StoryGraph describes me as "Mainly reads fiction books that are reflective, emotional, and dark."
The rest of me is sfba.social/@eniatitova
More of what I've read and reading here: app.thestorygraph.com/profile/eniatea
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8% complete! Enia has read 2 of 24 books.
Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad, about a voyage up the Congo River into …
A brilliantly imaginative talent makes her exciting debut with this epic historical military fantasy, inspired by the bloody history of …
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among …
Content warning spoiler alert
This book is so hyped, which is probably why this review is a little bit unfair.
If you've managed to avoid the hype it goes like this: really compelling fantasy series, with tons of hot smutty sex scenes.
So first, to address the latter. There are a couple of sex scenes. As in... two. They are both in the last third of the book. The rest of the book is filled with the kind of yearning a 7th grader might write about in her diary (drooling over a crush's muscular abs, or his thick hair). They are not the stuff of adult desire. At least, not from my perspective. And that's what's missing, even from the sex scenes for me: desire. I was not exactly carried away on the wings of fantasy reading them. I saw another review that said "these sex scenes were so explicit". Were they?! I'm worried about that person's sex life now. They were explicit, and they were graphic, but they described pretty vanilla hetero sex? and I'm not super kinky, and I like smut as much as the next person, but this was not compelling smut for me.
But here's the thing! I think, were it not for the awkward attempt at smut, this would have been a half-way decent fantasy book. Clearly, it borrows a lot of plot and universe building from other IP (Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Hunger Games). Still, it creates a mostly compelling narrative on its own (even though I guessed at every plot twist in the book since the author does some very obvious breadcrumbling). But the sex almost detracts from it: it feels completely unnecessary.
So... I will not be reading the sequels, is what I'm trying to say, unless I'm looking for something to occupy a weekend when otherwise very depressed.
In these eight piercing explorations on beauty, media, money, and more, Tressie McMillan Cottom-award-winning professor and acclaimed author of Lower …
When Martha Einkorn fled her father’s isolated compound in Oregon, she never expected to find …
The road to ruin is paved with certainty. The end of the world is only ever hastened by those who think they can protect their own from the coming storm.
— The Future by Naomi Alderman (Page 363)
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among …
look, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about...
When Martha Einkorn fled her father’s isolated compound in Oregon, she never expected to find …
it took me forever to get through this, mostly because the middle was overly drawn out with exposition on "this is how we got here." I love me some character development but this wasn't compelling and so it was a slog to get through.
similarly, the ending felt forced. like there was a true ending, and the editor wanted a couple of extra chapters to tie up the loose ends so the reader wouldn't feel cheated out of a conclusion after investing so much time in that sloggy middle. and then that felt too rosy so there was another ending tacked on.
the structure of this book, woof: you think youre done, there are acknowledgements, and then there's another chapter, a colophon, and then more book?! what kind of easter egg nonesense is that?! if I wasn't reading on paper, I would have missed it.
I really did like the …
it took me forever to get through this, mostly because the middle was overly drawn out with exposition on "this is how we got here." I love me some character development but this wasn't compelling and so it was a slog to get through.
similarly, the ending felt forced. like there was a true ending, and the editor wanted a couple of extra chapters to tie up the loose ends so the reader wouldn't feel cheated out of a conclusion after investing so much time in that sloggy middle. and then that felt too rosy so there was another ending tacked on.
the structure of this book, woof: you think youre done, there are acknowledgements, and then there's another chapter, a colophon, and then more book?! what kind of easter egg nonesense is that?! if I wasn't reading on paper, I would have missed it.
I really did like the concept of this book though. It's a shame that these things got in its way.
A new novel from a Spanish literary star about the arrival of feral children to …
Even now, nearly twenty years later, those words are like monks who'd been waiting patiently inside their monastery to mortify me. The vengeance of memory.
— A Luminous Republic by Andrés Barba (Page 37)
A new novel from a Spanish literary star about the arrival of feral children to a tropical city in Argentina, …
In these eight piercing explorations on beauty, media, money, and more, Tressie McMillan Cottom-award-winning professor and acclaimed author of Lower …
It’s daunting work, turning the people you love into characters in a story— not to reduce or shortchange them, but to try to make them come alive on the page so that other people will understand them, too, and see a little of what you see in them.
— A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung (Page 107)
I worry about this as I write about my family.
I'm sorry, Nicole, she wrote back. It's so hard to lose a parent. But it will be a comfort to see your father live on in your children.
I stared at the screen for a moment, uncomprehending, until the meaning of her words sank in. She doesn't know that Im adopted.
— A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung (Page 101)
that’s a mindfuck about being adopted that I honestly hadn’t considered before, yet it’s something my father lived with his whole life. there was no generic thread between my grandmother and me.
"Although many people identify as middle-of-the-road, middle-class, average Americans, there are differences between a working-class and a middle-class existence, and these differences can be far from subtle. If you grow up as I did and happen to be very fortunate, as I was, your family might sacrifice much so that you can go to college. You'll feel grateful for every subsequent opportunity you get, for the degrees and open doors and better-paying jobs (if you can find them), even as an unexpected, sometimes painful distance yawns between you and the place you came from —and many will expect you to express that gratitude, using your story or your accomplishments to attack those who weren't so lucky. But in this country, unless you attain extraordinary wealth, you will likely be unable to help your loved ones in all the ways you'd hoped. You will learn to live with the specific, hollow guilt of those who leave hardship behind, yet are unable to bring anyone else with them."
— A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung (Page 21)
This rang so true and broke my heart. Any immigrant kid who tries to help their parents also knows that there's nothing worse than offering help to your family, only to have them decline it. even though they were integral to your academic success, even though they continue to support you and your help is offered with no strings attached. its heartbreaking when they feel uncomfortable sharing in the wealth they helped create, because our society makes them feel that the only success that matters is individual.
