NJ
Will and Nora were cute or whatever, but Will and Gerry have my heart.
I had one small quibble though. It felt like Gerry was coded as autistic and I don't know how I felt about him having to change so much of himself to reconcile with his wife with seemingly no concessions or compromises from her end. I'm probably overreaching though, there may be nothing here, but I couldn't stop thinking about it.
This was ok but I really struggled with Teddy as a hero. I just couldn't understand his appeal the give and take tattoos really irked me. The constant reminder of how much he was 'taking' just irritated me more and more . As I was reading this, there was one quote from [b:Red, White & Royal Blue 41150487 Red, White & Royal Blue Casey McQuiston https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1566742512l/41150487.SY75.jpg 61657690] that kept ringing in my head. Worst of all, Henry is good. Alex doesn't pretend to care about the rules of the game, but his primary turn-on has always been competence. I think this quote perfectly encapsulates my own feelings towards romantic heroes. I love heroes who are good at something , anything really. We are told over and over again how good Henry is at tattooing but we never get to see him in his element. Instead, we get this seemingly aimless Henry who doesn't struggle too much to achieve his goals because of a string of good Samaritans and a rich daddy.Teddy aside, this still wasn't a perfect book. The ending fell flat and Melanie felt like a token character of colour, very much like the throw-away line at the end about making Providence more inclusive
Wasn't a fan of the writing style. Heroine was also weirdly possessive of her brother. Didn't really believe in the main couple's connection at the end.
I really enjoyed Teddy's growth and the development of her friendships after leaving an abusive relationship. However, I wasn't sold on Everett, his general personality seemed to be this is a pretty shitty friend who works with children so really he must have a heart of gold
Jane Austen has been around for long enough that Austen inspired fics rarely read as fanfiction . But this book was full of so many traditional fanfic tropes that it seemed to have more in common with Fifty Shades than it did with Pride and Prejudice.
> The hero buys the heroine a red convertible for her birthday
> She ends up working in a company that he owns
> The heroine's boss is inappropriate with her, and the hero steps in to fire said boss.
> It's way longer than it needs to be
> Casual slut-shaming (her roommate is literally referred to as skanky-[insertname])
> Casual transphobia
> Very not like other girls. Most women aside from the heroine and her few friends are oh so horrible, and are botox-, clothing-, status-obsessed harpies
I wish authors would stop writing characters like Maxine who exist simply to fulfill the “crazy other woman” trope. I really dislike the trope and it's sexist origins. In the beginning, I thought Maxine and Rook's friendship would be a positive representation of a platonic relationship between a man and a woman (a relationship type I think is woefully underrepresented in romance). Instead we got whatever that was
For a long time, I considered Persuasion my 3rd favourite Austen. It was Pride and Prejudice first (obviously), then Emma, before Persuasion. However, upon this reread I may have to change my ranking. But to truly ascertain in Persuasion has moved up in my Austen favourites, I have to read the other two. And that can never be a bad thing :).
Some of the threads in this book felt so unresolved. Additionally, after the final conflict, I wasn't sure I wanted them to be together. Leaving her on PEI was concerning.
I don't necessarily agree with all the author's conclusions but this book certainly made me think through some of my own strongly held opinions on feminism and contemporary womanhood.
This was my first audiobook and I absolutely loved it! Ruby Dee narrated with emotion and it sometimes felt like I was in a conversation with the characters. Hurston's book is wonderfully written, the language is often beautiful and poetic. It was a joy to listen to.
This is a classic for a reason; nothing else I say can really do it justice
I'm about a third of the way through and there's not a single complex female character. There are too many books to read for me to waste my time on this one. I've read a recent interview by Abercrombie in which he addresses the poor writing of his female characters in his earlier books. From the interview, it seems he has course-corrected. I may pick up a few of his more recent works to see if I find them any more interesting.
This feels sacrilegious because this book is so well-loved, but I really disliked the book and its hero. In my opinion, he never really felt remorseful for possibly breaking the heart of an innocent, unsuspecting girl. I just couldn't get over the premise. Additionally, there was a throwaway comment about someone with spots being unattractive. This is one of my personal pet peeves as someone who has adult acne. Please let us live
4.5 starsThis book restored my faith in Megan Whalen Turner. After [b:A Conspiracy of Kings 6527841 A Conspiracy of Kings (The Queen's Thief, #4) Megan Whalen Turner https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1295475418l/6527841.SY75.jpg 6719799], I was unsure of her ability to recapture the magic of Books 2 & 3, but she successfully did so here. It's still not quite as good but it very nearly is. Kamet is as complex and compelling a character as Eugenides and Attolia. Unlike Sophos, I wasn't bothered by his narrative.TL;DR: Megan Whalen Turner restored my faith in these characters. In Book4 it was hard to tell the difference between them and their enemies but in this book, it once again became clear why they were the ones I was rooting for and not the Medeans. I was also reminded of why I didn't mind Eugenides' more cruel actions in Book 2 & 3, while being disturbed by Sophos'. While Gen is often manipulative, he is never overtly violent. He also always tempers his more cruel actions with kindness and the acknowledgement of his own wrong. In [b:The King of Attolia 40159 The King of Attolia (The Queen's Thief, #3) Megan Whalen Turner https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1293505327l/40159.SY75.jpg 847545], when he arrests Sejanus and exiles Dite in the fall of Erondites, he feels remorseful for their personal destruction but acknowledges that it was a necessary evil. “I'm sorry, Dite.” Dite shrugged away the apology. “You have spared my brother when you could have killed him and you have offered me an escape from the cesspit of my family and this court. You know what it means to me, to make music in the court of Ferria. You've put a purse and an impossible dream in my hand. I don't know why you should apologize.” “Because I am exiling you, Dite. I intend to raze your patrimony and salt its earth. You emphatically do not need to thank me.”“It isn't revenge, Sejanus,” said this new incarnation of the king. “I wouldn't destroy an entire house to destroy one man. But I would destroy a man to destroy a house. Your brother will be exiled, your house will fall, not because I happen to hate you, but because Erondites controls more land, and more men, than any four other barons, stacked together and has proved to be dangerous over and over. Its very existence is a threat to the throne. It will not survive,” he said again. Also, we never see him execute anyone on-page, we are vaguely aware that he will have to as king ( he says so over and over again), but we never see it happen. In fact, we see him pardon people who likely should according to the traditions of that time, have been executed.In the same way, when Kamet arrives he apologises to him for taking away his dream of wielding immense power as the emperor's head slave. He said, “I've taken something from you that I had no right to take. As Laela did. I hope you will forgive us both.” .As Relius said “He's very tenderhearted,” said Relius. “He'll feel quite bad about it as he cuts you up into little pieces and feeds you to wolves.” . Perhaps as a reader, it made it easier to swallow Gen's occasional cruelty because it was so often tempered with kindness. But I also like to think that until Book 4, it had always seemed neither unnecessarily violent nor cruel. In this book, I returned to feeling like in a cruel and often barbaric world, our characters were doing the best they could to cause as little harm as possible.