got three (3) more!
- incidentally confirming that the 50% mark event should have been the ending. We're only keeping this going because we're still 5 labors short and it shows.

Getting very repetitive
Heracles finds monster, gets vulnerable, monster is won over, next.
Hera gets angry, another god comes in to give her the answer/solution she needs, she lashes out then acts on it in stupidest way possible, blames others, next.
Even dialogues are circling back weirdly at times.

50%: this last scene should have been the end, but we're short on labors, so making this drag even more we shall T_T

I sure hope we are going somewhere with this fervently religious Heracles angle: he's quite the (unironic/non-satirical) Pangloss rn.

Not sure where we're going with Hera either.

Previous novel from this author was suffering from the need to keep all main characters likeable, even if it got in the way of depth and interesting themes to explore... are we correcting this? I'm not confident rn, but we shall see.

I wanted to give this a try but 1) this is not what the blurb claimed? (monsters are being slain rn), 2) nobody is likeable so far, and this is not a book profound enough to afford not having likeable characters, 3) the male narrator's choice of a voice and breathing pattern for Heracles is... well a choice - not holding it against the book though.

I think this is going to be my calling it quit with this author :/

Another book with great character work - everyone, even those who sounded caricatural at first glance, gets enough page time to be shown as nuanced, complex, human.

I'm really intrigued by the simulation, of course, but also by reading how society reacted to the announcement and found a new normal since. The author works it in the story and provide myriad small details that really draw you in - great world building!

From the cover, was expecting some sort of strong, harden knight and a shrewd queen... but this is way blander than that, so far, with fairly mid characters. Yeva's growth is too fast and not rewarding, because she is not really a closed off, grizzled knight at all to begin with. Meanwhile the story is too slow, not helped by the writing: very contemplative and passive, too self consciously trying to be lyrical imo.