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

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

@Everybody currently reading Gideon the Ninth:
Do you think you will
A) finish the book during Week 1?
B) finish answering at least 3 sets of DQs during Week 1?

It’s okay if you don’t! I’m just trying to get a better idea of where people are at vis-a-vis the main Vs BOM tab info in our spreadsheets.

Also, @Frankie, you got us 40 points for writing DQs but if you answer at least two more sets (which can include your own questions, lol), you get 20 more, for a total of 60. 🙂

M wrote: "Somewhat of a bonus to being home sick. I can read as much as I want to. Book #2 finished and added to sheet"

Aw, sorry you are under the weather, but yay for reading!
That happened to me a few weeks ago during Lava challenge, but I didn’t end up reading much extra because I was passed out on the sofa. 😴

Jessi wrote: "Wrath Tower - Obvs we want to build it lol but this would be a case of 'I would rather the couple extra points if we can get them'... So for instance if it has a yellow cover but it made you feel wrathful about something we will use it for the cover color.

For now, I agree! It would be a lot harder for us to get “most sin align” compared to the other teams unless we do the “enraging” thing for like every book. Which would mean fewer general points anyway.
For Allison’s Bleak House, whether we do 600+ pages or enraging, it’s the same # of points.
But for my The House, we get a tiny bit more by using Top Shelf :)

I will be offline for a while now. Good evening everyone!

Similarly
@Jessi, if you want to change my book The House to the Wrath sin specification, that's absolutely fine. Maybe we can take a wait-and-see approach to some of those switches until toward the end of Week 1 though and see what Team Ira wantsta do. :)

Great, thanks! If Jessi wants us to grow the Wrath Tower it'd be great if there's also something enraging in there, but don't sweat it if there isn't.

So... about that...
The Mods have just decided, after much abuse of the "what color is this?" voting system in Caps Group, that we're not allowed to bring Color Cover questions to the whole Caps Group anymore as of the end of Week 1.

If we can't come to an easy consensus within our own teams (or possibly making a deal with like one other team), we can't use a book for color cover.

I don't know if Jessi agrees with me, but I'm on record with the opinion that Allison's book is a prime example of exactly the sort of "in-between" aqua/cyan/teal/turquoise color that nobody should be using for color cover criteria. Not even Wikipedia defines this shade as specifically blue or green, and neither should we. Causes too many arguments.

Therefore, @Allison: Can you come up with some sin specification ideas instead? Anything enrage you, for example? ;D

@Suzanne, another question:
Ah, when did you actually start reading ?
On your shelf it has a start date of 3 Oct, which means we cannot use it. Challenge started on 7 Oct AEST.
:/

ETA: Can you check dates on your other book too? You don't have a start date except for in 2016.

Haha, it has to be YOU who is enraged by something in the book.
Anything work?

Also a question: do you have the correct editions shelved? If you did audio, for example, you are supposed to shelve the audio.
(Then we just put the page count of the "default" edition in the spreadsheet)

The Evanovich is most definitely blue, like a nice sky blue.
The other one... not sure it's enough pink. We can use it for Contemporary instead. Or.. maybe something in it made Suzanne wrathful/enraged? ;)

I just finished my short book too. About to go shelve it.

I'm nearly done with a short book that I originally thought I could squeeze in for Lava but my Interlibrary Loan quite didn't arrive in time.


Anyone else ever heard of this series? It's pretty great if you like Southern Gothic.

Also went ahead and started Spirit Bound, green cover. I should have a lot of reading time tonight to read a bunch more of it.

I won't be online all that much between this afternoon and Sunday night. Family road trip!

These covers are LOVE.

Re stasis pod escape... that is a good theory. I've finished the book so I know stuff. But I had also been thinking from the very beginning that in a world that has reanimated corpses and such, would there be any rule that says Reanimated people cannot procreate?

ETA: Ah, point stands, but I realize it doesn't wholly address the point YOU were making. Which was that "current" Gideon would have to have been conceived like 10k years ago. Which... maybe if someone was pregnant when they died, and then got reanimated and carried baby for 10k years?
*shudders to think*
and also
*book has no internal logic*

Judith wrote: "I'm wondering if Gideon is actually her father's name and the congrats is on the birth of his child? "

After other revelations, I also wonder if it could be something like this. There's some stuff that has bothered me a lot, but that I suspect will be resolved in the next book(s).

Cat wrote: "@Joanne, q12: her mother's last words were to shout (anguished, possibly??) Gideon! Gideon! Gideon!; which the people in the Ninth decided was a cue to call the child Gideon.

So it might've been ..."


Yes, this. I didn't think she was naming the baby, but that's just how the people of the Ninth decided to interpret her shouts.

Day 3 - Chapter 14- 20

10. Thoughts on the deaths, did you care to lose these two or are you just waiting for the body count to increase?

That was Magnus and Abigail, right? I liked them; they seemed the most normal (relatively) and genuine, so their deaths were sad. I admit it WAS just about time for a real body count though.

11. I like the electric toothbrush detail. What do you think of the room they found? Are there any details from the room that you think are going to be important later?

I like the toothbrush thing too. It clinched, for me, the idea that this book takes place in a sort of far distant future, where the technology (or possibly grasp and use of magic instead of tech) has far surpassed our own. That room was interesting in its stasis. The letter fragment should be important later.

12. The letter clearly has Gideon’s name in it (see below) but we get no comment from Gideon as the narrator on her reaction to this. What do you think of this as an author’s choice and what do you think the letter means?
" ut we all know the sad + trying realit
is that this will remain incomplete t
the last. He can’t fix my deficiencies her
ease give Gideon my congratulations, howev"

That letter exactly! I don't recall Gideon not having any reaction at all, just a pretty close-to-the-vest one. She seemed disturbed, but not ready to think about it right away -- because of, and not in spite of, being disturbed. I liked this choice.
I think Gideon was named after an earlier Gideon. And the "current" Gideon's mother knew something about all this.

13. This quote feel like somewhat heavy handed foreshadowing , though I may be wrong.
“You’re all right. Gideon, Gideon … you’re so young. Don’t give yourself away. Do you know, it’s not worth it … none of this is worth it, at all. It’s cruel. It’s so cruel. You are so young—and vital—and alive. Gideon, you’re all right … remember this, and don’t let anyone do it to you ever again. I’m sorry. We take so much. I’m so sorry.”
She would remember each word later, loud and clear. It seems to imply this is Dulcinea’s voice and does this impact your opinion of her?

I didn't find it too heavy-handed, or out of keeping with Dulcinea and Gideon's interactions thusfar. Was there actually question that this was Dulcinea speaking? It seemed clear to me.

Bonus Question: The skulls on top of the chapters belong to each house but I have been unable to find any pattern or meaning to their order. Anyone think there is a purpose or pattern? Did I miss something obvious?

Cat said something in an earlier post about the skull/house for each chapter telling something about which house Gideon would have the most interactions with in that chapter. I didn't test it (and my loan was yoinked this afternoon *sniff*) but it seems like a good theory!

(@ Jessi, LOL to your GIF ;D)

Apparently there's only a different paperback at the public library, and its checked out until the end of the month. And also might not be brown.
So Green it shall be! At least it's A color cover and not just ...

WAIT A SEC, it is a SIN BINGO! Green, YA, read by Cecily from Team Invidia in 2019!
SCORE!

I need everybody's opinion:

I was planning to read the following book this week, for Envy (top shelf: young adult):


but I am considering reading this one instead:


For the latter, it would also be for Envy (top shelf: young adult), unless everybody thinks it's green enough to use for Color Cover?

(Grrr, if I could track down a copy of the HC version at the library, it is like so , which would be a Wrath Brown Cover instead, but A) I don't know if I can get it in time, and B) based on the other editions with that cover image, it might actually not be that brown, but more pink.

Should I risk looking for the HC version?
Is the green one green enough for Color Cover?

*head hurts*

Yay!!!
So funny, I just mentioned The Addams Family in the BOM discussion, and then you finding that GIF.
LOVE.

I feel like we're behind in our minimum reading, but I ALWAYS get like that on Wednesdays during team challenges, and then everybody else proves I'm just paranoid, by having big reading binges on Saturdays, lol.

Cat wrote: "I keep going back to the epigraph rhyme, to give me a steer on the Houses & where their characters might be coming from"

Wow, that's a really good idea. The rhyme is so cryptic, a lot of it only makes sense AFTER you have gotten to know the characters.

Finished Gideon after midnight so I’ll put 9 Oct as the read date :)
Not giving it a star rating yet, as I need to think about it some more. 🧐

Minx wrote: "Also, if they don’t have many humans left then where is the human fat coming from?? Seems like other houses have non-human fat soap so it can’t be an import. Weird."

So I recently rewatched the early '90s movie of The Addams Family with my daughter, who is almost 9 and has a tendency to be literal (like me, heh). Many of the morbid jokes are confusing to her, but if I try to explain them, they fall apart completely. It was like "They keep talking about the Bermuda Triangle [or other random supernatural-ish thing]. What is that?" After explanation: "But if people disappear there forever, how did Uncle Fester get out?" Or, like, "How come so and so doesn't die when you kill them? Are these characters already dead? Why do they care when the bad guy tries to hurt them if they can't be hurt or if they like being hurt?" Me: has no idea, but likes movie anyway.

That's kinda the feeling I get from details like the human fat soap thing in this book. Adds to the overall theme, tone, morbid humor and therefore is cool -- but falls apart if you try to examine it any more closely.