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

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

i always thought this was YA. i might join in depending on what else i've got going on. i read it when it first came out but that was quite awhile ago.

i'll wait til the end of the day to what other people say, but we can always put off starting once the thread it up anyway

so who is wanting to read the next book and when do you want to start? we were thinking of doing one every two weeks but i know some of you were a bit behind w/ this one so idk if you would want to start on the 15th still [or if the mods would get the thread up by then lol]

ah, i've never heard of those, i'll have to look it up. although i assume they probably don't have the gating abilities her auphe have as well as some of the other stuff.

and only the narrator for book 1 pronounces it that way and i haaate it lol. the narrator for the rest of them [they changed after book 1] pronounces it like off-fey which i definitely prefer.

Completed another Sequence so I'm gonna start over again!

Start: May 7, 2019
Level: Sequence (51 + books)

01 American Gods, Volume 2: My Ainsel by Neil Gaiman
02 Moonshine [Cal Leandros Book 2] by Rob Thurman
03 Red Glove [Curse Workers Book 2] by Holly Black
04 Rick and Morty Presents, Vol. 1 [Series Spin-Off] by Magdalene Visaggio
05 The Cassandra Complex [Place in Time Book 3] by Wendy Nikel
06 Aru Shah and the Song of Death [Pandava Quartet Book 2] by Roshani Chokshi
07 Lady Mechanika, Vol. 5: La Belle Dame Sans Merci by M. M. Chen
08 Shadows of the Capital [Orphan Fleet Book 4] by Brendan Detzner
09 Black Heart [Curse Workers Book 3] by Holly Black
10 The Retrieval of Janice Westhouse [Place in Time Short Story] by Wendy Nikel
11 Princeless, Vol. 6: Make Yourself Part 2 by Jeremy Whitley
12 The Demon's Covenant [Demon's Lexicon Book 2] by Sarah Rees Brennan
13 Rick and Morty vs. Dungeons & Dragons [Spinoff] by Patrick Rothfuss
14 Finale [Caraval Book 3] by Stephanie Garber
15 Princeless Volume 7: Find Yourself by Jeremy Whitley
15 Curse of the Gargoyles [Gargoyle Guardian Chronicles Book 2] by Rebecca Chastain
16 Watson and Holmes: Volume 2 by Brandon Easton
17 Madhouse [Cal Leandros Book 3] by Rob Thurman
18 The Demon's Surrender [Demon's Lexicon Book 3] by Sarah Rees Brennan
19 Demon Cursed [Dark Fae Decree Book 2] by Ilana Waters
20 Grave Dance [Alex Craft Book 2] by Kalayna Price
21 Cautionary Fables and Fairy-tales [Vol 1]* by Kel McDonald
22 The Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire, Part One by Michael Dante DiMartino
23 Soul Music [Discworld Book 16] by Terry Pratchett
24 Secret of the Gargoyles [Gargoyle Guardian Chronicles Book 3] by Rebecca Chastain
25 Cautionary Fables and Fairy Tales: Africa Edition [Book 2] by Kel McDonald
26 Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes [PJO Spin-off] by Rick Riordan
27 House of Many Ways [Howl's Moving Castle Book 3] by Diana Wynne Jones
28 A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
29 Not Your Backup [Sidekick Squad Book 3] by C.B. Lee
30 Deathwish [Cal Leandros Book 4] by Rob Thurman
31 Record of a Spaceborn Few [Wayfarers Book 3] by Becky Chambers
32 The Tea Dragon Festival [Book 2] by Katie O'Neill
33 Man-Eaters, Vol. 2 by Chelsea Cain
34 Roadkill [Cal Leandros Book 5] by Rob Thurman
35 No Tomorrow [Killing Eve Book 2] by Luke Jennings
36 Hogfather [Death Book 4] by Terry Pratchett
37 Blackout [Cal Leandros Book 6] by Rob Thurman
38 Athena's Daughters, vol. 2: Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy by Maggie Allen
39 The Lavender Menace: Tales of Queer Villainy! by Tom Cardamone
40 Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Adventures, Volume 3 by James Goss
41 Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray
42 Heart of Stone [Alice Worth Book 4] by Lisa Edmonds
43 Princeless Volume 8: Princesses by Jeremy Whitley
44 Doubletake [Cal Leandros Book 7] by Rob Thurman
45 Ishtar's Legacy [Wild Women Book 3] by Rachel Pudelek
46 Dark Harvest Magic [Ella Grey Book 2] by Jayne Faith
47 Slashback [Cal Leandros Book 8] by Rob Thurman
48 The Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited! [TAZ Vol 2] by Clint McElroy
49 The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur by Stant Litore
50 Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Adventures, Volume 1 by Matt Fitton *
51 Downfall by Rob Thurman

* I had previously read volume 3

yeah i like that as well, most of the creatures seem more 'realistic' than they do in a lot of other series and i think she adds her own creative spin to a lot of the creatures - like with the werewolves being the supernatural mafia and the vampires basically just having a complicated case of iron deficiency - and then auphe are basically like a wholly new creature that she just made up.

haha i know! i mean obviously a lot of his feelings of self-hatred come from how abusive his mother was so it makes sense, but i'm always like ok so what if you're a 'monster'? be a monster! mess shit up! go all out! but of course cal would rather be emo all the time. oh well, we love him anyway ;)

@Claudia i love cal's auphe powers so much so whenever he either has repressed using them or is like ~oh i mustn't they're bad for me~ i'm like come on! live a little! i would seriously be using them constantly for like the stupidest things lol

and you're right that cal is in no way 'ready' for a relationship right now and like i said i don't even really like him with george but also it's like he's had such a horrible time maybe he could have ONE nice thing every now and again

i don't remember exactly how old i was when i first read harry potter. i would say probably 11 or 12 because i'm pretty sure the 4th one was out but also that the 5th one hadn't been published yet. i wanted to read them earlier but my mom thought voldemort would be ~too scary for me~ which i still find ridiculous, but with how my mom was i'm just glad she wasn't one of those people who thought it was devil worship lol

@Claudia it's more like it's the Kin wolves that are bad which makes sense bc they are basically the mafia, although most of the wolves in the city are in the Kin so yeah it does feel that way I guess. But Rafferty and Catcher are wolves and they're okay so it's not literally all of them lol

@Susanne don't feel bad, i would definitely say these books aren't for everyone and they're kind of like my trashy guilty pleasure / secret favorite series even though i know i have technically read a lot of stuff that is 'better' lol. but yeah i know what you mean about being lost with some books in audio version. i actually really like the audio of this series but it might have thrown you off.

haha i think claudia just started moonshine two days ago so you aren't that behind on that one

haha yeah i think you've got maybe 3 more chapters of him being undercover then it moves onto a new problem. dun dun dun duuuuuun

yeah and i feel like middle grade and young adult were not as much of a thing when i was a kid. i mean there were a lot of things that i would say were good for kids under ten but then you got to a more advanced reading level and often you would pretty much have to read adult books because there wasn't a lot else on the market

so i finished this earlier today. i'm always torn between 4 and 5 stars on this one [and the first book as well]. last time i read them i changed it from 5 to 4 on the first book and from 4 to 5 on the second. this time i changed the first book back to 5 and am considering changing this one back to 4. GIVE US HALF STARS, GOODREADS! lol

anyway i do really like all the stuff with the kin and him going undercover and then later (view spoiler)[having to go barter with the rom for the other crown and also hob! he's awful but i love him as a villain. and cal's gating powers and him going off the deep end at the end. (hide spoiler)] all of that is SUCH GOOD SHIT. and the brotherly angst is once again off the charts.

buuuut the cal/george thing i just really do not like. and this time i actually noticed in chapter 15 [i think] where cal says (view spoiler)[that 'it took a vampire to make niko human. who is going to make me human' and i'm like ok look i know your life has SUCKED and everyone is judging you based on a 'father' you never even knew and are definitely nothing like at all, but also you gotta make your own damn self human?? like it's not anyone else's job??? and the comment in regards to promise/niko was more in a joking way and i actually really like their relationship, but with cal it is obviously more like 'someone come fix me' and i'm like mmm ... (hide spoiler)]

also @Claudia, did you read all the october daye books when we did the BRs for those? this one is reminding me a bit of an artificial night w/ the plot structure bc someone mentioned that that book had like 3 climaxes where they kept having to fight a new person or do a new thing or whatever and i noticed that this time around with this book as well. i still like it but i thought it was interesting.

@Alyssa i've got the first tales of terror book on my tbr. i probably read more middle grade stuff now than when i actually was middle grade lol.

13 years old: reading the silmarillion.
29 years old: reading tons of middle grade stuff.

i find that i just want something light and fun sometimes and middle grade usually does that

yeah it got compared to supernatural a lot back in the day. well i say 'a lot' but it always had a fairly small following, but i think most of us found the books through the supernatural fandom sooo lol

@Claudia haha yeah i never saw IT as a child so maybe that's why i never got the fear of clowns? but also like ...normal clowns do NOT look like IT so i feel like even now they're always a very separate thing to me. like yes you can MAKE clowns look 'scary' to me but that's IF you give them pointy teeth or make them dirty or whatever, but not like normal clowns you would see irl at a birthday party or circus or something. but it is a very common fear so [shrugs]

re: the Cal/George thing, i do agree he places her on a pedestal and that's really never a good thing. also yeah his shit is NOWHERE NEAR together and it wouldn't be fair to her to have to like 'fix' him or whatever, although she seems smart enough to know that even if she does like him. but yeah her just showing up like 'mmm i've decided we're on a date' is pretty funny, and of course niko goes along to annoy cal lol

i'm gonna try to get through a few more chapters today as well

i really loved the child thief but yeah if you've been trying to read it for two years then maybe it's not for you lol

i have it down to where i will read a book for 10 minutes [maybe 15 if i'm really unsure] and then have to decide if i am going to read the whole thing or just toss it. i used to not be able to DNF anything at all because if i let myself get too far into it then i just HAVE to know what happened so i had to set a very low threshold for deciding. i find that with about 90% of books you can pretty much tell what you are going to rate them within the first few chapters though so it generally works well for me.

i read chapters 8 - 11 today so just over halfway done.

i love how many quality cal and promise interactions are in this book. the scene in the diner is adorable and i like seeing them bond. also just the whole cal 'how do flirt???' plotline because #same lol

also i always forget how the ninth circle bar is described in this book [with all the plants and birds everywhere] because it becomes a regular location for the series but there is never any more mention of either and i always get the feeling after this that she went 'okay no that's dumb' and just made it have a regular bar interior so when it's like 'i walked in and there were tons of trees and birds' i'm always like do what now??

i also don't add all the books in a series, just the next one that i will be reading. this is 'good' because it keeps my tbr down but also it means that many things that take up one spot on my tbr actually represent like 10 books so it's like 'ok my tbr is 500 books i can read that in one year' but oh wait no i can't because everything is a ridiculously long series now! i've been getting better at not continuing series if i'm not that interested in them though. i hate leaving things unfinished but sometimes you just have to.