Jen > Recent Status Updates

Honestly don't think I can finish this; it's absolute dreck.

This is basically "Dithering: A Novel."

This book is not very good.

I feel like I've been trying to read this book for months, and it never gets better any time I pick it up. Everything is so forced. There's no chemistry between characters—we're just TOLD that there should be.

I still can't remember what happened in the first book, and this one is a total slog.

I want to like this, but so far it's "what if Six of Crows but with characters no one cares about."

This book is phenomenally bad.

I'm going to finish this because I got it as an audiobook, but so far it's clumsy and one dimensional.

So far, reading this is like chewing glass.

This book has big "what if we took a cool idea and then absolutely ruined it with mind-numbing exposition" vibes. Couldn't finish listening to it.

Probably won't be finishing this one. It's an embarrassing, half-cooked attempt to tackle tough subjects with characters I still can't bring myself to give a shit about under the scaffolding of a monster hunt. This has big first draft, first novel energy, and it could have used some significant time with a developmental editor.

Every time I sit down to read this book, it puts me to sleep in 15 minutes.

I'm reading this for a book club at work, and everyone has been gushing about it, but it's an incredibly wooden narrative. The characters feel like little boring summaries.

This is such a fucking uninteresting slog so far.

Newson takes what could be a compelling narrative and absolutely wrings the life out of it. My Government Means to Kill Me reads more like a wooden memoir than a piece of fiction, and the footnotes are disruptive and extraneous. I do not need an explanation of who Prince is or what "Uncle Tom" means.

This book is not great.

This book has big first-draft energy.

Wondering when this book gets scary...or even remotely interesting.

I love the idea being explored, but it's an absolute bore. I'm crawling through this narrative desperate for something to happen. Anything. A character could get a milkshake instead of pizza and I'd be excited at this juncture.

I'm so perplexed; I'm a huge fan of Charlie Jane's other work, but so far, this book is completely devoid of any meaningful character building. It's like a group of uninteresting characters with zero chemistry got dropped into a play they didn't know the lines for.

Characters are flat and many of the narrative choices strain credulity.

no

This is an incredible snooze.

Uh, this book rules.

So far, about 20% of what I've read has been unnecessary and uninteresting exposition.

David Chang is honestly pretty insufferable.

I cannot begin to express how tedious and annoying the narrator is.

I want to love this book, but it's been an incredible slog so far; some of the character stories grip me and I'm pulled along until it's time to move on to someone else I'm not as interested in following. The semi-historical, often fantastical backdrop of colonial Zambia is really what sets this work apart. The rest can largely be summed up by, "Jeez, cis dudes sure do ruin a lot of women's hopes and dreams!"

I'm about halfway through, and I can tell it's going to be a chore to finish. The beats that feel like they should be funny read as tired complaints.

This was so bad that I stopped within the first 15 pages.