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

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

yeah i just find like ~alpha male~ behavior so annoying anyway so i usually can't do it

i have been getting better at not finishing series if i'm not that interested in them. i used to want to finish everything but now if i just keep looking at it for several months when i make my monthly tbr like 'i don't want to read that though' then i'm like hmmm maybe DON'T READ IT THEN! novel idea but apparently it took me awhile lol

done! it was definitely an interesting book and i enjoyed it but i probably would have liked the plot to be a bit more ...plotty lol. i gave it 4 stars but that's probably technically a 3.5 rounded up.

i liked all the characters and their interactions but i feel like the actual plot part of the book was literally only in 2 or 3 chapters and the rest was just like ...them wandering around space. guess the title of the book makes sense at any rate ;)

also i wish that there was more equal time spent on all the characters and that certain thing weren't kind of just brought up and then dropped. (view spoiler)[like i feel like corbin was far underrepresented compared to the rest of the crew and then after he had to form that bond thing with sissix i was hoping we would actually see them talking or addressing that but it was only briefly mentioned again once. and ohan wasn't around much either so i feel like what happened to him didn't have as much impact as maybe it should have because we had seen so little of both him and corbin before. (hide spoiler)]

overall though it was enjoyable, for me probably a lot of that had to do with the incredible narrator for the audio as i think i would have gotten bored if i was actually reading it. i think this author is really good at characterization but the plot did seem a bit like a bunch of random scenes thrown together so i would like to see something more 'coherent' in the next book.

speaking of which i'd be up for buddy reading the next one if anyone wants to, but i'd like to wait til june to start.

yeah and isn't mercy thompson the one where there are hardly any female werewolves because they ~aren't strong enough~ to withstand the shift? i mean i'm sure there are some exceptions but generally i just find myself asking why all werewolf books are Like This [TM]

ok i'm just gonna put more concrete spoilers for the cal/george under the cut to maybe help you guys decide how you feel lol. (view spoiler)[she leaves town in the next book or maybe the one after that but they never end up together and i don't think she ever actually makes an in the flesh appearance again except for shortly in another character's pov. so even if you found the whole thing really annoying - which i get because honestly i do too, i hope you'll at least try one more. (hide spoiler)]

i read the first mercy thompson book -i think lol, honestly all the shifter books just blend together for me and i don't really care for any of them - but i didn't want to continue because i hated both the guys and wasn't crazy about some of the world building aspects either. i agree that it is possible to do a love triangle without it being annoying though, it's just incredibly rare so i try to avoid it when i can. like yeah maybe this will be that 1 time in 20 where it works but i don't want to have to suffer through the other 19 lol

i'm at around 73% now, right after corbin talks to his dad :( (view spoiler)[i'll admit i wasn't really very fond of him before - although to be fair he hasn't really been around a lot for me to develop feelings either way - but i feel so bad for him now. (hide spoiler)]

also re: sissix and rosemary (view spoiler)[ADORABLE! ❤ ❤ ❤ also i love the narrator for this. she made them both sound so cute and awkward during that whole 'can we kind of date' conversation (hide spoiler)]

yeah i agree. i am not really one for romance-focused narratives in general but it's awful when it's like 'will they won't they' for several books. and oh god, i generally won't even ADD a book if i sense a love triangle in it. like seriously if i'm reading a summary and it's like 'she loves A but the new guy B is so intriguing' i'm just like NO. also if a love interest is described as some variation of like 'sexy but infuriating'. this saves me from my tbr being 3 or 4 times the size it already is though so i guess i almost can't complain about horrible romance trends in fiction ...almost ;)

@Mary i guess this is like mild spoilers for the rest of the series but (view spoiler)[the george/cal thing is most prominent in this book so if you don't like it then don't worry, you've basically gotten through the worst of it lol (hide spoiler)]

i'm nearing the halfway mark as well.

the soap thing was hilarious. and i love how they were just like 'we're making fun of humans' and then ashby [i think?] was like mmmm cool i'll just go then

i agree that the tunnel seems like a bad idea but ...i guess it seems like a bad idea to us obviously but with them the place basically HAS to be connected in order to function as a part of the society so leaving it unconnected isn't really an option. i mean they can't viably trade with the place if it takes everyone a year to get there because i'm sure these people are in even more of an 'instant' society than we are.

i am still enjoying the book although i feel like not much has really happened yet. i don't necessarily mind because i think that the author is very good at writing little character interactions, but it is maybe making me start to listen slower because i don't have a sense of urgency at this point

i just looked it up and apparently it's published by a simon & shuster imprint soooo ...yeah there is no excuse for that lol. also i mean the cover for the first one is not amazing by any means but it's not godawful either. then the second one is just awful and the third one is like ...still bad but anything looks good after that second one lol

i would say that depends on what you're hoping to get out of it lol. i mean it's not reinventing the wheel and the big 'twist' reveal at the end i thought was pretty obvious, but i like books with brotherly angst and i like sarcastic assholes with questionable grips on morality so i can overlook some other things like just how completely and utterly mid/late 2000s YA it is. you could always give it a try and stop if you don't think you'll like it. it's on archive.org if it's not at your library.

i find it weirdly intriguing but also like i'm reading the second one right now and it has to have one of the worst covers i've ever seen lol

have any of you read The Demon's Lexicon? i'm finally reading the sequel and the series is at least 50% YA nonsense but nick reminds me a lot of cal both in looks and attitude and he's got an older brother he is on the run with etc.

ok i listened to about a third of it so far today, up through the end of the port coriol chapter. i am liking it overall, although i honestly can't keep half the characters straight at this point but that is generally a problem for me when a large cast is introduced very quickly at the beginning. like obviously i know who rosemary is because she's the odd woman out, but the rest of them are pretty fuzzy still.

i also wonder what rosemary's real identity is / who her family are. my first guess would be someone high up in martian politics, although i guess the more high profile her family is the more likely it would be for her to be recognized / for them to be looking for her so not sure. i guess on the other hand it would be embarrassing that she ran away so maybe they literally aren't looking for her at all right now.

i haven't read anything by this author before but the characters and her general writing style remind me a lot of Seanan McGuire, especially with all the thought she has obviously put into these different species of aliens and their cultures and prejudices and stuff.

i admit the scientific specifics of tunneling went right over my head as well but i'm good with just thinking of it as wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff ;) lol

i mean don't get me wrong there are some guys who can rock a goatee, but i just never pictured niko as one of them. also he's like ALWAYS wearing a trenchcoat so there's just this super tall dude with a goatee and a little half ponytail and a trenchcoat stalking around new york lol but yeah i agree that i miss his long hair. i always bookmark how long cal says it is at the beginning of each book because my horny brain is just like ~long hair boy pretty~

hahaha #oops

i also never really remember it because it's only ever mentioned as like 'niko had to get someone to cover his classes' and i'm always like how do you even stay in school you are constantly moving from one world ending emergency to another lol. i also always forget that he has a fucking goatee at this point and i'm just like NIKO NO. although the 'zen hair ratio' comment always makes me laugh.

i think i'm gonna start this tomorrow, i am just not feeling motivated today lol

i also didn't really like castle in the air as much as howl's moving castle. i still plan on reading the last one to finish up the series though.

also cathy feel free to still comment on the thread for the first book if you want. i love this series so i love talking about it lol

i'll request it for the 20th to try to give people time to catch up. i don't think i would be done listening to long way to a small angry planet by the 15th anyway and i like the audio for these.