Marie > Recent Status Updates

She keeps knocking it out of the park. "Far and Deep" was... deep!

"Their Changing Bodies" was a delight! It felt like a feminist response to the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Where is this even going? So much is in this book. Future tech, a mummy, court intrigue, romance... and now we're maybe getting involved in a revolution in Spain?

DNF

It's got some nice passages, but overall I was frustrated with it. Not sure I can articulate it adequately, other than it seems through this erudite discussion that theology is just amateur sociology and psychology with a particular form of "gut feeling" allowed to be pulled out as an argument ender.

Ugh library loan expired when I was nearly done!
Liking the epistolary nature, but wondering how they'll "show" the solution to the mystery, which I suspect HAS to be in the mural of Noah!

I found it hard to get into this at first. A lot of info to process, and a lot of stuff about a teenaged relationship... ew... but there's delightful snark, though at times the sarcasm is quite relentless and dulls the edge of the tragic events.
Still, the plot is a turning now!

I am loving this book so much. It's been hard not to sneak reading time into time I should be doing other things.

I hate that this is a library book. A lot of thoughts I need to sit with. Have to renew it b/c it's due soon.

Ah, it's a deep dive into Toni's own process of "practicing language" via a close look at opening and closing sentences in her novels. This section is DENSE.

This section on the history of African-American literary criticism is, I think, the heart of Toni Morrison's narrative. I can't imagine what comes after this!

I was not prepared for how timely this book is.
Toni warned us!

Gosh she doesn't pull punches. I'm feeling a lot of "here are my complaints about epic fantasy tropes" especially with the "we had an instant telepathic connection" which results in a fraught relationship, not love at first sight!

I wonder at how much more book there is. We've fought a war and enemies have become friends and we've had so much heroism... now the one king's brother and the other king's sister have an altercation - will they be taking leading roles hereon out?

They're going to war AGAIN? welp, it's an epic fantasy...

Updating a trigger warning: HORSIE DEATH! :(

Definitely the weirdest book I've ever read.

The intro is such a delight!
NB: I was a first reader on much of this manuscript. It's so delightful to see how she polished it!

Sometimes there's a bit of profound meaning in the juxtaposition and wordplay, but mostly it feels like substitution for substitution's sake. Saying "Six o'clock shark" doesn't really add meaning?

I'm noticing that every time there's a dialog, it's really a monologue with one character merely feeding the other lines.

It makes me feel things about Mr. Joyce... and how the book itself is something of a monologue.

Oh, no.
You know those fake Chinese accents that show up in bad old racist shit? Which sound nothing like how Chinese people talk?

Yeah, there's a bit in here.

I worried about finding where I'd left off, but then found to my sorrow I'd marked it.

Lots of rhythmic passages here, starting to think this is really a mis-labelled book of poetry, with the beginning and ending markings - titles, page breaks- cleverly removed.

This book is so dense and exquisite I'm wondering what I think I'm writing when I say I'm writing novels.

It's good I read Ulysses first. This is kind of like you took Ulysses and made it less approachable.

I thought having some dialog would break up the monologuing feel of the novel.
I was wrong.

This most recent section was essentially "Mambo Number 5" pretending to be from the point of view of one of the women, who mysteriously considers herself quite the object

Did this bastard just write a tone poem about the alphabet??