Clary > Recent Status Updates

Subtext might be dead.

We're back to the Bunny's perspective and they're fine. The satire/camp is stronk

Weird to say about this book: SUBTEXT. IS. FOR. COWARDS.

If you can get through Cupcake (Coraline) and Creepy Doll (Kyra) you get to Duchess (Elsanor) and finally *the boy* and it becomes "What if Frankenstein stayed and doted..."

Ooooooh the 2nd person is feeling a little y/n fanfic to me. The audiobook reader is... rough when it comes to Creepy Doll.

However the satire is still vibrant and biting. Borders a dangerously close to outright misogyny but also... truly familiar bitchiness

No one pitched this to me as a heist before I picked it up. That would have helped.

I've spent a lifetime reading about abused and hardened girls who have been hurt so much but it made them strong. I forgive Sanderson that, no one was asking him to break the tropes. I think this book just is getting stalled by the hype of its' recommenders rather than letting it stand on it's own so I'm trying to adjust my mindset.

Sometimes the narrator ventures from William Goldman to Douglas Adams. I like that less.

This book is exactly my shit.

Im a sucker for moments where life is celebrated in times of strife. Too bad it didn't last.

I moved onto this book so fast I didn't add it to GR first.

Peeb and how Darrow interacts with women remains... thought provoking. I am still deciding if it's the author or the character and let me be SO clear: it's not a moral statement against the author. It's just... a little extra cilantro in my burrito I can't help but notice.

I dont know how I got here either. It just keeps happening.

I hate moving this to the "DNF" because it feels like a negative. It's just a bigger book than I can manage with the time I have to read. This was required reading for an Addictions Tx class but I want more people to consider reading this. Mate is a great storyteller, he writes from a place of compassion and humility (unlike other popular narratives written by therapists.) I *will* come back to this again.

SUBTEXT. IS. FOR. COWARDS.

I had no idea what this book was going to be like. I've been informed I still have more twists to go. It's certainly baby's first class consciousness. There's an undercurrent of toxic masculinity that I'm hoping is on purpose and not unconscious.

I do *love* how into the surgery/body modification process they go. That's delightful.

Novik knows fairytales. Maybe I've been too embroiled in the romantasy mines but this is so refreshing and well done. I think I prefer my beastly husbands out-witted rather than tamed.

The amount of this book that is the couples being absolutely mortified to sleep with each other has given me culture shock.

I can't put this down, to my detriment i think. After a somewhat more bland fantasy, Novik's world is RICH with details rooted in Russian and Jewish tradition. The PoV women are wonderful and seeing each class of woman and her struggles under the expectations of her society feels so good.

Also I usually *hate* the culture mismatch between a fae and human being a plot point but its actually done so fun here.

We're gettin' real close to the end for us to be setting *these* blocks up. I don't know that i am going to be happy with this falling action. For the first time in a while I'm wishing for a SLOWER burn. I want more about the religion. I wanted more politics and court. Its fun, just surface.

The yearning and the plot are going to be a slow burn i see.

I think we're in it now. We have some stakes. We have some weirdness. I love Thadred. Wheatley is not a revalatory writer but she does focus on the places my mind would go which is both satisfying but perhaps not great writing. This dichotomy is making me insecure. I think what would save it is not including or cutting down on some stuff but then I dont get to know she thought about it too in such detail.

I keep running into the same problem with this book, and that is that I have not seen the gender politics expressed in a way that doesn't feel like the author just taking a generic fantasy patriarchy for granted. All the world building feels a little taken for granted: patriarchy, magic, the pantheon of gods. I know it's secondary to the relationship, but I need some side dishes for my steak.

I keep bumping up against this problem.In this book: they have not a tasty what the gender politics, what the norm really is in this world in a way that I have really felt. Instea.\n D, it feels a lot like\n They're taking for granted that we are going to accept that women are considered some sort of submissive second class, as is common in high fantasy Medieval based stories period

He's an advisor to the king.

He's a lawyer.

He sends pretty-sexy dresses.

He seems to know all the intrigue.

The bright flashing sign says this guy might be a villain (unless we want a fun funky fresh twist.)

Wait I was supposed to paying attention to the PLOT of the other books??? I only get this one for 7 days so I'll just have to really try to remember when I go back and catch up.

Okay. Okay. Okay. We've popped a few truths. Weirdly enough the autism kind of excuses a lot of the romance novel tropes I absolutely hate.

No one is going to address the HR violations though?

There's something to the premise that does have a glimmer of interest in that the autistic fmc makes the tropes kind of hilarious. Like, no, Edith, you're not missing social cues, *they're* being weird. And the annoying possessiveness the MMC is upset that she seems cowed by shit men but also... she won't make eye contact because of the autism, not trauma.

Unfortunately every time i consider dnf, Fenris saves it.

Literally everyone needs to come up with new wolf names. Fenrir is now the "John doe" of fantasy wolves.