Gord’s Comments (group member since Apr 06, 2017)

Gord’s comments from the Vampires, Weres and Fae! group.

That's my plan, keep an eye on it, keep tracking it like I have been. I've got a vacation coming up here in a week and I'm making plans to get back into walking. I have been trying a bit in the last month but work has been making it hard.

I have fixed my sleep schedule and I've been keeping that even on weekends. I go to bed by 10-10:30 and wake up about 3-4 in the morning.

I'm trying to not make a big deal out of a single reading but my brain is churning a mile a minute now. Normally my evening readings are high 120's, low 130's over 70 something. This evening I got 141 over 69. The really weird thing is that my bottom number has never been an issue this entire time.

I know it's only one reading but for whatever reason my BP has really spiked this evening. It's only reading that is elevated so I am going to monitor it but it's both concerning and disappointing. For the last month my readings have been pretty normal. Hell, this morning my BP was dang good and then suddenly this.

Huh, I figured with the time and set up we would see him again. A shoehorned in love triangle, the former lover looking for his lost love, something like that.

Kurt, at least I hope that is his name, is the bar guy love interest at the very start of the first book.

Cee wrote: "Reading Update!
I made some good progress in some series annnnd also read a ton of manga because my concentration is shot during the summer.
[bookcover:The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enem..."

My Love Story! Probably one of my favorite romance manga ever

Time for that weekly wrap up and again, not a lot to report on this week.

City of the Lost ⭐⭐⭐⭐
This was a buddy read for me and one I'm rather glad I picked up. While it had its flaws it was pretty interesting and did a great job setting up the location and future story lines to pursue. This is all set up in a small town deep in the Yukon wilderness that is set up as a refuge for those that are escaping something. Domestic abuse, scandal, etc. Our MC and her "friend" (nope, not touching this one) are in a situation and they have to escape. Our MC, Casey, is a detective and it just so happens that this town is in need of a detective because shenanigans are afoot. That's how they get into the town and the start of this story. Honestly, my biggest grumble with this one is a lot of the setup that happens. I know why it needs to happen, I appreciate that it's there, but it really feels like the mystery gets put on the back burner at times. The greatest example of this is the opening of the book itself. It takes a while to even get into the town and to the mystery itself. I get why it's there, I get what it's doing, but man does it go on for a while. There were other moments like that in the story as well. Where it felt like the story was hitting story beats more to establish things in the world or for characters then anything else. That aside, there is some really interesting stuff here. The town is interesting and ripe with story possibilities, there are some really interesting characters (looking at you Dalton), and I'm really curious to see where this is going to go next. I'm hoping that the second book will get to the mystery a lot sooner now that a lot of the ground work is set up already. I have a feeling that I'll be reading on with this series after our buddy read is done with the first three books.

Raven of the Inner Palace (Light Novel) Vol. 3 ⭐⭐⭐
I got around to the next book in this series and I am struggling a bit with this series. I picked this up because of the comparisons to The Apothecary Diaries and initially I was getting that vibe. It had this supernatural mystery vibe to it that I really appreciated. As the series has gone along that has started to slide to the side lines more and more and is being replaced with political intrigue and maneuvering. For instance, there was a section in this book where a character had a ghost had clutching at his sleeve. In record time the back story was revealed, the Raven Consort sees it, acknowledges that she can fix it, but if the character wants the spirit to move on to paradise they have to resolve it themselves. The rest of this section was just political intrigue and kingdom stuff. It's not that I hate political intrigue in my stories but I like it more as a side flavoring then as the main dish. When the main dish is basically "I knew that you knew that I knew that you knew my spy was working for your cousins brothers mother-in-law and I was deliberately feeding them false information so I could implicate your cat as being the evil mastermind trying to overthrow the kingdom" I just get bored. I'm really, really worried that the rest of this series is just going to slide into more and more of this kind of stuff and I just don't know if I want to read more of that. On the other side of things, there are only four more books in this series and a small part of me is curious where this will end up.

Now for the comics

Muted, Vol. 1 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Another Webtoon comic but not one that is published by Webtoon. I've been on a roll with these Webtoon comic books this year. Some of them I have read before, some are new to me and this is one of the new to me comics. It has witches, Louisiana, family drama, demons, and of course magic. I have some pretty early, and I think obvious, predictions about where things are heading but I'm going to read on to see what is going to happen.

As for what is next

Deliverance My current audiobook
The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook I'm back to DCC and I am stoked!!!

After that I have some manga I also need to get through as well.

Random question and please, no spoilers about details. This is just a yes or no kind of thing. Does Kurt ever come back into the story or was he just there for the opening bit?

Today is definitely one of those days where I want some comfort food and by comfort food I mean pure junk food. A giant bag of chips, some pop, some ice cream, stuff like that. Not because of cravings or anything, I just want something feel good.

What I have though is a tub of cucumbers I am munching on. They're good, no complaints, but...

Oh I make a dent but it sure doesn't feel like it. What really isn't helping my mood is that the project I am working on currently is for a customer that just naturally has a lot of extra steps to get it done. For this particular projects there are even more little steps on top of all the usual little steps. It just makes every assembly feel tedious and requires extra time to complete.

They actually cancelled my appointment and the side effects tapered off again. So I'm just maintaining course for now.

Man I am tired. Not a "I was awake all night" kind of tired either. Work is just stupid busy right now. Hell, it has been busy for months now really. A little over a week until my vacation and I have a mountain of things to get done before I leave and I will have a mountain of work waiting for me when I get back.

Great.... on one hand at least we are getting answers (I hope), on the other hand we are going to have to wait for a while to get them

Sorry, one more thought for the ending.

(view spoiler)[
What about the damn cannibals? Are you seriously going to leave me hanging like that? Yes, I was intrigued by the idea of cannibals our in the woods. (hide spoiler)]

Alright, done the book and it was pretty good. There was definitely some faults here and there but a good solid 4 star read in my opinion.

Spoilers for the end (view spoiler)[
I kind of have some mixed feelings about the whole Dianne thing. In some ways I can definitely see the justice in what happened but as a reader I kind of dread it as well. I was stoked that she was going to be gone and I wouldn't have to deal with her shit in future books. This ending means that she will be in future books and will either by murdered later or get a redemption arc which I am not really interested in. I just kind of want her gone.

As for the murders themselves, it was an interesting ending. I was really strongly starting to suspect that there was different cases on the go. I just wasn't seeing a connection between Mick and the other deaths so the ending works well. I was honestly starting to suspect that there was some sort of drug lab out in the forest somewhere and they had been testing new product on the "locals" hence why Jacob was all fucked up. I was also wrong about that one as well. (hide spoiler)]

I'm sitting here with 30 minutes of audio left and I'm still trying to piece together the mystery. I have a theory that I am working on but I don't trust any of my theories at all. Normally at this point in the book I'm pretty confident in the killer and I'm just waiting for the big reveal.

They are in a tiny little community in the middle of no where with nothing to do. I'm really not surprised by the sex or the drinking

I've got an hour left and I'll be finishing this up this morning. I've already requested the second book.

Slight update after some more listening. Spoilers ahead for theory crafting

(view spoiler)[
Dalton is clearly a red herring and I bit frustrated that the book went there. Granted this is partially from greater meta knowledge, the fact that there is more books in this series and a spin of series, but he just doesn't fit for me. Are there secrets in town? Yes. Does Dalton have his own secrets? No doubt, but this just doesn't track at all. I get that Casey has to investigate all leads but this is getting into that meandering side of things.

Also, Valerie, horrible what happened to her obviously but I despise her. I don't know a lot about her character but that whole section really made me despise her. (hide spoiler)]

61% of the way through the book, yes, I'm still chugging my way through it.

Dalton, yup, I like this guy and can relate to him a lot.

Dianne, minor side character but I really don't like her but I think she is deliberately written as such. That's a weird caveat I know but there is a massive difference between not liking a character that is written to be likable and one not liking a character that is deliberately written to not be liked.

Overall, I'm enjoying this one. I want to wait until the end to see how it all comes together before criticizing things but I'm going to say it anyways. This book really does feel like it meanders a lot. I'm not sure if it's intentional or not and I know a lot of this is character/world building but it does feel like it a meanders. It's Stephen King levels of getting lost in this story or anything but it still happens.

Also, the whole set in Canada thing is... different, not something I'm used to. Still feels weird when the book visits my province and starts talking about places I know.