colleen the convivial curmudgeon > Recent Status Updates

"Her mom said all the right things ("We're very proud of you"), but even when she was very little she had the sense that with every book she read, she was somehow distancing herself from her mom."

Holy crap, shit just got real!

I found this book because I recently read 'Mechanique' from the same author, and really liked it. This one is written in a similar style, but doesn't have quite the same magic - probably 'cause it's a bit more of a straightforward story. I am still enjoying it well enough, though.

"Violence is never the answer, until it's the only answer... If I could save the world with words, I would. I'd lay down my gun and I'd talk until my bones turned to dust. But words are for reasonable people. And too often, the people I meet are far from reasonable."

"He ignores the voice in his head telling him this is a bad idea. Of course it's a bad idea. He doesn't need a little voice to tell him that."

"Do you know how many muscles it takes to frown, as opposed to the muscles it takes to smile? I don't. I doubt anyone does. What constitutes a smile anyway? Is it just the movement of the mouth, or are the eyes involved? And to what extent is each muscle utilised? The old homily about how frowning uses more muscles than smiling is entirely redundant unless, of course, you're talking about the underlying message..."

Because we absolutely, positively must have a love triangle... and our heroine must have an easily turned head and no wits whatsoever...

I'm not sure what I think of this book, overall, but the random French is a bit distracting/annoying.

I mean, it's a (pseudo) historical fiction set in France. We take it as a given that, though it's written in English, they are speaking French. So to have random phrases not translated is weird.

Also, nothing aside form this really "feels" French...

"All her life Ying had assumed Elena was naturally cruel. She wondered now if cruelty just crept up on you when the world was crashing down and there was nothing else to do but fight."

"A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?"
~ Albert Einstein

"I was no closer to understanding anything about what Boss had done. You can never know someone else's reasons. You barely know your own."

Second part of the story (second book) was much better. Glad I stuck with it. 3.5

End of Part 1 (first book): 2 stars. Maybe... very slight maybe... 2.5 stars, 'cause it did pick up at the end.

But Mel is thick and annoying, and spends most of the book being rescued and taken care of by others after landing herself in more trouble.

So we're sort of dumped into the story pre-war-breakout, and we're given lots of names and places and little info dumps, then war breaks out and I'm meant to care about these people?

It's finally starting to pick up after a slow start and a so-so protagonist. Unfortunately I saw a spoiler in a review, so I know some of what's coming.

Starting to get pretty good - but it annoys me how lazy most of the monks seem, getting William, Peter and Shadlock to do most of the menial labor.

Reading this book is like watching a train wreck. It's disturbing, yet oddly compelling. You don't really want to be part of it but, since you're there, you can't look away...

I think I'm gonna bail. Or at least pause for awhile...

Woohoo - I'm finally past the halfway mark, and my reward is yet more dysfunctional and disturbing sex scenes!

I really don't like the heavy foreshadowing style used. I'm not even sure it's really foreshadowing. It just drops future details into the present telling - things like how someone who is currently single will be a divorcee with a child... so it's like you already know how things will end before they begin. What's the point?

I have a prediction about Anette and Jacob.

Started this last night. Not far in, but I'm totally squicked. Hoping it gets less disturbing.

So far I can't help but feel that this is not Nix at his best, which is sad considering how long this book has been in the making...

Aww, poor $!@%. (We really need spoiler tags in statuses.)

Pretty much on par with the other books in the series. Looking forward to the big finale.

I just realized that all of the shelf changes I've been making have been going through my feed. Ever so sorry... I've turned off the setting until I'm done my "new year shelf shuffle"!

Also - I find myself really wishing goodreads had spoiler options in the status updates, 'cause I want to rant real hard about how stupid some of these people are...

There is a light at the end of my tunnel. (i.e. I'll hopefully finish this tonight.)

This ending which people keep going on about better be freaking worth it!

I wrote a review and went to post it and got one of those infamous "unexpected error" messages and lost everything I wrote.

Goodreads, I want to love you... but you make it so hard sometimes...

The beginning was interesting, and I'm finding Melanie's self discovery and questions interesting... but, otherwise, I'm kind of bored and hoping it picks up the pace soon.