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saltyslack-toast · 4 years

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#Knock The Book 2: The Devil All the Time

WELL, I MADE IT TO THE 2nd BOOK REVIEW OF MINE, MEANS THAT I’M A PASSIONATE AND PERSISTENT BITCH, PERIODT. No actually I’m just bored and got really nothing to do, so here I am making judgmental, invalid and uncritical book review just to ease my guilt for doing nothing at home (just so my mom see me working through my laptop).

Okay The Devil All the Time is actually my first English book. The story of how I got this book as a matter of fact is quite irritating and funny at the same time. My uni friend, she saw this book in a modest book bazaar near her hometown. She was reading the title and the word ‘devil’ just remind her of me, she bought it and just gave it straight to me…... I’m sad but like thankful???

It’s a secondhand and hardcover book but I don’t really mind, considering the fact that the quality is still very nice though, except the worn spots stained all over the cover that make the book looks very old. My friend bought this only for RP 25.000, yes dude you’re not misread this shit, it was THAT CHEAP (whoever sell and own this book before me, I really appreciate it). Although if you want to buy the new one, you can get this book for USD 26.95 which converted in rupiah would be RP 407.500, yeah its cost pretty fancy for broke students like us and I don’t know if the book’s supposed to be available in your local bookstore but I think you can find it in worldwide shipping online store like amazon or any other shop perhaps. The book’s cover illustrate a dying white mutt hanging on the ‘log’ and bunch of cross everywhere, the cover is actually make sense when you read the book. It published in 2011 by doubleday in United States of America. The Author is Donald Ray Pollock, and you can find the sum information about his background written on the cover, but based form the book’s cover you can also check his website in donaldraypollock.com but when I checked, I’m not sure if it’s really his website since it just like pest control website (LMAOO I HAD NO IDEA FR). Anyway,

Let’s go breaking down the book!

“… Too much religion could be as bad as too little, maybe even worse, but moderation was just not in her husband’s nature”

The whole story in this book, basically give you portraits regarding the life of lunatics in the time after WWII. Nope, there is no sums up about the events happened in that moment so chill y’all non-historical enthusiast bitches. This book gonna give you a bizarre experience reading it, the first 10 pages of this book was already psychedelic, I assure that shit. Have you watched Games of Thrones series on HBO? It’s chilling right how Ned Stark, the protagonist of the main series died in the first season???? EXACTLY that was the vibes u got after reading the first chapter and get crazier every time u read forward. By the way, this book embodied 7 chapters and 55 sub-chapters, the chapter in odd and even numbers has 2 different main focuses on each characteristic exist, here I sum it up for you:

On the odd numbers chapters (1, 3, and so on), the central story of these chapters is circling among the family of Willard Russel, his Mom Emma and Uncle Earskell and also those 2 insane peeps Roy Laferty and Theodore. Willard Russel used to be a navy army and a bit skeptical dealing with religion issues just like his uncle, but his mom has always been a devoted worshiper. Willard married to the beautiful and kind-hearted women named Charlotte and they was given a son named Arvin Eugene Russel, everything was normal until Charlotte got sick and Willard gone crazy praying to god for his wife’s recovery and poor little Arvin has to suffer the predicament by his own self. Their stories always give me religious-fanaticism-gloomy vibes (is that even make sense??). Don’t even get me started with the life stories of the two brutes-ass man, Roy Laferty and Theodore they were used to be ‘preacher’ in Emma and young Willard’s Church. Nothing I could say further because it’s gonna be a major spoiler for you, but their stories really giving you insights of how frustration and fanaticism allow people to do something beyond their common sense.

“You remember what I told you the other day?” He asked Arvin

“About the boys on the bus?,”

“Well, that’s what I meant, you just got to pick the right time”

On the even numbers chapters (2, 4, and so on), the main tales is pertaining on the journey of Handerson couple, Carl and Sandy. They were like the Bonnie and Clyde but sad and exploitative version in this book. Carl is a ‘photographer’ and sandy working as a waitress in a café called Wooden Spoon (Which the place where Charlotte used to work as a waitress and the place she met Willard for the first time as well). During summertime they got this ‘ritual’ ((but not in a religious way)) where they drive to different states and give a ride to the hitchhikers found on the way, then Carl forcefully offer them to fuck Sandy for free (HIS OWN WIFE) while he took pictures of them fucking and after that Carl kill them and take all the money those hitchhikers got in their pocket (dude I can’t even judge anything). But to be honest, I’m not a fan of these two characters because they were all so ANNOYING to death. And then there is Bodecker Lee who’s a police and also Sandy’s brother, ok that’s it, I’m not gonna give you any spoilers.

“… He went down the street and sat on a bench in a park the rest of the day thinking about killing himself instead. Something broke in him that day. For the first time he could see that his whole life added up to absolutely nothing…”

You might be confused since there are quite a lot of keen characters in this book but there’s a point where all these bitches are relating to each other, so chill y’all impatient gripe-ass. Overall, the flow of the story is undoubtedly interesting for you to keep going throughout the whole story, because every phase gonna make you wondering about next things happened to them. But, the transitions among every chapters is quite uncomfortable for me, because sometimes when the story has reached its climax there is no resolutions coming to solve the problem immediately, and you’re faced to read the new chapter with a whole different setting and characters so it’s kind of ruining the vibes and emotions the book has made me, but again this just my personal preference so please don’t judge (while everything I did right now is judging inaccurately).

“He realized that he would never preach again, but that was all right. He’d never been much good at it anyway. Most people just wanted to hear the cripple play”

However, what I like the most from this book is the deepening of every character exists is so fascinating, even for just the side or supporting character (for god sake I’m sorry idk what to called a character that isn’t the main one), for example a bus driver in Meade, Ohio which Willard talked to when he was on the way home after the war ended, the narration wrapped and portraits the driver’s life perfectly without make us bored, and there’s still a bunch of interesting narration about the life of the side characters in this book that also as odds and intriguing as the main character’s background (jesus, everything happened and everyone in this book is just so strange and peculiar I swear to god). The story finished in a most tragic-beautiful but still gloomy way, even though it’s quite predictable but still a very good closing for me personally. To be noted, on the way to the end of the story, there will be emerge another asshole priest character named Preston Teagardin, ready to shake you up until you finish the book. But still, let’s said this particular ‘last minute character’ has proving that the author is paying so much attention of how the story ended isn’t leaving any 'rush-made' impression (this shit might confused you I’m sorry my English hasn’t got any better *sorry hand sign* *sorry hand sign* *sorry hand sign*). # hashtag attention to the detail bro.

Holy crap, that’s the first time I’m almost able to cut all the bullshit I intend to bring it up here.

This book is one of my top 5 books that you have to read once in a life time (although I haven’t discover the other four, omg im sorry y’all). Little information for you that the first time I read this book (yeah I read it for quite few times) is when the campaign of presidential election era, which in Indonesia the religious are pretty sentimental issues, some of the people in my country suddenly became those annoying fanatical preachers, man I can’t stand it. And this book is just precisely relating to that condition and I get to know at least a glance of what the heck odds things happened in their minds, since you know fanaticism and stupidity doesn’t hit only on particular group of religions, race, gender or anything, we can all be stupid and brainless (especially me because I basically have no brain). There probably quite many scenes that is pretty disturbing to read (I don’t know if people could be triggered by it???? But I guess so) so yeah a bit warning. Overall, I genuinely recommend this book for you guys because every element in this book is almost perfect, the storylines, bold characters, and the RARE AND STRANGE AND SENSITIVE topic promote by the author in this novel is totally a BOOM. Don’t worry reading this book not going to give you those agnostic and atheist vibes HAHA chill I still consider myself a devoted Muslim tho (hashtag masyaallah ukthi).

By the way before I wrapped it up, I hear that this book will be made into a netflix film. WELL, of course I’m excited because the casts are so amazing, and I love Netflix adaptation and I enjoy watch movies as much as I read books (again, unnecessary information of mine *sorry hand sign*). I found that the release date is postponed from the origin plan in 15th May (which is three days ago from I posted this on my page) due to I don’t know perhaps corona because that bitch has ruined everyone in the world’s schedule, but for real I can’t find the exact information regarding to the updated release date, so while you wait the film to launch, why don’t you just go read the book first? I assure you this one not gonna give you any disappointment.

I think that would be it for this 2nd rubbish book review of mine. Although, I think I made a little progressive from the first one (OR MAYBE NOT???? I’M SORRY Y’ALL) but of course there’s still much deficiency I served. Still, I hope my writing get better in the process of making this whole novel of reviewing book inaccurately. To be honest, I wrote this shit not for getting any engagements or audience but for my own satisfied HAHA. So yeah I’m literally comfortable writing for nothing. But bitch guess what I’m just gonna keep going, until I could professionally writing and make it for a living? Well, amen for that.

Xiao, See you in Advance!

#book #book quotes #bookaholic #booknerd #book review #the devil all the time #donald ray pollock #religion #review #novel #thriller #psychological #tom holland #robert pattinson #bill skasgård #sebastian stan

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fandomsnstuff · 4 years

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Fic Author Tag Game

Tagged by: @halcyonhowl

Tagging: my dear friend @desiree-harding-fic

Ao3 name: fandomsnstuff

Fandoms: Currently I’m writing for taz, but I went off with the amount of v*ltron fics, I also wrote a little bit for yuri on ice and haikyuu a few years ago. For this I’m going to answer for just taz fics and in general, just for fun :)

Number of fics: 30(!) total fics, with 10 of them being taz

1. Fic you spent the most time on: That’s probably going to be Out of Time (taakitz, “real-world” & time travel au)

Although I do have a wip that’s already overtaken anything else I’ve ever written for the amount of time I’ve spent on it and it’s probably not even half done lmaoo

2. Fic you spent the least time on: Determining the Effects of Consuming the Light of Creation

tbh I don’t think this would even technically count as a fic, so aside from that, I think I spent about a max of 45 minutes of Kepler’s Laws

3. Longest fic: In general - A Foster Kid’s Confessional: 11 Unexpected Uses for Families (14 241 words, keith/lance, modern au)

For taz - Out of Time (14 167 words)

4. Shortest fic: Kepler’s Laws (545 words)

5. Most hits: In general - Five times Keith saw Lance cry, and the one time Lance saw Keith cry. (4837 hits, fic is exactly what it says on the tin)

For taz - Out of Time (830 hits, please read my fic she’s so good I promise)

6. Most kudos: In general - Five times Keith saw Lance cry, and the one time Lance saw Keith cry. (584 kudos)

For taz - Out of Time (148 kudos)

7. Most comment threads: Out of Time (22 comments)

8. Fave fic you wrote: I’m going to pick a few because I can. So in no particular order:

Don’t Commit Felonies, Kids - picked for the title alone. It’s about pidge (katie) reuniting with her dad in v*ltron

I Missed You - Listen v*ltron was trash, but this fic? Soft as hell. Someone complimented my characterization of the characters in this fic and it immediately became one of my favourites.

Stay Safe Out There - Barry Bluejeans is shaped like a dad and I’m always soft for him and his baby girl, and this whole fic is just him loving his daughter

Out of Time - There’s a reason this one has come up a lot, I spent like two weeks on this, and I Went Off if I do say so myself

9. Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: tbh I wouldn’t mind redoing Twists, Turns, and Shifts if I found the time and/or motivation bc I dunno. I don’t hate this one, but it’s the first taz fic I did and I think I could do it better if I really wanted to

10. Share a bit of your WIP or share a story idea that you’re planning: Okay so I’m in the process of writing a frozen 2 inspired fic with my blupjeans baby oc, but it’s multi-chapter and it has to be complete before I post it or it’ll never get done. This au has been in development literally since I saw frozen 2 on boxing day (dec 26th) and I adore it it’s so good.

Trying to pick and excerpt for this was very difficult, but here’s some mom Lup for ya

An eight-year old Lilliana sits cross-legged on the floor of her room, Lup across from her and an unlit candle sitting between them. She stares intently at the candle, willing it to light up. When nothing happens, she crosses her arms and huffs, frustrated. The fire in the hearth next to her flares up accordingly. Seeing this, Lilliana groans (prompting the fire to flare again) and falls back to lay down on the carpet.

“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

Lup moves to sit next to her. “You’re not doing anything wrong,” she brushes a loose piece of hair out of Lilli’s face and tucks it behind her ear, “you just have to keep practising, you’ll get the hang of it.”

Lilliana looks up at Lup and pouts. “How should you know, Mama? You don’t have magic.”

Lup’s hand pauses in its ministrations with Lilli’s hair. She looks into her daughter’s hazel eyes, eyes that she knows are gold underneath. She tamps down the aching in her chest and sighs, smiling softly. “You’ve got me there, baby girl.”

Long story short: Lup and Barry makes some questionable parenting decisions, Lilliana is Elsa but better, Angus frets over her health, Taako loves his niece, Kravitz is just hoping everything works out

#tag games #fic games #taz #the adventure zone #taz fics

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gray-anxiety · 5 years

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No Sympathy Facts/ the chaos of my brain

I kept forgetting the damn name

Legit

Like “No… no wHAT????? Oh”

Aella is a name associated with storms and wind, so I gave her that name because I wanted someone who really did embody that

I kept wanting to spell Aella’s name allen smh

This book started when i finally got off my ass and convinced myself to do a mafia au. The entire plot was pulled out of my ass in a period of brainstorming that kept me up until 5:30 the next morning

I actually sketched out the apartment’s layout so I could see it better.

later I actually designed a messy version of what it’d somewhat be like in the sims

Karanese is actually a district in the Attack on Titan universe :)

Each chapter takes me like 2 hours to write simply because I play out each and every ending in my head and choose the best one I’d want to see in a story

Other times I legit just have a feeling like I absolutely know how a chapter plays out like Chapter 3’s murder fight scene. It just came to me and all I had to do was describe it like I had just watched a movie

Chapter one took a total of seven hours to write

The plot twists were created when I asked myself what cliche can I change?

(Except I kept a few just to make fun of it I.E. roommates and badboy x nerdy character because that shit is hilarious and can really show the dynamic of how different each character really is)

Chapter two bore me to death to be honest

An actual example of my brainstorming while writing down facts:

I have no idea what the fuck to do after chapter 3 help

I pretty much said fuck it to planning out a plot and just wung it

Where am I gonna place Hange and the others

What about Eren lol

OH SHIT I JUST HAD THE IDEA THAT HANGE AND AELLA WERE FRIENDS BEFORE AELLA WAS KICKED OUT AOUFHALIUEHFALIUEHF

THEY’D TOTALLY BE LESBIANS FOR EACH OTHER

How’d you come up with the name for No Sympathy?

hilarious answer, actually. I spent two damn hours laying on my bed googling “what’s your mafia nickname” to just messing around with broken languages on google translate until it just popped in my head. Pretty much I was like “oh shit that sounds lit and fearsome lets do it bois” and yeah

I’m actually making this list of fun facts while writing each chapter. I’m going to start working on chapter 4 tomorrow and hopefully get my shit together to make a somewhat good plot??

Lmao I lied I got really fucking lazy and wrote the chapter at 11 at night and published it at midnight

I wrote everything about no sympathy in one iCloud note and titled it “No sympathy; the complete chaos of making a book”

The true main character of No Sympathy is actually Levi since I feel like I understand him completely since I relate to him so much; making Levi the easiest character I’ve written about ever. Though, his true character (in my opinion) doesn’t necessarily shine through in the beginning chapters as Levi don’t get along with new people, but you can see him warm up to Aella by doing her homework, dragging her out of the party, etc.

I’ve realized I have a distinct writing pattern while writing No Sympathy: comma, semi-colon, double dash. (Chapters two and three really showcase it as I wrote those two back to back in the car)

Had I actually had the inspiration and the motivation to write this almost a year ago, I would’ve been writing about the mafia at 13, which is an absolute hilarious thought to think about when I look back to my previous fanfics. Then again, my dumbass 14-year-old self is just as clingy as my dumbass 13-year-old self lmaoo

I gave Aella the same birth day (not year lmao) as mine (September 10) so she’d be 17 during the first month of school and 18 for the rest of the book

Going off of that fact, Levi is exactly 1 year and 8 months older than Aella (I kept his original birthday)

My cat demanded that I gave him cuddles and attention so I had to stop writing for one entire day because he wanted cuddles

Normally my cat just lays on my chest while I write b u t n o he wanted cuddles

If Levi never came into the picture Aella would probably date Hanji (for all of those fellow LGBTQIA+ readers and readers that really love Hanji)

While writing chapter 1 I listened to Ghost by Halsey on repeat and I think if you read while playing the exact song it somewhat shows in the pace I set for readers.

The term ‘block class’ is actually derived from what my own high school (even though I’m not even fully considered a freshman yet jfc) uses when referring to a 90 minute class

The book Technically begins on a Saturday with Levi — the actual power duo meet that Monday (because unlike dumbass schools in real life, their first day of school was on a Monday instead of the Friday before.) on their first day. That Tuesday was chapter 4, Wednesday being chapter 5, Thursday being chapter 6 (we skip Friday because it doesn’t fucking matter in the story lmao), and Saturday being the day of the party.

Writing an x reader but without the reader was really fucking hard, honestly. I couldn’t just randomly say ‘Levi looked over at the H/C girl working on her homework across from him’ as it’d just be weird, so I thought of the next best thing and never described Aella — making her free for interpretation of her looks.

I was going to have Aella have a name reveal like ‘my real name is Y/N…’ but then I was like “No what? Fuck it. Levi already knew from the beginning after looking at her documents.”

No Sympathy was actually going to be an original story, but Levi’s character fit so well I decided to make it a fanfic.

I actually wanted to stop writing after chapter 3 because I didn’t know what to do with the plot, but I asked my friend for help coming up with the plot using the paragraphs of ideas I had to make an actual plot. So, I can successfully say I owe it to her for helping and the one sentence that kept me going in my head: “I want to make a story I’m proud of.” So I fucked up my (nonexistent, really lmao) sleeping and eating schedules and started working on this book everyday even when I didn’t post a chapter that day.

Though, it’s not really specified in the early chapters, Aella was bullied into being hated by the entire school — leaving her to be all alone, which actually happened to me and gave me PTSD after transferring.

Ironically, I gave Aella a ton of reactions and characteristics I would/ just generally have, but I see myself more in Levi, which is probably why I prefer writing about him over Aella.

As of writing this, chapter 5 is currently my favorite chapter as it is a mix of a filler chapter and a regular important chapter still just as important as the rest.

Depression and PTSD actually got in the way of writing so many times I actually am surprised I’ve written so much

As writing has always been my go to for letting out everything (as I have z e r o close friends lmao) I actually don’t realize when I’m done with each chapter until I realize I’m out of ideas for said chapter.

I don’t even realize I write about 2,000 words until it’s like “oh,,”

No Sympathy wasn’t just any fanfic for me, it was like I was actually Aella seeing the entire story unfold from beginning to finish

I tried to push myself to describe more, as I’ve noted while rereading my previous shitty fanfics — I struggled describing everything.

I tried to not have the basic “tch”, “brat”, and just random cursing from Levi unless it was at the exact wrong time (or I just put it in because I could totally see him saying that in said situation)

I tried characterizing Hanji as someone who wasn’t the basic overexcited dumbass most fanfics portray her as — instead I tried thinking of her as an actual person with reactions and different moods and tried to embody that each time I wrote her

Character development is a huge thing Ive been trying to work on ever since I wrote A Valkyrie and a Mischievous God (though that character development and story sucked ass and I cringe at how popular it’s gotten), and a huge target for it was none other than Aella. At the beginning you could see she felt trapped in an endless cycle of stress and fending for herself, but when Levi came in and was like “lmao I have money you don’t have to stress” she felt like she was in an odd spot, and eventually after she reunited with Hanji she started to feel more free

Parents were completely cut out of this story because I genuinely don’t know how to write them as mine are either states away by choice or always working, so I just had Aella get kicked out and had her entire family gone.

My best ideas surface at 4 am when I’m trying to fucking sleep

Help me

But hey I now have a new passion for this book

I generally didn’t know how to end it

buT THEN I D I D

A huge thing for me, and my entire driving motion for writing this was a simple sentence: “I want to write something I’m proud of.”

Am I proud of this?

Eh. It’s not shitty, I suppose. I could always do better.

Characterization was so difficult for me. I wanted to stray from basic fanfics of an overly hyper Hange (though, I couldn’t help in some situations, but after watching an entire season and a half in one day, you notice personality changes) and write and more serious one — except I’m a damn shitty author with so many grammatical mistakes my ex-mentor would literally rip her hair out.

Writing a book has always been my goal, and I know this is the only thing that will ever come close to it.

I have another Levi x reader planned, but I always hate doing the basic ‘_____’ ‘Y/N’, etc because it literally drives my depressed self I n s a n e when writing

Most times for my outline summaries of the chapters I just put my name in place of Aella lmao

I actually struggled a lot when writing this; sometimes I even broke down thinking no one liked this book or I wasn’t a good enough author to write anymore.

My asshole self mainly spent my summer writing this rip

Currently, as it is July 2nd, I am literally hoping to Levi that I fucking get this done before August or else I’m so fucking screwed with beginning high school and shit.

Oh yeah btw, I’M NOT FUCKING READY FOR THE FINAL SEASON. I’LL BE A DAMN SOPHOMORE AND THAT IN ITSELF K I L L S ME

I don’t know if I’m actually going to continue with this book, but have these collected facts I started writing the moment the first chapter was out :,) It’s already September and my past dumbass was right

High school is kicking my ass

I have another story idea/plot written out and I really like it so idk. I think I’d stop halfway again because I’d think that no one would like it

#no sympathy

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