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

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

I made it though Ch 12!

So we've got a lot of interesting politicking going on in Tova! Clearly some people want Naranpa to just go away and cede power, which is total BS.

We also get some subtle hints as to what will happen when Serapio arrives, just in time for the eclipse. I don't buy for one second that that the Carrion Crow matron died peacefully in her bed. My guess is that she was murdered after all, by some cultist who knows that Serapio is coming.

Serapio himself seems... oddly nice? Like, he's a nice person, but bound for fate that involves him being bad? I am also wondering if there will be some sort of romance, or at least a sexual relationship, between Serapio and Xiala (who is apparently bi, and not gay as first assumed). I'm not sure how I will feel about it if there is.

One of my daughter's longstanding private family nicknames is -- no joke -- Chub-Chub. (Don't ask.)
So, thanks for that, you gang of miscreants! I can ask her to dress as a hobbit and be your mascot, but I don't think she'll go for it.
XD

Yeah the xe/xir thing is a little distracting. Maybe it's just that somehow the letter X is distracting.
I wish Roanhorse had gone with ze/hir, or --better yet -- just used "they" all the time.

Okay, onward to chapters 6-12... tonight!

Wrote my first NG review for this month:

I LOVED THIS BOOK SO VERY MUCH!!!


my review

Eldarwen wrote: "it's no loss not reading Beautiful Creatures as it wasn't all that great, and for Charlie St. Cloud, just watch the movie ;-)"

OMG, for a minute there my brain legit got this confused with Heavenly Creatures and was like... WHAT? :D

I’ve read the first 5 chapters. I like it so far!

Xiala reminds me of many other book characters, which makes her seem a bit unoriginal, but I like her nonetheless. She’s also brought the only comic relief so far, as the rest seems pretty grim.
The opening chapter, with the... sewing... EEK, that was graphic!

I don’t really know enough about Pre-Columbian culture or mythology to be able to speak to how the author is using it, but I am very intrigued so far by the world building, especially the class distinctions and the fantastical elements.

I am already 1 chapter behind my original proposal, sorry! I suspect we got a couple of longer than average chapters at the beginning though, to set some need-to-know information.

Back in January I deleted something like 350 books that had been on my TBR from 2013-2014. It was very cleansing.
I could probably delete a bunch more from subsequent years but just haven’t spent the time going through more yet. I will eventually! But having a giant TBR is also useful for helping to plan for reading challenges too. Spell-outs, color covers and such :)

What Kelly said.

We are trying to conquer our NetGalley TBRs 😁

Courtney wrote: "A little late, but I'm here! "

I am probably going to read Shielded this month too! Might end up being in Oct, but... it’s partly the intention that counts, right? 😂

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