Jane

Rating Description:

1.0 - DNF/Despise

1.5 - Almost DNFed and wish I had

2.0 - Almost DNFed but had redeeming qualities/just boring

2.5 - Alright with lots of notes

3.0 - Alright with notes but I'm not raving about it

3.5 - Technically good but I'm not raving about it

4.0 - Love but with notes

4.5 - Love it so much I want to highlight the book but still with notes

5.0 - Love it so much I want to highlight the book and notes are very positive

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2025-03-14

I've made it to 35% of this audiobook and nothing is really sticking to my head.

I think I'm just too tired and stressed to be reading this so I will DNF for now.

I am second guessing if I should put I rating on this right now because I do want to get back to it later on this year.

Pros:

- Prose is beautiful.

- Really good world building.

Cons:

- I don't know if it's how the voice talent performed Keishin, but every time he spoke, I got annoyed. He sounded arrogant and came of as a know-it-all douche.

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2025-03-12

Just a few chapters in and I’m already rolling my eyes.

Hana and her father own of a magical pawnshop. Their occupation required them to be discrete and very careful.

I found it hard to believe that Hana would just start spilling all that information to Keishin just because he insisted on helping her and refused to take no for answer. Hana not only failed to secure the items in the vault (not really her fault) but she didn’t even try to keep their secrets at the slightest pushback from a random person (this was totally on her). She seemed spineless.

To think she had been training for this job since she was a child.

And what was up with Keishin being so nosy? And bossy? What a control freak! He literally just met Hana. Why does he feel compelled to bully himself into her life?

I know there’s magical realism here and I should suspend my disbelief. But the magic part was not what’s unbelievable here. It’s their actions that were unbelievable.

I do like the prose though.

Rating Description:

1.0 - DNF/Despise

1.5 - Almost DNFed and wish I had

2.0 - Almost DNFed but had redeeming qualities/just boring

2.5 - Alright with lots of notes

3.0 - Alright with notes but I'm not raving about it

3.5 - Technically good but I'm not raving about it

4.0 - Love but with notes

4.5 - Love it so much I want to highlight the book but still with notes

5.0 - Love it so much I want to highlight the book and notes are very positive

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The book was both an easy and a hard read. It’s easy enough to read however the events in it just makes me want to put it down due to frustration. People were awful, including Ji-won, and I felt the need to just hit some of them. Credit to the author for being able to evoke such strong feelings in me.

While all the men in this book were pretty much scum, I feel the real villain here was Ji-won’s mother. Instead of helping her children cope with having been abandoned by their father, that self-centered, attention craving woman sacrificed her children’s comfort, self-worth, and safety just so she would feel attractive and wanted. She’s also training her children to be doormats for men. I can’t even see the mom’s action as cultural conditioning because Asian women are conditioned to sacrifice for their family even if it’s to their detriment. Her actions were all about her. There was no thought to her children, to the family. And she did it all for a man that was mooch and treated her like shit. Arghhh.

Given her parents’ actions and beliefs, I’m not surprised Ji-won was messed up.

The many rage inducing scenes in this book made the end very satisfactory to me despite it being open-ended. If it didn’t end that way, I may have thrown my book at someone.

Audiobook Critique:

I am peeved how the voice talent, in the audiobook, would speak slower for 2 of Ji-won’s former friends. They sounded like they were pre schoolers learning to talk instead of college students.

Rating Description:

1.0 - DNF/Despise

1.5 - Almost DNFed and wish I had

2.0 - Almost DNFed but had redeeming qualities/just boring

2.5 - Alright with lots of notes

3.0 - Alright with notes but I'm not raving about it

3.5 - Technically good but I'm not raving about it

4.0 - Love but with notes

4.5 - Love it so much I want to highlight the book but still with notes

5.0 - Love it so much I want to highlight the book and notes are very positive

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While I might not really say, I love this book so much, I did, however, enjoyed it immensely. I was quite saddened that this is a litfic and will not have a sequel. Or at least not with Marcellus. If he’s not a part of it, then I probably won’t want to read it.

Pros:

1. I loooooooove Marcellus. I was already thinking about borrowing this book when it was chosen as the Book Club pick for the month. The draw was the octopus.

2. Though the story did stray far from Tova’s interactions with Marcellus, very little of it felt unnecessary or filler. I’m not saying it’s devoid of it. But I can only think of 1 scene that I think this book could have done without or reduced.

3. The title of the book insinuates that it’s talking about the octopus or all octopi. But in the end it it’s about people as well.

Cons:

1. Not enough Marcellus.

Rating Description:

1.0 - DNF/Despise

1.5 - Almost DNFed and wish I had

2.0 - Almost DNFed but had redeeming qualities/just boring

2.5 - Alright with lots of notes

3.0 - Alright with notes but I'm not raving about it

3.5 - Technically good but I'm not raving about it

4.0 - Love but with notes

4.5 - Love it so much I want to highlight the book but still with notes

5.0 - Love it so much I want to highlight the book and notes are very positive

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This was a well-done story. If it was longer, I would probably love it as much as Song of Achilles. But, alas, it is just a short story.

Despite the length, it did give us a compelling look into the life of a woman so trapped by her “husband”. The man was not only controlling, he was a woman hater who sees value in women so long as they fit in the extremely narrow parameters he sets for them.

This book was not just a retelling. It’s a commentary on the wild and harmful rhetoric and philosophy of the red-pill movement. This isn’t just about incels. It’s about men who use women and then blame them for being used.

Rating Description:

1.0 - DNF/Despise

1.5 - Almost DNFed and wish I had

2.0 - Almost DNFed but had redeeming qualities/just boring

2.5 - Alright with lots of notes

3.0 - Alright with notes but I'm not raving about it

3.5 - Technically good but I'm not raving about it

4.0 - Love but with notes

4.5 - Love it so much I want to highlight the book but still with notes

5.0 - Love it so much I want to highlight the book and notes are very positive

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At just 7% of this audiobook, I give up. This my 1st DNF here.

I don’t know if it’s because the audiobook narrator did such a good job at making the protagonist as this annoyingly passive, anxiety ridden, exhausting to listen to person. But maaaan, I dislike Jolene. She is the kind of person I avoid because they are an energy vampire. I could feel her sucking the joy out me as I listened to this book.

Rating Description:

1.0 - DNF/Despise

1.5 - Almost DNFed and wish I had

2.0 - Almost DNFed but had redeeming qualities/just boring

2.5 - Alright with lots of notes

3.0 - Alright with notes but I'm not raving about it

3.5 - Technically good but I'm not raving about it

4.0 - Love but with notes

4.5 - Love it so much I want to highlight the book but still with notes

5.0 - Love it so much I want to highlight the book and notes are very positive

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What was supposed to be a book that focused on mystery with sprinkles of drama became the reverse. And I am supremely annoyed by it.

As expected, there was a death. And sure, I was invested to find out who did it and why. But there was so much family drama going on and other shenanigans that I forgot why they needed to solve it. I mean, yeah, the death should be solved but why it had to be solved by them kinda got lost.

In the 1st book it was clear why. In the second book, Bernie was the suspect and the pageant contestants could be in danger, so I could understand why they felt the need to get into it. But here? Why couldn’t they let the cops do their jobs for once? None of them were even the locked in suspect. Sure, Ronnie’s business was in danger, but again, I was not convinced of the urgency to solve it immediately that they had to wade in. And just to make it clear how fast the timeline of events was, the dead person didn’t even get buried yet when the whole thing happened.

Since the book went into the family drama more than I thought was necessary, I felt that there was not enough bread crumbing of the clues about the real culprit and the motive. They had only a little bit of it in the latter chapters but by that time, I was exhausted from reading the family drama that I didn’t really sign up for.

The family drama had its pros and cons.

Pros:

1. It gave us more background on Auntie Rosie.

2. I, again, thought that the portrayal of Lila’s family was believable. Unfortunately, there are families like that. The guilt trips, the demands to be in your private business, etc. are sadly very common in Filipino families.

Cons:

1. I learned more about Auntie Rosie, and it didn’t really paint that great of a picture of her.

2. The portrayal of the family was believable and like with book 2, it made me mad.

From what I understood, Auntie Rosie’s husband was a bastard. But she refused to kick him out or leave him. I’m not surprised her kid, Ronnie, was screwed up. She held on to his father, so he probably mimicked her and held on to him too only to be left behind. And in typical Filipino way, they probably never really talked about it. So, his acting out, while infuriating, was understandable.

The fact that her husband was a douche was not Auntie Rosie’s fault. But the fact that she didn’t grow a spine, stand up to him, divorce him, and show her kid that the way his dad treated them was not right…that was on her.

I did not doubt she did her best to show her son love. But Tita Rosie also showed him, by accepting her husband’s ill treatment and remaining married to him until this day, that it’s okay to be treated like shit

Ronnie’s comments to his mother were rude but he did have a point. He said she picked the wrong man and I agree. She essentially picked the wrong man everyday that she didn’t divorce his father. And since she was not divorced, Ronnie, again, was right. She was still a married woman.

What infuriated me the most was scene when they finally learned that about Ronnie’s kid. Tita Rosie’s first reaction was, ”Did you really hate me so much that you couldn’t even tell me about the birth of my first grandchild?” Uh, lady, the world does not revolve around you. The decision to not tell you about any aspect of his life was not about you.

There were so many parts in this book that had me thinking it was stuff from the AITA subreddit. In which my verdict for all of these was ESH (Everybody Sucks Here).

So why did I rate this a 2.0 instead of a 1.5? :

Despite the fact that I got so mad at so many parts of the book, my anger kept me engaged. So, I guess that was it’s redeeming quality.

Side Note:

The fact that the mother of Ronnie’s kid is Izzy’s cousin, and it seems like he and Izzy are going to be a thing…it gave me the ick. The same with having Lila and Tita Rosie being in a relationship or possible relationship with brothers. It gave me sister-wives vibes.

Audiobook Critique:

That is NOT how you pronounce "tuyo".

Rating Description:

1.0 - DNF/Despise

1.5 - Almost DNFed and wish I had

2.0 - Almost DNFed but had redeeming qualities/just boring

2.5 - Alright with lots of notes

3.0 - Alright with notes but I'm not raving about it

3.5 - Technically good but I'm not raving about it

4.0 - Love but with notes

4.5 - Love it so much I want to highlight the book but still with notes

5.0 - Love it so much I want to highlight the book and notes are very positive

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Family drama, bad romance, and underwhelming magical realism.

This was another book that had more than 1 story going on. But just like with Magpie Murders, I wished they just stuck with one. Maybe if the author focused on just 1 story, they could have made it more interesting. Unfortunately, that was not what happened. In my humble opinion, I ended up reading 2 unenjoyable stories for the price of 1. And I want a fucking refund.

While Opaline’s story dealt with a lot of interesting topics (forced arrangement marriage, sexism, abuse in asylums, forced adoption), those were not the topics I expected here. It’s not that I’m opposed to reading about those topics, but I have to be in the right mood to read heavy topics.

Martha and Henry’s current day story was boring. Disappointing given how this was the part with the magical realism elements. A good chunk of it was about their “relationship”. I put that in quotes because I am unconvinced those 2 fell in love. I mean, I guess they can. But maaaan, both were so uninteresting. It’s like 2 soggy pieces of white bread getting together.

Also, the title of this book is “The Lost Bookshop” but if they were honest, this book should be called “The Lost Bookshop Owner”.

Not all was bad, I appreciated the prose.

I am on the fence about DNFing this book. I don’t want to be a quitter but at 66% of this book, I kind of no longer care about the ending.

Updated:

I did finish this book.

After much thought, I thought that Opaline's story is ok. The end to her arc had somewhat redeemed this whole thing.

Martha's story was still boring though.

I would have enjoyed this more if they just stuck with Opaline.