Joe Kessler > Recent Status Updates

This twist is soooooooo bad

Begrudgingly interested enough to finish this, but... one way or another, the dude abandoned his wife and 1y/o daughter for 7 years, no contact at all. I really can't root for him or care that much about whatever it is he's got going on.

A seven-year time jump?? Not convinced I still care about these people so long afterwards tbh

This is growing on me, but I still think it's going to be a 3-star in the end.

"Prufrock! Such a long poem to say so very little in, but said so well."

"Hello," he said. "Welcome to my brain. Sorry the place is such a mess."

Relatable, Doctor.

She doesn't know exactly how old he is? But she knows when that article he wrote came out, and that he was 17 at the time, so......

This was maybe a poor choice of book to read while I too am waiting to hear back about a job I'm on the shortlist for.

Mostly enjoying this, but these contrived coincidences are getting to be a bit much.

Sara Kingdom / Katarina / Adric, my beloveds.

This is a trip. (And probably a bad one, though it's still too early to say for sure.)

This is going to be a two-star, isn't it

"...maybe she should go into school the next day and like that stupid music, those stupid girly clothes, just to get some friends. But always something inside her had said no.

And here was the choice again, in much more direct terms. She could suffer pain and rejection and guilt as Ace, or she could slip away into the crowd of words and become nothing, floating loved in nowhere.

Ah well, pain it was."

This new audiobook reader isn't as good as the guy who did books 1-15, and is making a lot of questionable accent / pronunciation choices. I'm trying to not hold that against the book itself.

One thing that hasn't come up yet, but I hope does, is that the happy families waiting to adopt the babies from these teen moms were often a lie. I read a nonfiction book on this subject a while back, and I remember that many of the babies were just dumped into orphanages even though they told the girls otherwise.

"Maybe being a witch means you go to hell. But I don't mind if it means I don't have to go home."

Ah, here we go.

This has been great from the start, but the supernatural / horror element has certainly taken its time to get here. It feels almost more like Stephen King than Grady Hendrix in that regard.

Necessary palate-cleanser after that last nonsense.

Might be a one-star tbh

This is a two-star, but I might as well finish it at this point.

Really? There needs to be miscommunication and secrets between these two post-apocalyptic lesbian teens who have never met each other before?

I'm calling for a moratorium on publisher blurbs comparing books to Station Eleven. That can't just be your go-to label for anything post-apocalyptic.

We're only now connecting to the actual Timewyrm arc? Lmao

"What was the reason for his machine's constant fascination for this tiny warlike planet in the back reaches of the Milky Way? If he didn't know better he would have thought that some outside power was exerting its influence over the time ship. But of course that was impossible."

Timewyrm (1991) foreshadowing Empire of Death (2024) CONFIRMED

A little on the slow / boring side, but so far this book hasn't earned its reputation of being the worst of the series for me. We'll see, I guess, but it feels like it's heading for a basic 3-star.

This is... a lot.

"Huldah looked up at the boy with the affectionate eyes and welcoming smile of the crocodile at the first sight of Captain Hook."

Your viewpoint character in this scene is an alien who wouldn't know that reference, but okay.