Mara > Recent Status Updates

Why do I read insect horror? I do not like obscene amounts of insects crawling everywhere. I do not like dead bugs. I do not like bugs crawling out of someone’s throat. Why do I do this?

Really rather wish the first-person narration was *not* written in an accent, but overall this book is shaping into a massively underrated book!

So far, there’s a lot to like in this book. And then there’s a few things that also really kind of annoy me. Like Hot Gardener Paul. He feels so inauthentic, just a hunk thrown in because we must, and is bland, bland, bland. And then requisite “sleep with hunk” scene - which is not graphic at all, but it happens, and it’s stupid and I hate that sex is a given in adult books.

Oh yes - let us glamorize and glorify the Dark Ages, when people lived in serfdom, reading the Bible was illegal, and peasants were slaughtered - the “golden age of magic.” So wonderful.

“With an accent of” has apparently replaced “in a tone of” - and maybe it would be an okay replacement to relieve potential repetition - except she uses it *every* time to replace where “tone” ought to go. Also - yay, murder time. Though honestly this feels like a giant hoax.

. . . .Lucy being staked in “Dracula” is a symbol for the silencing of women?? Really; we’re going with that?

Okay, people, I’m looking to set myself up with a reading challenge: I want you to send me titles of the Top 5 Saddest YA Books and let’s see if they make me cry!

I hope this ends with Victoria growing up and learning to be less selfish, because right now - while I understand her desires for freedom - she largely seems bratty.

Well, this Victor Frankenstein is downright psychopathic and I don’t know that I especially care for this particular presentation of him. Victor was devastated at the loss of his family, yet this one is impassively cutting into the arms of his little brother and Elizabeth to “see what’s underneath.”

I think I *may* have found a Diana Wynne Jones book that I’m not especially crazy about. I know the relationship between Mr. Lynn and Polly will turn romantic, and I’m suspecting we’ve got some immortality deal going on with Mr. Lynn - but. I can’t picture him any younger than mid-thirties and Polly, so far, is spending the majority of the book as a child. This isn’t working for me.

Saw both of those things coming.

A fair bit into this story and still wondering why the sisters’ sexual orientations were a necessary detail.

If this seriously ends in an engagement, I’ll have officially come across the book with the quickest insta-love ever. XD Which would bother me, except this book is written in the spirit of humor and ridiculousness.

Ever notice how, whenever you have a “loathing-to-loving” trope, the female inevitably ends up looking foolish and childish? Yet so many readers want to be in her shoes.

So far, this has me hooked. While not a fan of horror movies myself (except the old classics like Hitchcock, Vincent Price, Night of the Living Dead), the characters’ enthusiasm makes me enjoy all the references - which I *do* get because of my friend who does love horror.

Hmmm, do I go ahead and DNF this now because I know already that no “twist” will redeem everything else I dislike about this book? Or do I go ahead and power through, since it’s a pretty quick read?

It’s amazing how often I can be divided between feeling sorry for Sophie and simultaneously hating her because she is a horribly selfish person. She only thinks about Agatha when she’s in a situation that is truly bad - but she has absolutely, positively no compunction in using her “friend.” Sophie is so unbelievably manipulative and it can be rather amazing how Agatha and Tedros ever think she’s a friend.

This book has stolen my productivity. It is so freaking good that I don’t want to don anything else but read it!

Egads, is it possible that this one may be better than Echo North???