Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion
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The Warded Man
*Current Buddy Reads*
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The Warded Man (The Demon Cycle #1)[August 6, 2025]
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Beena wrote: "Sorry guys, I will get round to this soon, I've had some life things going on."Heey take your time, there is no hurry!
Nothing bad about recommending a version! Or on declining a recommendation. It's always nice to hear what works for different folks and why. I really enjoyed the Graphic Audio too when I tried it. Except for the sex scenes. Those are rather gross on GA.
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Sarah wrote: "Diana Stormblessed wrote: "Sarah wrote: "I highly recommend listening to the graphic audio (if you can), it is of high quality when it comes to listening to audio (it a movie in your mind). Don't h..."Wasn’t at all saying that there’s something wrong with listening to the graphic audio version! I know lots of people that love it. I just personally can’t. I blamed my adhd but I guess, like everything else, there’s a spectrum of adhd and each person is different lol
Timelord Iain wrote: "I hate Graphics Audio... but then, I speed up my books, and Graphics Audio is kinda designed for slower listening, otherwise the sound effects turn into Benny Hill shenanigans..."I kind of like the sped up Benny Hill sound effects in GA 😂 At least they’re entertaining
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This is a Beena BR. It is at her whim. I don't think she's made it here yet.
Diana Stormblessed wrote: "Sarah wrote: "Diana Stormblessed wrote: "Sarah wrote: "I highly recommend listening to the graphic audio (if you can), it is of high quality when it comes to listening to audio (it a movie in your ..."I understand I don't like the Stormlight Archive graphic audio, i mean, granted I only listened to the sample, but it just felt wrong compared to the masterpiece audiobook that is the beast of a book read, lol
Timelord Iain wrote: "Are we scheduling Desert Spear for September 6th or not?... that's only a week away now, basically..."That is good, I need to dust off Desert Spear anyway, so it sounds good for me, lol
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I was fine going at Beena's pace on the otherwise dead Books of Babel BR, but would prefer going monthly on something like this, as long as there's others that fee the same...
I can put in requests, just need to decide if we want to run monthly through the holidays as well or pause/slow down...
I'll go with whatever y'all decide, but I'd definitely like to hear Beena weigh in before we make a decision, if possible... maybe she'll have a suggestion people are willing to work with...
I’d like to continue and prefer not to wait till January.
I’d like to continue one per month.
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I'll only schedule #2 for now...
I checked Beena's recent comments, and now know what's going on / why she's AWOL, but that just makes me think she's even less likely to read for awhile or check in maybe...
I'm sure there'll be more people ready to continue the series when she's ready, or just schedule a new date for book 1 and start over...
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Yeah... I have some requests I need to make today... and I haven't updated my tracker in weeks...
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it's a slippery slope... I fell behind one summer... don't do it... as a fellow Mega-Reader... catching up piles up fast... I try to maintain the spreadsheet/tracker, minimum... I can fall behind on Goodreads reviews all I want, as long as I have a record on the spreadsheet... once you fall behind on THAT, good luck creating accurate records... i fell 6 months behind on that one year, and had a hell of time filling it in... and still occasionally find books I never recorded... they just slip through the cracks, especially standalones...
I can't fall behind--I need it to know what I'm reading. So definitely taking care of that today... or I won't know what I'm reading on Monday!
Eurgh, what is this?!I'm a couple of chapters in and struggling with having to grit my teeth through all the sexist shit.
What century is this man from?! Or he's taking his cue from the setting? Either way, I don't think there's any excuse.
It's annoying cos the storytelling is sound, albeit without a massive amount of depth, but I can see the way it's going and want to see how Arlen develops.
Just read chapter 2 (view spoiler)
Not sure I can deal with this, if bile in the back of my throat is going to be a constant thing.
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The reason the intense misogyny in the world doesn't bother me is because it's set up as as serious problem in the world. The MCs are pretty much constantly fighting against it and the horrible horrible sexism is one of the main antagonists in the story. But because of the intense and dark grrr it makes the bright points shine more.I would say give it until Leesha meets Bruna, but you know your own tastes best.
Nirkatze wrote: "The reason the intense misogyny in the world doesn't bother me is because it's set up as as serious problem in the world. The MCs are pretty much constantly fighting against it and the horrible hor..."30% into the re-read and I feel the same. The world is just horrible that way. People being locked inside whole night leaves room for all kind of depravities flowering... Then there is the whole "we need women to pop babies to survive as a race"... Arlen was being forced (view spoiler)
I've managed to read a bit further (actually as far as you suggested Nirkatze, which is about 100 pages) and this is most definitely a big fat NOPE for me.Interesting to hear your guys point of view of how you've managed to get on with the story.
It may have been Brett's intention that this be a problem the characters have to fight against, but the fact is, I'm not enjoying it at all. I read for pleasure, not to feel antagonised.
Well, looks like not being able to read the novel on time for my own BR turned out not to be too much of miss for me! More than happy for you guys to go your own way with it. I'm out.
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Haven't read the comments yet, but I'm at chapter 4. Although I've read the book years ago, I don't remember much of it...I'm reading the Dutch translation, so sorry if I get the names of some characters wrong.(view spoiler)
Beena wrote: "I've managed to read a bit further (actually as far as you suggested Nirkatze, which is about 100 pages) and this is most definitely a big fat NOPE for me.Interesting to hear your guys point of v..."
I have a lot of respect for your ability to weigh and toss books when you know they aren't for you! I will rage-read a series just to check it off my life list...
Saar The Book owl wrote: "Haven't read the comments yet, but I'm at chapter 4. Although I've read the book years ago, I don't remember much of it...I'm reading the Dutch translation, so sorry if I get the names of some char..."Names good so far! (view spoiler)
Nirkatze wrote: "Beena wrote: "I've managed to read a bit further (actually as far as you suggested Nirkatze, which is about 100 pages) and this is most definitely a big fat NOPE for me.Interesting to hear your g..."
Right? I rarely DNF anything but I do put a lot of stuff to on-hold shelf and know that some books/series are probably destined to stay there forever lol. At least I am trying to be more fine with DNFing series. Especially if they are really long. Mostly end up finishing meh series if they are really popular or if they supposedly improve a lot later...
Lol, it's partly that I'm a slow reader (one of the slowest in the Team Reading competition), so on the odd occasion that I do force myself through something that I'm not feeling, it takes me absolutely forever (probs like 3 or 4 times longer) to get through. The other part to it, is when I do do that, I really strongly feel like I've just wasted that time/part of my life away on something that wasn't worth it- this comes even more into play when I'm busy with work, personal life, or just the daily routine taking forever, which means I have less time to read.
That's also to do with the way I choose to read, which is by eye (as Nirkatze says), in my downtime. I've realised that I'm actually just not interested in audio; I was set on trying it out for a beloved re-read and as it came to it, I realised that I wanted to physically read, because that's part of the enjoyment for me. I also love my music too much.
On average, I get through about 10 books a year; it was a little more when it was Covid and I did the reading challenge for a few years, but I've stopped it now cos it became more like pressure.
Right. It makes sense to be more strict with what you choose to read if you have more limited amount you get through every year. I am more strict with what I put my eye reading time into because I read quite slow but don't care as much about audio that I do sped up to around 2x. Sometimes if series I started eye reading is kinda meh I just switch to audio to finish. Tbh I wish I could feel more ok DNFing but part of me is always like what if it's better later and also finishing books partially means they don't get added into my reading stats... Guess I am a bit of a point chaser but I don't think it's hurting my reading experience that much. Compared to the the satisfying feeling I get everytime I mark another book as read. I did reduce my reading challenge a lot this year and might even more because I just don't read as much and that's ok. I am also running at 500 pages per book average this year so there is that... I think I am more happy about that average and overall amount of pages read compared to amount of books read. Also happier about finally reading the more hyped stuff and finding new 5 stars.
Exactly! The more amount of time that I spend on books that don't serve me, is time taken away from potential books that I'll love.There are loads of upsides to Goodreads, but one of the downsides is that it does stoke a massive fear of missing out, particularly when a book/series is loved by many.
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In alot of the club-like threads I'm in around here, bigger readers like me are the canary in a coal mine reading extra stuff and whose opinion affects what people with less reading time choose to invest their time/money in...
@Marie: the competition has rules for counting DNF reads... count the pages you read, or do percent math turning minutes listened into pages read of the top 5 edition you were using for page count... same way there are special rules for counting the page count in the edition you own of foreign language editions when they're longer translations than the English edition... on Goodreads, I guess it's about whether you want to count or not... you can make an exclusive shelf on the tier of read/want to read called DNF, and count the books there without ratings or 1 star ratings... I have a shelf like that... you make shelves exclusive from the edit shelf screen...
Beena wrote: "Exactly! The more amount of time that I spend on books that don't serve me, is time taken away from potential books that I'll love.There are loads of upsides to Goodreads, but one of the downside..."
Yeah, I definitely have the FOMO bug. But even before I started audiobooking, I was devouring an average of 100 books a year by eye, so I don't have the constraints of really needing to pick my stories. I have this driving need to read everything* ... probably the only thing I've stopped at is Warhammer 40k and I might still come back to it one day...
*as long as it has dragons or spaceships in it.
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Timelord Iain wrote: "Exactly exactly... the first asterisk I include in any of my reading discussions about DNFs/etc, is the fact that I read 2+ books per day, generally... 10+ books a week vs month/year makes a big di..."I know about the competition allowing DNF tracking and yeah I have a DNF shelf in Goodreads. But the stats I am talking are my Excel sheets lol. I also have some stats where I am more concerned with pages read and not books finished but my mine one was built around Goodreads book count. I just don't like unfinished books. That's why I force finish them or pretend I will finish them later lol. Like my on-hold shelf is pretty big (145 books) so technically I am DNFing but just hesitant to mark permanent DNFs (9 books).
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On goodreads, you can see some of those stats, too:
Yours: https://www.goodreads.com/review/stat...
Mine: https://www.goodreads.com/review/stat...
That's a button on your profile near shelves, and on the shelves page as well, near the Year in Books button...
The graphs aren't very useful, to me, because I read so many books per month that the popups flicker because they're too long to fit on screen...
I know of those stats. Your publication year one looks really cool with the stairs on top lol. And your stats fit on the screen for me, don't see any flickering.Btw am I the only one to hate the new Goodreads challenge format? Like why the long list...
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I think I tried to read up to page 100, but I've stopped and DNF'ed. The first read was okay, but now, I don't know...I think it's just the vibe of the story: the negativeness, the people that are stuck in a situation they can change, but don't, the way men think about the women...
The treatment of women is truly horrible, especially by the Krasians... But it makes what pushback there is so much sweeter... I especially like (view spoiler)
Fantasy Buddy Reads
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Oh, I am sorry, for me, the graphic audio is easier since it is easier for me to draw myself into the story better, because sometimes, some audiobooks, my ADHD doesn't like it for whatever reason, lol. But I totally understand, I was trying to help since some people were having trouble with the regular Audiobook, my bad.