Dev’s Comments (group member since Sep 09, 2017)

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

ugh that cover is so good, although so was the cover for this one. i could change my mind by the time it's released but as of now i don't think i'll be reading the next one though. usually i'm pretty good at resisting pretty covers but these are just so good lol

i think amy has definitely gotten more devious in this one - especially with the serum and making it contagious so the government will have trouble controlling it and not telling bodhi because she is trying to protect him etc

@Cathy odin thinks he's boss of literally everything even when he isn't so that's why he thinks he should control everything lol. he really is just the worst.

i think i'm around chapter 13 as well because i'm at the point where they're about to set out on their expedition too. i actually slowed down with this one due to a combination of listening to another book some yesterday and watching more TV than usual lol

Day 4 - Chapters 21-26

14. More deaths! Do you have any theories on why the Fourth were killed? Why Gideon was spared? Who do you think is committing these murders?
dun dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun. totally can't answer since i finished [although i'm not 100% on all the details anyway]

15. The Third House (maybe Ianthe) seem to be lurking in the background of this book, all sneaky and suspicious. Coronabeth seems like the nicer one out of the Twins. But do you think this is the case? Do you think Coronabeth has something up her sleeves?
i don't remember which of the twins is which but one of them had a rather interesting reveal at one point, they are definitely pretty sneaky

16. Gideon had a weird encounter with the Eighth house. What did you make of the comment, 'because you grew up servant to a murderer, in a tribe of murderers. You are, more than anything, a victim of the Ninth House'. Do you think Gideon will accept their invitation?
clearly i should try to actually not listen to the whole book in one day next time, but also i don't think i could have dragged it out to 6 days. anyway (view spoiler)[think it definitely refers to when they killed all those kids in order for harrow to become a necromancer. also possibly their role as the keepers of the tomb since that falls under murder a well, but more likely the recent event option. (hide spoiler)]

17. (This is a bit of a silly question). Over the course of the book, Gideon has been getting closer to Harrow, Dulcinea and Coronabeth (although it seems she wishes she could get closer to the latter). Put yourself in Gideon's shoes. Harrow, Dulcinea and Coronabeth - Kiss, Marry, Kill.. Explain your reasoning haha!
haha i have literally no feelings for any of them. i think part of why i failed to get involved in this book - beyond the general confusion - was because i didn't buy any of gideon's 'romantic interests' although of course romance is by no means the focus of this. but i was like look if you're trying to do enemies to friends to lovers with harrow/gideon you really failed in my opinion, but others might feel differently. can *I* just kiss and marry gideon and kill everyone else? lol

@Joanne all the people who listened to the audio share one brain cell and we lost it somewhere lol

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?
i don't remember which two people died at this point but i was never really upset about any of the deaths because i never came to care about any of the characters. i think the only character i actually liked was Gideon out of the whole novel and even then i feel like a lot of her potential was wasted.

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?
again i just do not remember lol but yeah i do think the details are 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"
[vague shrugging] #sorry

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?
yeah i didn't catch it at the time but that is kind of interesting looking back

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?
i listened to the audio so i was unaware they were even there. if it doesn't signify important characters in the chapter then maybe it literally just cycles through all nine of them in order?

feel free to leave this one off if we go over our goal range



The Barrow Will Send What it May by Margaret Killjoy
Date: 10/9
Pages: 160
Sin: Lust
Criteria: cover is 83.8% Red

Rules For Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall
Date: 10/9
Pages: 416
Sin: Sloth
Criteria: Blue cover 58.1 % all together
[33.9 % Lucky Point (Blue), 15.9 %Prussian Blue (Blue), 8.3 % Fountain Blue (Blue)]

haha sometimes i'm reading a book for a challenge and i really want to DNF it halfway through but i don't bc then it wouldn't count, so if we had the option to read half a book that might actually come in handy sometimes ;)

also someone on tumblr actually drew a picture of cal as the crow for me lol. they didn't do an actual post though, just sent me a link to the image, but anyway it's over here. i like to pretend robin is off screen and that's who he's clearly yelling at lol

i don't have exciting excuses like many if you - i've just been watching more TV than usual lol - but i should be just about on track to get my 7.5 books in, although i can maybe try to find some shorter things after i finish my current books if we think that will help. i was saving all my longer books for this but i guess we might need shorter ones too ;)

haha i'm glad i wasn't the only one who was totally confused by that. i was like 'is this supposed to be some kind of weird triplet joke????' we are clearly all having an off week

haha you guys are always speculating about what is going to happen and im like UUGGHHH CAN'T TELL YOU EVEN IF YOU'RE RIGHT! so i'm just like [sits here quietly]. like before you were like 'is loki's family really dead? i don't think they're dead!' a bunch and i was like [JUMPING UP AND DOWN WITH MY MOUTH COVERED] gee i don't knoooow??? ;)

and usually when i read non fiction it's like books that have a lot of short biographies of people from history that you might not know about - women, poc, queer people etc - which are definitely interesting but probably not good for a buddy read.

i think i'm in chapter 8 or 9? not sure lol

agree that beatrice is awesome and i don't know why amy continues to be surprised when she always has multiple weapons on her lol. it's like girl your grandma is an action hero now you've just gotta get used to it ;) agree that the thing with nari is a bit weird

i went ahead and requested the thread for the last book for this coming monday and it's about twice as long as this one and there's a short novella afterward - not sure if that will be included in the audio or not - but i seem to remember it being one of those X number of years later things.

also if we decide to do white trash zombie it's got a pink cover so it works for tower teams ;) the until the end of the world book doesn't look too bad but from the summary i'm thinking it might be too much like ...mopey romance for me i guess? it's got a blue cover though so that's also good for towers!

i was so confused when they kept saying 'third twin' on the audio because i could never remember that they were from the third house lol. i thought they were jokingly referring to their cavalier as like 'the third twin' because there's the twin but then the cavalier is always with them so it's like twins but there's three of them? obviously i was making it more complicated than it needed to be lol

also this probably kind of falls apart under closer scrutiny because i don't remember what all the house's 'specialties' are but was anyone else kind of thinking of them like the nine planets in our solar system [stubbornly refuses to not call pluto a planet lol]. like the first house is 'brighter' bc it's closer to the 'sun' or whatever and ninth house is furthest away and smallest and also has more to do with death [pluto being another name for hades etc]. idk if it was intentional but just something i thought about.

also the more i think about this book and read more of the comments the more i realize that i was hoping this would kind of like a sci-fi necromancer version of nevernight and it definitely didn't end up that way [for me at least]

DQ’s Day Two: October 7, 2019 / Chapters 8-13

6. I think we all had a feeling (including Gideon) that Harrow wanted her ring - & of course, she got it. What do you think was her purpose of stealing the ring from Gideon?
i literally don't even remember about a ring so ...i guess that shows how much of this book really sunk into my head? so ...no idea.

7. Gideon has never seen modern technologies such as a sink with running water, or a toilet. She didn’t even know the difference between night & day... nor had she ever had a hot beverage before. This, in itself, tells us more about the Ninth than we knew before, but could also leave room for speculation. Would you consider this book to be speculative fiction? If so, what are some of the different things you could speculate from this or other parts of the story?
i have honestly never been clear on what 'speculative fiction' actually is? i thought it was just like sci-fi and fantasy but from your question i'm thinking maybe i was wrong about that? it seems to be set in one of those like distant future worlds where they have lost much of the technology we have today but also have things that we don't have right now that we would consider advanced though. whether it is a futuristic version of earth or another fantasy planet though i have no idea.

8. Somehow the Third twin knew Gideon was hiding in the stairwell eavesdropping, even though she couldn’t physically see her, & told her that isn’t the way to start things off. Will this encounter affect Gideon & the Twins in the future? Is it a sign of what’s to come?
[vague shrugging] sorry, this always happens, i read the whole book in basically one go and then i never remember the earlier individual scenes that people ask questions about

9. What do you think Dulcinea’s motive is when talking to Gideon? She seems to be the only one really “intrigued” by Gideon, to the point of wanting to be around her a lot. Is this just normal, friendly interest? Or is there something bigger at play here?
aaaaand totally can't answer that without spoiling the ending lol although i still don't think it was ever really explained WHY gideon is so special. i mean at the end dulcinea (view spoiler)[insinuated that she knew something of gideon's past and we learn that gideon should have been killed by that virus but i still don't think we ever really learned any concrete details, or if we did then i had tuned out by that point (hide spoiler)]

Such Wicked Intent by Kenneth Oppel

Date read: 10/8
Pages: 310
Sin: Envy
Criteria: Green cover 67.6% overall
[24.2 % Avocado (Green), 23.7 % Ottoman (Green), 13.4 % Woodland (Green), 6.3 % Panda (Green)]

@Mods can we get a thread for for 10/14?

haha yeah i wanted to read it again pretty much immediately. i think i'm gonna wait until i can get my hands on the audio

It ended up being a 3 star read for me as well and I doubt I will read the next one, disappointing since I was so excited for it but I guess that's just how it goes sometimes. I agree that the very second the narrator started reading a long list of characters at the beginning with weird names I was like 'ohhh shit' though lol. I knew I was doomed but I wanted to try it anyway.

I do think the narrator was good and I liked most of her voices, but unfortunately it just wasn't enough. I also agree that I might not have gotten though it if I was reading rather than listening. I think I would have hit a wall about halfway through where it would have just seemed like too much of a chore to move forward.

Maybe it would have been better if it was a bit more streamlined . shorter. Like I get that she HAD to have so many characters since she set up the nine house system and had to have two people from each house, but I think I would have liked it better if something big happened right at the beginning and took out maybe half of those characters in one blow since I didn't end up thinking most of them were very memorable anyway, and that way she could have just focused more on a few of them.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Date read: 10/8/19
Pages: 448
Sin: Sloth
Criteria: Dark Fantasy genre
BOM: link to my first comment

@Rebecca how did you like the monster of elendhaven? i absolutely loved it but it was sooo short lol