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#book rambles
luvvyd0vey · 3 months
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I totally understand that a lot of people get serotonin from just buying books for a physical TBR list but also that must be sooo much money?!
Personally I get the book(s) from the library and if I liked them THEN I’ll buy it so I can reread it and have a physical collection of the books I really enjoyed. I feel like it saves a lot and makes me way more proud with my little book collection.
This also helps support your local library!
It just makes more sense than wasting money on a book you might not like when you could save and buy a special edition of a favourite book or something.
Especially when I see those TikToks where someone turns around every book they haven’t read on their bookshelves and it’s it ends up being MOST of them.
No hate if buying books is your thing though, cause I also feel soo satisfied every time I leave Waterstones with anything, but just a thought I had.
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Holden Caulfield
So, I just finished “The Catcher in the Rye”, and it was very different from what I expected. This book has a reputation of being somewhat extreme, and making teenagers more angry, depressed or even violent because of its main character Holden. However, now that I’ve read it, I fail to see why. I can understand why at the time of its publication Holden’s internal monologue could’ve been seen as alarming, specially to adults, but not as much in the present time, and definitely not as extreme as it said to be. He’s also constantly called annoying, pretentious and an asshole, which he sometimes is, but once again, In my opinion, not to the extreme people present him as. I didn’t mind being inside of his head the entire novel, nor did I ever find him as insufferable as most people seem to, and definitely not a monster, if anything I had a lot of empathy and understanding towards him. 
To me, Holden simply came off as a lost 17 year old boy, grappling with grief, identity, and having lost his innocence at a very young age. He’s clearly suffering from depression, and is generally angry and disillusioned with the world, however given his implied experiences it’s only natural, even just the death of his brother prior to the events of the book cold easily explain his behaviour, however there’s definitely other elements, which choses not to reveal, that have contributed to his current state. 
To me, Holden never came off as extreme or violent, at least not enough to be sent to a psych ward or o incite the alarmed response people seem to have to his character. In fact, despite seemingly being done with the world, and not caring about anything anymore, Holden seems to have this constant thrive and need of protecting the world. Despite all of his utterly depressed, frustrated, and negative inner monologue, he’s constantly through out the novel, carrying out these little acts of kindness towards children. He helps two boys find a section of the museum, and explains to them what everything means, he helps a girl tie up her skates at the roller rink, and rubs off nasty messages left at schools so that the children don’t read them, and most notably he does anything and everything for his younger sister Phoebe.
Most of the time, he’s left in awe of the world when he interacts with these children, specially with Phoebe, it’s the only moments were he even says he feels happy. He seems to be impressed by children’s minds, and has this urge to protect and help them every time he encounters one, going to great lengths (such as buying a limited expensive album for his sister) in order to make their days better. Then, he hears a child sing the song that brings the name of the novel “the catcher in the rye”, he sings about a body catching another body in the rye,. When later in the novel he wonders about he’d want to do in the future, the song is the only thing that comes to mind. He imagines that he’s in that field, where children are playing near a cliff, and he’s the one that catches them and leads them away from the cliff, he’s the catcher in the rye. To him, this means saving children from losing their innocence as young as he did. It’s the only thing he can imagine himself doing. 
This truly shows that Holden, is in no way some disturbed violent mind, he’s just a 17 year old child, who lost his innocence at a very young age due to traumatic experiences which he’s only now processing, he’s also going through the grief of his brother’s death, which his parents don’t help with, his mother also suffering from depression, and his father always being away as a big shot lawyer. He’s disillusioned with the world and humanity, because most of his life experiences, and contacts with older role models have been very negative, including the one with his older brother whom he once had a good relationship with, but is now a shame to the family due to his work as a prostitute. He’s desperate for the children around him not to suffer the same fate. 
While he may seem utterly disgusted and done with the world, I think that he actually holds a lot of hope in his heart for his sister Phoebe and all the children he meets. Holden’s problem isn’t that he has no hope left, it’s that he has too much of it no matter how hard he tries to repress it. He holds a hope so great for the world, that he can’t help but stay despite his suicidal thoughts. Holden, fantasises about ending his life several times throughout the novel, but then, as soon as he’s even close to getting sick with a cold for example, he becomes extremely anxious, scared and even obsessive, thinking that he’s going to die, which he desperately doesn’t want to do. Even when he is attacked with those suicidal thoughts, which never last long, he’s always immediately reminded of Phoebe, and realises he couldn’t bare her going through grief. 
Holden desperately wants to stay in this world, and he’s constantly looking for reasons to do so, he’s in awe of the purity and innocence of children, and wishes the world would be kinder and better for them. Holden is lonely angry and depressed, which can result in him acting violently in instances, but essentially, he’s desperately trying to improve the world around him, and repeatedly not giving up on it. As he puts it, he never hates anything for long.
Well, this had been my small Holden rant, however do be aware that, I'm writing this approximately 30 minutes after finishing the book, so my ideas aren't completely settled, and given that I haven't looked AT ALL into actual analysis of the novel, I may be way off, and made a fool of myself but oh well. At the end of the day they're almost no wrong answers when it comes to interpretation, and this is how I personally perceived Holden Caulfield.
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A TikToker has set up a large list of Palestinians in need of donations. If you care about the people of Palestine please consider donating to one or multiple of the families linked below. Your money can help save lives. If you don’t have the spare money please consider sharing! Thank you.
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e-adlirez · 4 days
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Thea Stilton Treasure Seekers Review/Ramble
Behold, an impulsive ramble about a possibly-obscure trilogy that's been translated to English during quarantine-ish, adding to the obscurity.
So the Treasure Seekers, huh? :3
Coming out a little prior but more or less over the course of quarantine and thus a lot of people not having ready access to it, the Treasure Seekers is what turned out to be a trilogy of what it says on the tin: the girls hunting down cool treasures as a result of going down the world's biggest and highest-stakes scavenger hunt written a hundred-ish years prior to the present time.
Gonna be giving MAJOR spoilers for the first book in the trilogy, and there'll (probably) be one post per book in the trilogy. If you haven't read the book, here's a copy on the Internet Archive you can read before skipping ahead to the review, enjoy, it's pretty good. If you've already read the book or don't care about spoilers, please proceed below the cut :3
The story begins with the girls on summer vacation in Scotland. Shenanigans get started when they meet this old hermit woman who has in her house a mysterious heirloom tapestry with a mysterious poem on it.
The tapestry has this poem that talks about a place with sweet winds, petals that will lead you to something beneath them, something about midnight and birds, and an alabaster garden created for the "jewel of the palace" (like me to you), that is guarded by a friend with deep feet. Sounds like a whole lotta cryptic shnit the theory heads would enjoy :D
Anyway so the girls go visit Beitris (the hermit woman) the next day to return something they borrowed from her only to walk into a holdup :D
Said holdup-ers are these two grunts led by this mysterious lady hiding her identity under a black fedora and thick-framed Ray Bans. The girls deal with that situation real quick and get the guys to scarper (if you're wondering how they did that, "the police are coming"), and once it all blows over, they find that the thugs only stole the tapestry despite ransacking the entire place like raccoons. Such a realization leads to a revelation on Beitris's end, so she entrusts the girls with the tapestry's backstory in a segment I will describe as LAAANNNEEEE LOOOORRRREEEEEE (said in a MatPat voice, we'll miss you king :'])
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The tapestry was a family heirloom passed down to Beitris by her grandmother Petra, who got it from her older sister Aurora Beatrix Lane, who is basically British Amelia Earhart. Wasn't into girly shnit, liked being outside and also archaeology, studied in the University of Cambridge as an Archaeology major and learned how to fly a plane, all while punting early 1900s gender norms into oblivion with her pants and motorcycle. Motorcycle queen, plane queen, archaeology queen, but then everything changed when this British Amelia Earhart did a British Amelia Earhart.
The context behind Aurora Beatrix Lane's disappearance is something relating to her work with her mentor Jan Von Klawitz, who was doing archaeology things with her and probably got up to some wild shnit, but we would never know because Aurora is very secretive about her plans and her destinations, and she only came home to the UK once, after her first trip, and that was when she gave smol child Petra the tapestry to guard because it led to "a very precious treasure", but she can't show it yet for the time being. The vibe was Aurora was planning on using the tapestry to show the treasure it hides once she's done with her archaeology shenanigans.
But then she did an Amelia Earhart but completely untraceable since she never revealed her destinations, so uh there's that :D
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Back to the present, this little storytime from Beitris has gotten the girls sucked into a rabbit hole. They are now hyperfixated like nobody's business and this Aurora Beatrix Lane is JUST LIKE THEM FR, and as a result they decide that y'know what they still have a few days before classes in Mouseford starts, and while they're at it, they're gonna find Beitris's tapestry and maaayyyybeeee find the alabaster garden. First destination: Girton College at the University of Cambridge, Aurora Beatrix Lane's alma mater.
The girls take a quick jaunt to Girton by train and then by bus to have a lil' chat with the dean, who reveals to them that they're looking for the central archive if they're gonna be looking for the deets on a student from a hundred years ago, but uh the archive is closed for the day, please come tomorrow. (Wonder why, maybe it's because they rode from Scotland to Girton by train which takes a shnitload of time. /nsrs but fr tho I wonder if the original Italian had them drive over there by car-- they did rent an SUV, and going by car would be way faster, like it'll only take a seven-hour drive faster) They come back the next day, are let into the archives, and oop, they find a well-preserved diary with Aurora's initials hidden in the Stanley Library.
Y'know what that means, LANE LOOORRRREEEEE
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So two months into her accompanying Jan on his excavations, she notes that Jan's been acting a bit sus lately-- being very nervous, being extremely protective over his luggage, being weird about hiding some of the relics he's found, and also a weird-ass incident where while exploring a small village's old castle, Aurora found a hidden chamber with a tome inside that Jan immediately snatched and was like "I'll take care of it don't worry, don't worry about the protocol stuff I'll be fine I'll take care of it". And then he went back to "normal" after that. Hmmmm.
A month later, while Jan was talking with one of his collaborators on their train to England, Aurora stumbled into the tome again, suspiciously in Jan's personal luggage instead of being properly archived and catalogued like it should've been. She read it, saw a thing about the Seven Treasures of the World, and that caused her protagonist genes to kick in since now she's now very tempted to look into finding them and showing them to the world.
After that, she went to some libraries to investigate and eventually decided to confront Jan about the whole treasures thing and his first reaction was he was pissed, calling Aurora a snoop and everything poking into his things. Then after calming down he said "just pretend to not see", but oh no, dear reader, Aurora was not gonna pretend to not see. She ain't gonna pretend to not see the fact that her mentor was actually a treasure hunter and collector who'd been using his occupation as an excuse to snatch some nifty treasures and keep them to himself like every European country who's stolen artifacts from Asian countries ever, ohohohooooo noooo, she's gonna do something about it.
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The girls scuttle on over back to Scotland and Beitris, to find that uh oh dear, the thugs came back again and this time they were asking about the girls specifically. Beitris pulled the same trick the girls pulled to get them to leave. So NOW the thugs are looking for the girls for whatever reason and wanna know their deal. Anyway, the girls show Beitris Aurora's diary, tell her about the summary, and also that unfortunately some of the pages are missing, and the diary doesn't say shnit about the tapestry so far. Beitris helps by giving them a letter that Aurora sent to Petra about the tapestry and its treasure, but interestingly mentions that she should "only trust Robert".
Since I haven't mentioned him before, Robert Neville was Aurora's flight tutor, a flying medic, and was toootttallllyyyyy just friends with Aurora you guys they were totally just frie--
He is dead in the present time, but his nephew John Neville is a (former) lighthouse keeper for the Ar-Men lighthouse in the IÎe de Sein, Brittany, France. So the girls head on over there, land in France, insert a thing where Vi feels like she's being watched but is like "maybe it's just a me thing, I dunno".
They head over to the Île de Sein, find an old man who turns out to be John, are invited to his house, tell him about their situation, and John mentions that he himself has been researching like crazy too about Aurora ever since hers and Jan's simultaneous disappearance over the same place at the same time in the same terrible storm. And also the fact that Robert was totally devastated when he got the news and spent years looking for her. He gives them his notes that he's accumulated over decades of researching in his pastime (which amounts to just Aurora's trip to Mexico), and tells them that since Aurora was looking for seven treasures, they'll need to find out where her seven trips took place, which will not be easy because Aurora was extremely secretive, and she only made her first trip even remotely public.
First place is Mexico so might as well head on over-- oh god the holdup-ers are back to holdup.
The thugs snatch Aurora's diary and book it before the girls can do much besides get an impromptu ocean bath, and oh dear, the thugs' boss has them now, and it's not the mafia cosplayer lookin' woman. But that's something I'll address later :3
Nonetheless, they carry on since the thugs never stole John's notebook, and they use it to go to the Puuc Route in Mérida, Yucatán (sounds very specific until you realize that Mérida is the capital of the Yucatán, and one thing everyone and their mother knows about the Mayan ruins there like Chichen Itza) to find more clues.
They do some more research on the Puuc Route, find some clues about "an invisible place, guarded by the chattiest of creatures", discover that it means they have to go to Uxmal, get a dub against the unfortunately acrophobic thugs, and realize that yes, Aurora did in fact sneak another one of her diaries in there.
This one doesn't have as much Lane Lore to contribute besides a clue that the girls find leads to Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh, India, a city known for its perfumes :3 sounds like "sweet winds", doesn't it? Oh and there's also something about a place with two lakes, which turns out to be Lakh Bahosi, a bird sanctuary about an hour's drive away from Kannauj. The girls head on over and try to do some investigating, but it doesn't take them that long to find a pair of grunts struggling under the weight of a very familiar tapestry while their boss was struggling to supervise them with her heels constantly digging into bird sanctuary dirt.
Anyway so the girls concoct a little scheme to steal the tapestry and the thugs fall for it like fish for a fishing lure, and they managed to scatter with the tapestry. After getting to a private space in the sanctuary, they find a clue that leads them to a set of coordinates that they find is a beeg tree. Oh and the treasure seems to be a present that was made for someone close to Mumtaz Mahal, as in "the jewel of the palace", the woman the Taj Mahal was made for; and the tapestry has a set of coordinates that is leading them to a beeg tree, with deep roots/feet. Oh hell yeah it's all comin' together.
They get to the tree, deal with the mafia lady for a little bit, find the treasure, and it turns out it's a very exquisite perfume bottle made of alabaster called "The Perfume of the Earth". They find a little note from Aurora explaining the treasure and its value and the significance of finding it, and now the girls have found the treasure Aurora had been searching for, and now's the time for a villain reveal?
So I haven't talked about him yet and have glossed over this guy for the entire ramble. See the mafia lady, Cassidy? Yeah she's not the big boss here. It's this guy who has a whole secret base in Denali National Park, Alaska, and has been overseeing everything behind the scenes. And by everything, I mean everything: He was alerted to the whole thing with Cassidy's first raid of Beitris's house, found out about the girls' involvement, and for a good half of the book, was trying to figure out what the girls' motives are for interfering with his line of work and what they might know about this whole thing he's looking for, which is the alabaster garden.
This guy has been keeping tabs on the girls through Cassidy and her thugs, who've been stalking the girls ever since France. He and Cassidy figured out in Paris that the girls are Mouseford students on vacation, and he was the one who gave the orders to snatch the journal from there. He was the one who told the goons to tail them to Mexico, and he was the one who managed to look up the girls' names, backgrounds, reasons for being in Scotland, all from the comfort of his base in Alaska. And only then, only then did he go to India himself to supervise and put a cap to his goons' buffoonery.
Who is this guy? Well, he is a treasure hunter who just wants to enjoy the treasures Aurora Beatrix Lane has hidden from his great-grandfather a hundred years ago. That's right, meet Luke Von Klawitz, the current heir to the Klawitz legacy and the treasure trove Jan Von Klawitz left behind in spite of his disappearance. Unfortunately Jan was better (and old enough) to secure a family legacy of greedy artifact hoarding.
So while the girls were in Lakh Bahosi, Luke was too with the goons and Cassidy (who is not his right-hand man and more just... a subordinate trying too hard to impress him), being the babysitter with these guys on leashes, as he tries to keep their stupidity under control. He intercepts the girls as they're about to leave Lakh Bahosi, blocking their path, and asks about the alabaster garden. The girls obviously don't spill and prolly would've gotten themselves blackbagged and interrogated had a friend they made prior to Lakh Bahosi not shown up in her dad's truck and came in clutch. (It sounds cliche and like it came out of nowhere but trust me it makes sense in-universe-- after the girls left the friend's family restaurant that they were hanging at, Luke's goons came over to interrogate them about the girls and where they went. Subtlety, who is she?)
The girls bring the perfume to a nearby university so it can be brought to a museum, send the tapestry back to Beitris, and return home to Whale Island, to read the last bits of Aurora's second journal and presumably to
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So that's the book :D I put in a LOT of spoilers, but I'd say that reading the book is still worth it because you'll be able to get the connecting tissues that tie the organs of this story together. H-hopefully this all made sense . .'''
First things first, if you're not used to how Scholastic kids' novels are written, then uh, you might wanna get used to it, because the English translation of Thea Stilton is very... that. It's not beating the kids' book allegations in English, unfortunately. On the brighter side, though, it's pretty good for Scholastic standards! The pacing's very fast, but it feels about right-- gives me the same energy as diving deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole and going to all sorts of places because of the hyperfixation responsible for consuming their sanity for all of a week or so. The dialogue isn't nearly as atrocious as the worst it's capable of being (oh trust me we'll get to that). The tapestry puzzle and how the girls work towards solving it is very coherent and logical for the situation they are in at the beginning, and it's very satisfying to see everything come together and for things to slowly make more and more sense in the poem despite it being as vague and puzzle box-y as it was.
The Lane family lore is very well-thought-out, and Aurora Beatrix Lane is the perfect spiritual predecessor to the girls, what with her love for adventure, love for travel, strong moral compass, and the strong compulsion to elbow drop every single feminine social rule under the sun. I can totally buy her being someone the girls would totally hyperfixate on researching, because she feels like that kind of compelling character-- a passionate young archaeologist who decided to put her own safety on the line for the sake of what she believed in and to dunk on Klawitz and his selfish (and very illegal) goals of hoarding the treasures of the world to himself.
As for the villain, I'll be real gamers, Luke Von Klawitz is probably the most intimidating if not terrifying villain in the entire franchise. He has drones spying on every corner of the world for him, he has goons he can contact at any time and have them do his bidding (to mixed results it seems), he has cutting-edge technology that he uses for terrifying means, all in the safety and comfort of his secret underground base in Alaska where he has his little basement filled to the brim with historical artifacts he's kept all to himself to enjoy. Lemme run this through you again:
He was able to learn the girls names, the university they're studying in, and why they were in Scotland in the first place, all without ever meeting them face-to-face or having his goons interrogate them directly. All he needed to learn all of this was the (not very helpful) research by Cassidy, and a few commands put into his world-connected supercomputer.
Are you intimidated yet? I sure hope you are :D this guy's got a lotta potential is what I'm saying. He's a bit of a brat who wants what he wants and wants it immediately, but he's also a bit of a chess master who looks over things in the background while his minions do all the work for him. Really the only thing holding him back is the incompetency of his goons, and technically it's not even that they're very stupid-- Cassidy and her grunts Stan and Max are very good at swooping in out of nowhere to wreak havoc, dip in and get out before anyone can do anything about it. They're decent if not good at the job they're usually assigned: low-level grunt work. Unfortunately they're not good at much else, which drove Luke insane this entire book, haha.
The girls' dynamic with Cassidy, Stan and Max was refreshing in the sense that the girls aren't always getting punted by them, and the goons aren't always taking Ls just from physical contact with the girls. Cassidy and the goons always had the element of surprise on their side, being able to show up out of nowhere and do their thing before the girls have time to even blink; but once the girls figured out their whole shtick, it was easy to learn that they are easily outclass-able by five mouse Oxford students in braincell count and thus act accordingly. They force the girls to think fast and come up with some snappy plans on the spot, and the girls force Luke to realize he hired Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum, and Tweedle Dummy as goons :D
Now uh, I have been complimenting this thing the entire time, but there is one little thing I have an issue within this book, and that is the whole... Power of Friendship thing they've got going on throughout the book.
Yes, unfortunately, the Friendship Curse has claimed this hardcover series too, and while it's not the worst here, it's still... it's still a bit atrocious :D
For instance, the conclusion Cassidy and Luke come to for the girls' reasons for interference is "friendship". Literally, Cassidy literally says to Luke, "It seems they did it out of friendship, Sir", and then Luke responds with an evil cackle and is like "FRIENDSHIP? THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP DOESN'T EXIST IN THIS WORLD! AIN'T NO WAAAAYYYYY THEY'RE NOT FIVE SCHEMERS WHO WANNA GET THE TREASURES THEMSELVES", which is like... I don't get that vibe from Luke anywhere else in the book? Luke values efficiency and getting what he wants-- he's not hired Cassidy to be all buddy-buddy with her, he hired her for a job and she has to work to fulfill said job. He just wants competent employees, and y'know what, that's valid. Not a single part in that have I seen "ew power of friendship". It's very villain for the sake of villainy kind of energy, which I don't think fits Luke with the other bits of information we get of him? He's following his great-granddad's footsteps-- not a single minute of that did that mean "the spirit of friendship doesn't exist get yo head outa the cotton candy"
Then there's... how this applies to the girls.
inhales
WHY DID THEY MAKE VIOLET THE GROUP'S FRIENDSHIP PROPHET GRAAAAHHHH
I probably would make a full-blown rant about this at some point, but one thing I never liked about any of the hardcovers was how Violet of all people is the group's assigned friendship prophet. She'd occasionally make a comment about how uh something something the power of love is the strongest of all, and every single time I don't like it :D
Sure fine you can chalk it up to character development since her early months in Mouseford, but in the earlier books it's heavily established that she's the pragmatic one, the braincell keeper, the one who keeps the girls' group ADHD on track or the one who reminds them that "hey we've been at this for a really long time and it's now 2AM, we should really turn in now". Being a friendship prophet is a Colette thing, not a Violet thing, and I'm not trying to insult Colette or anything like that. I would be far more okay with it if Colette was the one to go on about the "power of love" because she's literally the HOPELESS ROMANTIC! She's the one with her head in the clouds, the one most likely to fangirl about ships in movies, the one who chooses to ship Romeo and Juliet and pretend to not see the entire second act of said play for the sake of believing in love.
If Colette had a line where she gushed about the power of friendship, I would've just chalked it up to "that cheesy-ass statement is something she'd totally say ngl", as opposed to the jarring whiplash I get from seeing Violet of all people call upon the Power of Friendship.
Again, probably will rant about this at some point (lemme know if you're into that idea), but yeah -m-
Literally just chuck the power of friendship bits and replace them with something more practical/realistic/grounded/whateveryouwannacallit, and it's basically perfect! Even the bits where the girls make friends on their journey is believable! Those don't have to be altered at all! Geuh it drives me insane, almost to the point of wanting to do something about it....
Well, that's enough rambling for today. I can't use up all my steam on this first book-- I plan on making ramblings for the second and third books, after all.
See ya Stilton fans, and for the newcomers from Twitter, welcome :D I hope you enjoy your stay :D
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fyouimgay2 · 3 months
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Okay but I wrote these two random ass bits of dialogue and I can't tell which book they'd fit in, or if they deserve a whole fucking new book ;-;
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highladyofterrasen7 · 1 month
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So I learnt today that there is a uk and us version of agggtm
And apparently there are some major changes, like how pip lives in the us in like Fairfield or something, instead of little kilton, and there are whole paragraphs missing and lots of her character was changed, like she no longer spouts random facts when she’s nervous and doesn’t appear neurodivergent anymore
And I quite clearly read the uk version bc it was little kilton
But I found that so weird bc they specifically changed it JUST for the American audience, when plenty of books aren’t changed into British English. Like I read books with spellings like “color” and “neighbor” and “mom” so when I get a book that is in British English, even though it’s a bit different to Australian English, I’m like omg!!! Like divine rivals says “mum”
And ana Huang is writing a soccer romance book and she said that it’s being marketed as a soccer romance so it’s not confused with American football, but will be football in European editions.
And it’s like, just mind blowing to me that it’s changed and adapted specifically to American audiences and media
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onthewaytosomewhere · 4 months
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10 Things That Never Happened
alright so in the last couple weeks I have now read and listened to the audiobook for this and I cannot get over how amazing they are!!!
I finished the book like a week and a half ago and was all oh I should reread this but then decided instead to listen to the audiobook and I cannot get over how freakin' amazing the audiobook was!!!!!
I loved the book so much it was truly an amazing work and just gave me all the feels - the book is just so lush and almost spellbinding while I was reading - definitely did not want to put it down
the audiobook took me to a whole other level - I had planned to just listen to it here and there while working out walking or just whatever no rush - but when I started listening yesterday I could just not stop for long - a few breaks here and there when needed to but otherwise I listened most of the day until completion - the audiobook was transcending - it sent me soaring through the stratosphere in ways I just did not expect but am so damn happy for now!!!!
I am so damn happy to have this story in my life in both forms ❤️❤️❤️❤️
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starfallkaz · 6 months
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Sometimes I write (quite) eloquent paragraphs & essays analysing characters and metaphors and passages from books that moved me,, sometimes I brainrot word vomit headcanons and theories into my tumblr drafts until I feel physically sick missing imagined people - there is no in between
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bookache · 28 days
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Oh my library I can't believe this I keep messing up with her I'm so bad at this God oh please God just end this already God I'm such an awful person I can't even gift properly
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james-farrowluver · 2 months
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started if we were villains today, book tumblr and book twt open the gates. I am about to be SO insufferable on this app
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ae-neon · 10 months
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Finished Gardens of the Moon at 1am and immediately fell asleep so it's only really hitting me now and I need to ramble
Non-Spoiler
If you haven't read it it's a High and Epic Fantasy that follows a cast of characters during several conflicts. There's a dark elf demi god, a puppet that wants to kill people, undead neanderthal things, a girl possessed by the god of assassins and a man whose dreams are alt dimensions. That might seem like a lot of spoilers but I promise it's barely scratched the surface.
The biggest complaint you might hear is that it's confusing but I say don't worry about being confused, or not picking up on every name, event etc. Look up a map and just go with the story. The story isn't confused or confusing, you just aren't spoonfed or given all the information at once. It makes sense not to know or understand something since half the characters you're viewing the story through, don't either
It's genuinely so much fun, so fresh and by the end even a little profound.
The worldbuilding is so rich and deep and unabashedly fantastical - a floating city! Mages! Ancient immortals! - without being nonsensical, how refreshing.
The storyline was like a river, a main body fed from the past and flowing to the future while having streams here and there that all connected to the main body or branched off from it. And all the while this undercurrent about action, hope and compassion in the face of inevitable loss, violence and dominance.
For me there's genuinely only two problems with this whole book. The Non-Spoiler problem is that I wish the author described the characters in a little more detail.
4/5 stars 🌷🌷🌷
Spoilers, Avert Your Gaze
Where do I start??!
That false climax is so iconic, drama at the fête > the potential end of the world hahaha
Kruppe. Truly, he falls in his own category. What a character in both the story and narrative.
While Tool, Lorn and Rake are maybe my favourite characters, there isn't a character I disliked, honestly
Lorn 💔 why couldn't you just go with Tool
Tool 💚 I hope we see you again
I think I might be alone in not being the biggest Bridgeburner fan - they're literally introduced as an invading imperial force so maybe I wasn't supposed to like them.
Or maybe it's that I'm not as much of a Whiskeyjack fan as I thought I'd be given his reputation amongst fans, in this book at least, I preferred Dujeck Onearm (+Toc, we better see him again!!!) - though Ben + Kalam and later, Hedge + Fiddler were definitely some of my faves.
Tattersail! 😭 What a bold narrative decision, holy fuck, but ultimately so so so interesting and I can't wait to read from that character's perspective in the future
One gripe I do have is that the writing didn't work to make the connection between Tattersail and Paran believable let alone deep enough to warrant something that crosses her lifetime.
Individually they're both great, but the idea that what happened between them had any real weight to it was not conveyed well in the narrative. It was said but not shown.
In contrast, the relationship between Apsalar and Crokus, my sweet children, is done sooo much better. Even Crokus' misunderstanding of Challice, and the realistic portrayal of her pov, had more depth than Paran/Tattersail
I literally pulled a face at the end when Paran sensed and "spoke" to adolescent 'Sail. Like whyyyy, took a lot of my enjoyment out of Paran's pov, which was perfect except for this aspect.
Coll, Rallick Nom and Murillo - the three musketeers. Rallick just sitting on the Azath was hilarious, I predicted Coll's story but his time and bond with Paran was unexpected and very enjoyable, and Murillio... Those few lines about how vengeance and justice had twisted him, that hollowness in the 'victory' after he left Simtal with the dagger... That really left a deep impression on me especially as I wasn't too into Simtal being this one note sex symbol villainess.
All the gods are interesting but I think Cotillion might have been my favourite. Hope his ambitions bring him back into the fray. Sorry was Iconic. Also definitely wanna see what happens with the two hounds who escaped Dragnipur
And Anomander Rake... How beautiful was the unveiling of this character's story and motivations?? The conversations between Baruk and Rake were some of my favourite moments and I can't wait to reread them.
I cannot wait to see more from his side of the board, including Caladan, Prince K'azz, Crone and Silanah
I also hope K'rul has a good day and gets some devout followers.
4/5 stars. Literally the only thing stopping it from being perfect was the lack of Paran/Sail depth and that I wish Erikson would add a little more description of the characters besides the broad strokes of body shape and age
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shoe-def1sh · 6 months
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Jason?!!? And Batman?!? On the same page!?!?
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peachesskiwi · 4 days
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reading fantasy books with death as the mmc as a coping mechanism 🖤
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multifandomconfusion · 4 months
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If white people described their skin in books the way they describe people of color's skin:
Her skin was soft and smooth, the color like that of a marshmallow, lightly toasted over the fire.
Their skin was muted white, like an exotic, ripe banana after it's been peeled.
His skin was pale, like the outter skin of an onion.
Her skin was like sugar, pale and sweet to the taste.
His skin was exactly like the inside of a tropical coconut, cracked open for the whole world to see.
Their skin was the same shade as sugar, traded and brought from far overseas.
Her skin was that of a dragon fruit, freckle seeds covering the surface of her face.
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queen-of-jupiter · 6 months
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Roman Carver Kitt is THE man, he puts all book boyfriends to shame period.
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leavaloo · 9 months
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idk there's something that slaps about a character hating their name. is their name riddled with hundreds of traumas, of nightmares, enough that just a dream can make them wake up in a cold sweat? of claws seared into their skin, of chains that suffocate, to the point where being called for whatever reason makes their hands immediately shake? what if they have a nickname, and that nickname is all they know? where someone calls out to them, real name in all, and they've forgotten that that's their name. where their identity is just this horrific name, and that's all they've known.
and there's something that slaps MORE about them reclaiming their name. that person that calls them by name can knock some sense into them, and it becomes a nice thing. their name is called when others are running to them, smile bright and hand in a wave. its said when they're given a gift. its said when their love interest laughs at them making a bad joke and lightly punching their arm. where that love interest only sees them with this name, and it becomes something they love to hear, because it sounds so amazing coming out of their love's mouth. it sounds like a song, a sanctuary, a home.
and they're allowed to look to the people who use their name for hate, and get to look them in the eye with confidence they never had before, enough that it scares the demons who gave them their name. not even god can smite them now, because names have power, and their power is terrifying.
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