Emma > Recent Status Updates

Adding Caleb’s pov was a good choice. This is a stronger book than divergent.

Tris

I’ve been really curious about this once since hearing Roth talk a bit about why she wanted to revisit Divergent. And I have to say the directions she’s taking keep surprising me.

Getting the same narrator as they had for divergent is such a flex

The magical world building felt organic but also deeply convoluted. The dig at Harry Potter (we’d send you to a castle) was funny and this is joining the fine list of more inclusive alternatives to that series now. But tonally very different much more meditative even in the thick of the most intense moments of the final act.

Could not tell you the time period to save my life. I guess 1920s because the mention of speakeasies?

Lyrical prose and conversational narrator. But also kind of purple prose with very (very!) extended metaphors and drawn out descriptions. I feel like this falls into the “if everyone just talked to each other once we’d solve a lot plot problems before they became problems” but in a way that felt plausible and not contrived.

Grade 6 and up. Curious if it’s cataloged as J or YA. Can’t believe the slow pacing and wonder if that was true for book 1. This felt very much like a duology close but I guess there could always be room for more?

I feel like the ending with Obie was both subversive and anticlimactic?

People get to be special to more than one person

Lots of introspection. Lots of breaking the fourth wall in the way or oral tradition storytelling. Not a lot of action.

Back to foxfire. Crazy pacing

Very slow pacing. Definitely to a purpose but very slow.

Liked this much more than hooky. I hope it doesn’t have the colored speech bubbles like hooky did. Still slightly weird in a way I’m chalking up to the author being from Spain/translation but mostly worked. I’m curious what happens next!

Kalgratt

Kalgratti law to get married at 23

Kamille

The Anthonn Gremminger Traveling Troupe

Kalgratti citizens

Honestly do feel for Julia with the circus hate. They’re creepy!

Signs that go unseen don’t tend to do much good.

Super fun and fast read. Is an entire friend group going to Japan together far fetched? Probably. But Misako makes it work. The series is definitely connected but this can be read pretty easily on its own or out of order.

I think I hated this. Or I really appreciate the literary devices? I can’t tell but it definitely didn’t make me happy.

I think Lockhart accomplished everything she wanted to accomplish with this book and it is an ambitious bit of fabulism or speculative lit fic. But some parts were so unbearably sad I couldn’t breathe and that isn’t actually what I wanted from a so-called love story.

I … don’t think I liked this. Not a surprise since I also didn’t like Exit, West which she cites as inspiration.

I’m not okay, yet.
But I’m a little better than I was two weeks ago.

Good but maybe not my favorite writing style? Or maybe the wrong time and format choices. I lost interest along the way and wound up speeding up the audio a lot but still very useful.

Binary thinking washes out all the details …