Alysa’s Comments (group member since Jun 27, 2015)

Alysa’s comments from the Nothing But Reading Challenges group.

Hi! FYI, I probably won’t start until Monday late-afternoon/evening. I will have more reading time then. :)

So I finished this the other night...
(view spoiler)[I liked it! It was a very sad story, and the back-and-forth 1st person POV was very effective for getting inside Maya and Lochan's heads and understanding how they got to where they ended up.
I come from the privilege of being an only child (and one who has, over the years, read quite a lot of fan fiction featuring incest) so on an abstract level the idea of consensual close-in-age sibling incest does not squick me out as much as it does a lot of other people, so I was actually kind of sorry that this book was so much less a love story and so much more a broader tale of effed-up parenting, neglect, and stress. And therefore had a kind of built-in denial of any chance at HEA. I mean, given how events transpired, with Lochan in jail, I would have personally been fine with him escaping and the couple meeting up again someday, BUT objectively that's just not what this book set out to do.
Rather, it makes you think about the question: These kids were dealt a shitty hand, and were emotionally/psychologically damaged because of it. Lochan & Maya's love would not have developed otherwise. BUT, seeing as it did... it's too late to change now... and is it really all that terrible?

The only really major problem I had with this book was actually with the extreme to which the mother's behavior was taken, i.e., she was more and more and more absent and unreachable not because of any appreciable change in her circumstances but simply because the plot required it (which then rendered her sudden and shocking reappearance, at Kit's request, quite unbelievable); and somehow there were no consequences with Protective Services. Teachers, neighbors, friends' parents, doctors... SOMEONE surely would have noticed enough to at least call in a suspicion, even if only after Lochan's death?!

Similarly, a few other characters could have been a bit more developed instead of just being trotted vaguely out when the plot demanded. Like Francie. Or Declan, whose late-stage presence was never explained at all.

Overall I think I would give this 3.5 stars rounding up to 4.
(hide spoiler)]

ETA: Also I wish the Epilogue had been more robust. Like... I want to know how other people reacted to the news of what happened? Or was the whole thing covered up hush-hush? WHAT.

How about we aim for about 6 chapters a day (42 chapters / 6 = 7 days of reading), but if we get off target a bit that's completely fine.

ETA: without accounting for front & back material in book, this would be like 60something pages a day. :)

checking in

Our BR thread for Black Sun is here :D

Hi! Can I get a BR thread for Black Sun , starting on 7 Sept?

I will go over to the BR request thread and ask them to set up a page... Then we can decide how formal/informal we would like to be (e.g., keep it loose, or specify # of chapters per day, etc.)

Kelly wrote: "@Alysa - Yes, that sounds great! I'd love to buddy read arcs. I already planned to listen to the audio at the beginning of the month (on the 4th maybe?) Would that work for you? As for Black Sun, w..."

I don't have a ton of time for audio until later in the month, alas, because of some significant schedule changes IRL, so I'm hesitant to commit to that. But how about either Black Sun or The Once and Future Witches, with any start date from this Sunday onwards :)

Funny about The Space Between Worlds. I wasn't planning on joining another GR group but I'm tempted. Do their monthly challenges usually get action during the entire month, or does it tend to be heavy towards the beginning and lonely towards the end?

@Kelly - I also have Black Sun and the audio for To Sleep in a Sea of Stars! ETA: and at least one of your Edelweiss titles.

Maybe a Buddy Read would be additional motivation.
That goes for anybody here, not just Kelly :)

I will post my NG TBR Covers now, up in #5.

Good luck!

I can be your official cheerleader/mascot. Careful when picking your team name, for I do not want to have to wear an embarrassing costume. ;D

Devann wrote: "alysa i felt basically the same way about carry on. the first part just felt really weird like a lukewarm parody but taken too seriously to me but i really loved the second half"

Glad it wasn't just me!

(edited) tl;dr: (view spoiler)[
Apparently Rainbow Rowell has said that Carry On isn't supposed to be "the book that Cath's fan fiction was about" in Fangirl, but was instead her own -- that is, Rowell's own -- book about the characters that she created... for... the fictional "book that Cath's fan fiction was about" in Fangirl. Because she just liked those characters so much and wanted to explore them more. Or something. Whatever, that doesn't ring true to me because Fangirl so obviously preceded this in conception. But this was also meant to be the FINAL book in the fictional Simon Snow series, just like the one in the other Rowell book, never mind that the way the references to events in earlier [nonexistent] books were woven in felt really inorganic to me. And plus, undermines the claim that it wasn't meant to be the fictional book-in-a-book from within Fangirl.

The whole thing is just so bizarre. And that's not even getting into my mixed feelings on Fangirl itself, as a reader who has been involved in slash fic fandom communities.

Also, "Cath" was writing slash fic about ostensibly heterosexual characters that were very obviously based on [possibly some specific fanon] Harry/Draco Harry Potter fic. So while Cath and the other fictional ficcers were queering the text, Rowell is just writing a queer text... but one which possibly only works if taken as a corrective to the original straight text that only exists in Fangirl and in Rowell's head anyway. I'm having trouble articulating this. It makes sense to me, that's what counts lol.

And that's all apart from how similar some of the magical school beats are to Harry Potter in Carry On, even if Fangirl had never existed.

BUT BUT BUT! After that first hundred pages, suddenly a switch got flipped and the book became so good! I heart Simon & Baz! And the plot even got good too, and managed to surprise me, not least because of how it used genre tropes. I was pretty impressed by how Rowell pulled everything off in the end. (hide spoiler)]

Weird.
:D

Lexi wrote: "I have 23 that need reading and 2 are embarrassingly from 2018. I'll be back to update my post."

I think I've cleared my 2018 ones, but still have a few from 2016-2017. *hides*

I AM SO IN.
I have been waiting for this post to go up. At the start of summer I felt like I was in a good place w/my NetGalleys. I had less than 30 to read. Since then I've accumulated at least a dozen more...

Beginning of Month:
46 books, including 1 currently reading but not including 2 books read but still lacking reviews (not pictured)
Feedback ratio: 91%

Read:
Plain Bad Heroines (my review)
Raybearer (my review)
Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream (my review)
Black Sun (my review)
Daddy: Stories (my review)
Fable (my review)
The Secret of White Stone Gate (my review)
The Trials of Koli (my review)

DNF:
The Zoo (my review)



End of month:
39 books -- including 1 currently reading and 1 new addition; not including 4 books read but still lacking reviews [went back and added later]
Feedback ratio: 92%

Hah! Apparently I just hit my 30 book target! Yay :)
But I haven't updated the challenge since hitting 22/30. So here are the additional old TBRs that I read:


Entertaining YA time travel, if you are really good at suspending your disbelief and don't mind when the heroine is a little bit dumb.


Meh. I understand why this was an important book in its day, but I had a lot of problems with it. I'm sure I'd have liked it more if I'd first encountered it as a kid.


I had a level of unease during the first 100 pages or so, stemming from the meta aspects. On several levels. But after that I got pretty into it!


Not sure I learned anything really new to me, but this was a good encapsulation of the subject matter and kept my attention.


Meh. This had a few things going for it, and the writing was fine. But I guess I am just sick of adolescent Alice-in-Wonderland retellings/reduxes. Also I am sick of unhealthy relationships being touted as romantic.


Guiltiest of guilty pleasures. Especially because... see above re unhealthy relationships.


I went into this for the love I bear for every other book I've read by Robin McKinley. This one is not her best -- not because of the disturbing storyline, but because it has pacing problems, and some dropped threads, and Way Too Much Anthropomorphizing of Dogs. And I like dogs! But even a so-so book by Robin McKinley is still a good book.


Hilarious and informative as usual, Mary Roach!

Last year I didn't continue updating this challenge after I hit 100% of my target, but this year I probably will just because it's fun watching the number go up. :D
However, I'm not going to raise my official goal on these older books because for months I've been severely neglecting my new NetGalleys like whoa.

Btw @Chava, I’ve not read past chapter 12, just let me know where you’re at. I will probably read a bunch over the weekend.

Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Wilder Girls comes a new twisty thriller about a girl whose past has always been a mystery—until she decides to return to her mother’s hometown . . . where history has a tendency to repeat itself.

Ever since Margot was born, it’s been just her and her mother. No answers to Margot’s questions about what came before. No history to hold on to. No relative to speak of. Just the two of them, stuck in their run-down apartment, struggling to get along.

But that’s not enough for Margot. She wants family. She wants a past. And she just found the key she needs to get it: A photograph, pointing her to a town called Phalene. Pointing her home. Only, when Margot gets there, it’s not what she bargained for.

Margot’s mother left for a reason. But was it to hide her past? Or was it to protect Margot from what’s still there?

The only thing Margot knows for sure is there’s poison in their family tree, and their roots are dug so deeply into Phalene that now that she’s there, she might never escape.

Sin Eater by Megan Campisi

For the crime of stealing bread, fourteen-year-old May receives a life sentence: she must become a Sin Eater—a shunned woman, brutally marked, whose fate is to hear the final confessions of the dying, eat ritual foods symbolizing their sins as a funeral rite, and thereby shoulder their transgressions to grant their souls access to heaven.

Orphaned and friendless, apprenticed to an older Sin Eater who cannot speak to her, May must make her way in a dangerous and cruel world she barely understands. When a deer heart appears on the coffin of a royal governess who did not confess to the dreadful sin it represents, the older Sin Eater refuses to eat it. She is taken to prison, tortured, and killed. To avenge her death, May must find out who placed the deer heart on the coffin and why.

The Sin Eater walks among us, unseen, unheard
Sins of our flesh become sins of Hers
Following Her to the grave, unseen, unheard
The Sin Eater Walks Among Us.

The Handmaid’s Tale meets Alice in Wonderland in this gripping and imaginative historical novel about a shunned orphan girl in 16th-century England who is ensnared in a deadly royal plot and must turn her subjugation into her power.

Oh, haha! I hadn’t noticed that yet!
I need to go over and make some nominations too...

No worries 🙂 I like the book but I get why others don’t.
Maybe we could BR Truly Devious sometime in the fall?

@Chava : please chime in soon if you want me to wait for you before I continue on with Forbidden. Otherwise I guess I will just resume in another day or two.

Ch. 9 & 10.
The back and forth perspectives are becoming a little more interesting. Like, not learning Maya’s actual perspective on the dancing scene until after Lochan’s already obsessed over it. I think Lochan puts Maya on a bit of a pedestal but they are both only human of course.

The scene where all 5 of the kids are at the table talking against each other (beans, homework, Kit stirring up trouble, Maya not helping...) was really well done. It was the most palpable show of family-stress yet.

So....
Should we wait for Chava to catch up? I don’t mind at all.
@Chava — hoping you are okay!