Mike > Recent Status Updates

This is kind of terrible. The writing is mediocre, and there are too many cliches to count.

I'm struggling to see what binds this all together. Maybe it's just too early in the book, but it feels like Ness is introducing a ton of characters just for the sake of writing something ambitious. Ditto with the vague weirdness of the town.

The cliches! Where will they end!?

Cassius is quite convincing. I kinda hate Julius Caesar now, too.

I don't want to get excited too quickly and jump to false conclusions. But this is really, really good so far. Excellent worldbuilding, without infodumps.

Lots and lots of characters. That's... I won't say it's a bad sign, but it makes me nervous.

This is the first of Patrick Ness's adult books I've read. After having said that he's probably the best YA writer out there, he'd better not let me down with this.

My friends think it's irrational that I get so excited over reading Shakespeare. But I've wanted to read this for a while. It's a little rushed so far, but not bad - Shakespeare is good at exposition.

I'm not sure what the central story is supposed to be, but this is still pretty interesting. I like Joe as a character.

Not a totally unpredictable ending, but still rather well-executed. The pacing was smooth, and Nathan's development was pretty natural.

This font makes threes look exactly live fives. It's frustrating.

(Clearly, I'm an insightful reviewer with a lot to say on books.)

I guess I'm just not the right audience for this. A DC fan would have a lot of fun, revisiting all these characters. But if you're not familiar with the DC universe, it's just pointless.

I must say, I'm much more interested in Swift than The Escapist. The latter seems kind of forced, but I would totally read the former.

I'm not sure if that was really interesting, or just pointlessly trippy.

This seems to be coming together rather nicely. This is one of the better contemporary plots I've seen.

Liz's relationship with Nathan is so freaking heavy. They never talk about anything normal or nice - it's always about how much Nathan's life sucks. It's a little off-putting - Nathan's basically confessing his life story to a random stranger (while simultaneously acting very closed-off and secretive).

Magic shows are surprisingly interesting. I'm really enjoying the descriptions of them.

This is pretty melodramatic. Has Wittlinger always been like this?

Is Applegrant intentionally using the Remnants deciding whether or not to go to battle as political commentary, or am I reading too much into it? It's interesting, either way.

Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire by Neil Gaiman: 3/5 Not much to it, but it's Gaiman, so the prose was fantastic.
The Dead and the Moonstruck by Caitlin R. Kiernan: 4/5 Excellent worldbuilding. It probably would've been a five, if it had a proper climax.

Now that the story is starting, this is pretty interesting. I really like Joe.

Watch and Wake by M.T. Anderson: 3/5 This story would've been really good, if not for the fact that it's terribly written. Apparently, Anderson was imitating the style of some older novel or short story, and maybe I would've liked the writing better if I got the reference. But the way it was, it just felt choppy and repetitive, like a fifth grader was writing it.

This would be really interesting, if not for the infodumps. As it stands, it's certainly not bad, but I don't anticipate falling in love with it.

I only wish Eugenides had more time to flesh out this part of the story. He spent so much time on Cal's family history that there's no time for the interesting parts.

I'm a little bored. The writing is really good - Chabon certainly knows what he's doing. I'm just not sure how much the story interests me.

And suddenly, this is fantastic. I knew the guy who wrote The Virgin Suicides was in there somewhere.

Have I mentioned how much I hate when books open with lengthy flashbacks detailing the protagonist's backstory? It might've come up once or twice. This is a fair bit more interesting than most, since the flashbacks are fairly detailed and not too info-dumpy, but I still find myself wishing it would past.

FINALLY THIS IS GETTING INTERESTING. Jesus Christ, it's more than halfway through, and finally, I feel like I'm getting into it.

So Middlesex is the name of a street. Interesting to know.

Chabon sure can write a sentence. This is pretty good.