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The end of part two said goodbye to a character that most readers were probably fed up with. The living embodiment of “men ain’t shit.” And yet it was still sad, because it reminds you of how life can become a slippery slope of bad decisions. But ultimately, those decisions were made and responsibility had to be taken for them. Part three has flown by. The one-eyed, one-horned bull is wild.

Well that was shocking. I can’t remember the last time a book made me audibly gasp. I read the “Was that his name?” sentence and I couldn’t believe what was happening on the page. McMurtry got me with that page.

This girl is literally taking out bandits with rocks. I love her. She's like the gollum of their journey, acting as a guide and following them through the wilderness. More of her please.

I like the introduction of Rosco who is trying to chase down July Johnson who is trying to chase down Jake Spoon. And no one is around to chase Elmira, so yay, she’s free! So far Jake Spoon is the least likable character for how he treats Lorena. So far on the cattle drive, one man died and one man left.

Feels like I’ve just finished one long epilogue. 200 pages in and the journey north finally begins. The Hat Creek company got lucky with their raid on Pedro Flores. I doubt they’ll be as lucky corralling a large herd of cattle up to Montana. Sadly the preface by the author already revealed one major death, but I’m sure there will be several other characters who don’t make it too.

“As was his custom, Augustus drank a fair amount of whiskey as he sat and watched the sun ease out of the day. If he wasn’t tilting the rope-bottomed chair, he was tilting the jug.” p. 16.
McMurtry’s writing feels so old-timey southern that I swear I can hear the accent in the back of my mind when reading. I still can’t get over the fact that male anatomy is referred to as carrot, radish, or pizzle.

Paige walking in on her dad watching ScionEye news is like me visiting my dad when he’s watching Fox News, like what kind of hateful stuff is on right now 🙃
So far the different types of clairvoyance and names of the Rephaim are hard to keep straight but the explanations at the back of the book are helpful.

I waited 200 pages to get to the part about uterine fibroids (what I wanted to know most about). And the part on fibroids delivered!! Resisting the urge to skip forward felt like reading a YA fantasy plot haha.

I waited 200 pages to get to the part about uterine fibroids (what I wanted to know most about). And the part on fibroids delivered!! Resisting the urge to skip forward felt like reading a YA fantasy plot haha.

I do not know enough about my body, but I figured the uterus is a good place to start!

Got to the gothic romance part. What is called love in one century, may be called limerence in the next, but is a powerful feeling nonetheless.

At first, I thought Immalee was like Emma Stone’s character in the movie Poor Things. Now I think she’s more like the unicorn in The Last Unicorn, pure nature, corrupted by becoming human.

Man, those were some evil monks. And they just kept getting worse. It feels like the author was having a crises of the soul. There were sections of the book that opened up thoughts I didn’t realize I had and I’ve spent a long time trying to unpack my own trauma from organized religion.

If this ever gets a Netflix adaption, I want the trailer to use a slowed down remix of Sam Smith’s “Unholy.”

I seem to prefer old gothic to modern gothic. It’s like older gothic tales know how to have fun with the outlandish situations.
The housekeeper is fumbling trying to explain what happened with the candlesticks after the master of the house died. Melmoth asks how she got ready if the candle holders were unavailable at the moment. She replied that she just stuck a candle in a potato. Gotta love potato humor.

These guys have no idea how vigilant this mom is. She just swooped into McDonalds, nabbed this guy’s key while he was ordering and left it on the table, made a copy of the key at a nearby store, then came back to McDonald’s, handed the manager the key saying someone must have dropped it, and the guy gets his key back without knowing it was copied.

Honami went through infertility treatments and surgery to give birth to her child. If pregnancy is in the hands of god, then the newborn child is in the hands of the mother. Using that logic, Honami reaches a level of paranoia that’s on the verge of hysteria.

This book reminds me of Minato Kanae’s novel Confessions so far. If something happens to this woman’s child, all hell is going to break loose.

So excited to finally read this book! It was recommended by a friend who reads novels in Japanese too. First chapter introduces Honami, a woman who would do anything to protect her “miracle” child. There’s a bizarre murder that happens in a neighborhood nearby with a young child victim. Seeing this on the news really shakes up Honami. We’ll see where it goes from here…

I honestly have no idea where this story is going. I have a feeling that it won’t be revealed what happened to Hanawa Reiko.

More racing through the plains on horses please

It’s kind of entertaining to see these men in their 30s squabbling like children. The racism and anti-semitism did not age well though. This book has taught me that women can also refer to themselves as “chaps,” who knew?

The dialogue between Sparrowhawk and Arren in Chapter 8 just blew me away. I've never seen the concept of light/dark; death/life explained in such accessible terms that feels very close to truth. I teared up I was so moved.

Keeping the balance between light and dark is touched upon in such an accessible way for young people in this book. So many wonderful quotes! How does one walk through the darkness to the farthest shore?

Back on Roke in the magic school where this all started. Only a few chapters in and I’ve been referencing the map constantly. There’s so much in this world!

It’s so easy to fly through this book! Going at the speed of astrophage

I feel like I’m back in my intro to physics labs where we did basic experiments using pasco velocity experiments and infrared lasers to turn into equations and find missing variables. It’s fun that the protagonist is a science teacher

It’s so nice to return to the magic of this world! The first entry into the undertombes is so well done that you feel what it’s like to be a child again: a mix of fear of the unknown but the strongest desire to immerse oneself in it.

Whew, this is a tough one to get through. Very academic.

There’s a lot of moving pieces here, some more interesting than others. Politics sections with incompetent government workers are in the right place thematically, but hard to read through.

Alright. It’s spring. It’s time to finish this book that’s taken almost a whole year to read. I find it ironic that this last customer’s letter request is to formally cut all ties with a friend(絶縁状), basically like me with this book. 10 pages a day so I can be finished in 8 days.