Dani ❤️ Perspective of a Writer > Recent Status Updates

I really love her first battle where her training goes out the window and she flounders. I think we’ve all experienced moments like this in life where we disappointed ourselves and felt oh so vulnerable. As a girl in a man’s domain Milan feels this keenly. But she’s calmed down and found her center. She’ll do better next time.

The Pork Pie Gang is pretty funny but with an ominous agenda! Use their terrible music to cause time to freeze like with the Mad Hatter! There is a cute cockroach band that has a couple cute songs they play around town. Bernard escapes with his friend Ivy, a lizard.

Bernard’s wishes had come true. He had made new friends; he had lived a whole day, hour by hour—from morning to sunset. He had eaten more than toast and tea, watched tap dancers, ridden a train underground, escaped from gangsters, and walked through a city, without falling asleep once. But now he was very tired—and worried about Ivy, who stood frozen like a statue.

“Maybe never,” Mittens said. “Why do I gotta keep telling everybody I’m a pescatarian? Lissen, you want to eat mice, be my guest, but—”

Finally the plot starts! This is wayyyyyyyyy too late to get started in such a short book.

Problem is there is an excruciating amount of description... and we frankly don’t need this much. In fact as I read my mind can’t hold on to it because it’s so generic 🙈 just your typical description, very detailed to the point nothing stands out or is stated in an unusual way (that you can remember!)

Perfect for Alice in Wonderland lovers! The dormouse escapes through a teapot to New York City.

It’s better to feel than not to feel, he told himself.

The other consistent thing sprinkled throughout are mentions of different training of her father’s or skills she has. I love this! It fits where it’s mentioned but it’s nice to get a real sense of what she can do. They aren’t headed for safety at all but the border to scout for the army. Now they could come upon bandits!

I liked that he shared what he had learned with her right away! It is a little like a Romeo and Juliet retelling too. (Except without the deaths at the end?!) I also really love the moments of culture that are mentioned really well in the narrative! They’ve been consistent but very natural too. I also really love Mulan’s thought process! Very natural too.

Captain Helou, Kedan, Bai, and I will head out in the morning. Master Yu will accompany us.” Plus a Tuxi they meet with outside the gates!

Finding out what happened between the two families is tough. His dead mother wanted the man who dishonored her sister dead... not just crippled. And he saved his own life by beating her to it.

Oooh this is good! I like her! Challenging for a place at the princeling’s side and being shot at with 3 arrows at once and dodging them! Love it. Her brother was cute! And her father a magnificent if boy obsessed example and teacher.

Hmmm I like the Director. And what a neat library! Demon books! A lot of telling and not much showing.

I’m so happy Vi remained true to Burleigh and didn’t betray it. That was my worst fear! I do find the king terribly contrived as he just withdraws a content loser... not something he seemed to me from his ridiculous demands at the beginning of the book. I do love Effie and what a wonderful friend and princess she was. I’m sad that they left but I guess Burleigh doesn’t need a caretaker now.

Wow... well that explains about her dad. Boy is he selfish! To do that to Wyn. I suspected but didn’t get it exactly. I’m glad there are proper reasons for everything. (Though for the king it’s just that he’s evil!) I do wish though that we’d been shown things in the proper order so I didn’t feel such angst. It is a bit instalove as we didn’t see them together much.

So we just got from 2 different sources the same info on how Vi can save the house without the deed. Of course it means a massive sacrifice but it’s possible. ... her father was frantic to save the house... AND Vi! ...so why didn’t HE do it? Why did he choose to die locked in the house for 7 years? It doesn’t make sense. His motivation doesn’t add up...!

I’m happy to report that I’m enjoying this a lot more than I was in the beginning. At least the middle isn’t plagued by boring middleness!

Oh here’s the king’s motivation! Well sort of. If it’s already rotten so why not make it worse? No big deal right? I still don’t really buy it but I’ll go with it. I do really like this turn with the princess and Alfred. Plus the letter! And Wyn came back. He’s perhaps my favorite part of the book. I like that he’s secretive and angry at Burleigh.

Wyn is really bitter. He won’t say why he stayed with her father. And he doesn’t want to stay now. The house shows Vi an old memory of when her father talked to an old friend about the deeds. He’d found all but Burleigh House. He wouldn’t move without it. Then she remembers the vacation that caused her mother to leave. The only time she held the key.

I love that everything wasn’t settled but that he was working on being better. Reapplied for vet school and made a nursery for the baby (which turned out to be his!)

Really an excellent Ok! Maybe my top read of the year!!

But my favorite part of the book wasn’t the road trip... it was their time back home where Ben makes Tang a major part of his life! He learns Amy is with another super successful guy. And .... she’s pregnant!! It turns out to be his... love how his story showed her and his family how changed he is. Then he goes out and buys a new car (so Tang can fit!) and makes up a room for Tang!

Uh wow! Tang getting heat stroke was the worst! I worried like he was my child. I LOVED the glass bottom boat and how Tang ran up and lay on his belly. Finding Bollinger was neat (the boat capt) and he’s crazier than a loon. I loved how their time there showed how smart and wise Tang is. He saved them both again!

Final - I’m not sure if he fell or jumped and landed on his feet. But he certainly grew and eventually forgot Arrieta and TBR paintings.

This was very Japanese, adult and sweet in an edgy and dreamy sort of way. I’m glad I read it!

17 - Snowbebe decides to go home. He wants Arrieta to go with him but she won’t she loves it there and will be happy forever. However she wants him to take back the watch to her brother. To tell him she’s happy there. He won’t forget her, she wanted to dance with him forever.

16 - Since Snowbebe came Arrieta’s watch has suddenly started ticking ... and she can remember before she came into the painting. Her friends, a boy and her brother. Suddenly an eye opens in the painting’s sky and starts crying!

15 - Arrieta takes Snowbebe on a tour of the painting. We learn they’ve been calling out to each other. She asks if he likes this dream and he says yes! It’s a culmination chapter... this is what a Snowbebe has been pining for!

14 - he opens the vault and Snowbebe is left with the painting. Cecile peaks and watches a hole open in the painting which he enters. We see it takes him some traveling through the dark to find the girl. Cecile and the restorer talk. We learn his history and that he thought she was a promising restorer student who left her studies.

13 - Cecile sees the restorer and he actually lets her in. When Snowbebe gets enraged and runs around his workshop he doesn’t get mad but sends his assistants away for the day. He asks her the cats age and concludes that he too can enter paintings! Hahaha love this!

12 - Snowbebe won’t eat and it’s winter. He learns that Sawtooth would get under the covers with Papa non. That Papa non figures he died happy saving Snowbebe. The humans notice and Cecile and Patrick decide to take him to the vet Twiggy went to (lived with Patrick). Marcel believes they must get him to Arietta that Snowbebe is like her near the end.

11 - awwwwww the dog from the year before escape ps the leash again. Snowbebe is on a bench and the dog sees he can get him. Sawtooth also sees he can get the dog to he attacks. Eventually Bluebeard also comes and drives off the dog but it’s too late. Sawtooth’s guts are exposed. He dies with poor Snowbebe at his side.

10 - Cecile figured out which pairing it is randomly on the bus! Turns out it’s being restored which will take years. Marcel thanks her. The girl misses Snowbebe not realizing he can’t visit because the painting was taken away.

I liked how the seasons passed and how at the end of part 1 Bluebeard insists Snowbebe come outside with them.

9 - Twiggy is captured. I love how Snowbebe couldn’t understand when Cecile tree to explain what happened to Twiggy... but one of the other cats with glasses could. Sawtooth thinks cats are taken and burned. The other cats are rather callous about it. Snowbebe is so sad. Spider dies. And so he tells Sawtooth to end him he won’t fight anymore. Sawtooth walks away...