if i had a nickel for every time one of my most anticipated releases was about dark academia enemies to lovers college students entering hell, i'd havif i had a nickel for every time one of my most anticipated releases was about dark academia enemies to lovers college students entering hell, i'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot but it's kind of weird it happened twice...more
i could give a lot of reasons i wanted to read this, but the top one was always going to be "look at that gold detailing on the cover."
unfortunately ii could give a lot of reasons i wanted to read this, but the top one was always going to be "look at that gold detailing on the cover."
unfortunately it turns out it's orange, and that this book is not really for me.
i love short books, but that's because i typically read literary fiction, and books about the ennui in the life of a woman in her 30s don't normally need extra pages to clear up any confusion.
this, about polish magic in chicago featuring a romance, a movie theater showing alien as a cover, climactic, action-packed sequences like a guy trying to pick a flower, and musical mythical creatures, probably could've used some.
but it wasn't a bad time.
bottom line: i don't really know what happened in this book, but i might've liked it.
uh, guys...i'm definitely with you and everything...absolutely one of the cool kids, having the popular opinion, agreeing with the mainstream, etc...buh, guys...i'm definitely with you and everything...absolutely one of the cool kids, having the popular opinion, agreeing with the mainstream, etc...but um. just remind me.
why do we not like this book?
the average rating is 3.5. and i totally get it. but for argument's sake, or just for laughs or whatever...explain it to me like i enjoyed it.
as if, for example, this was so funny and weird and magical and emotional.
i will admit that for the first, like, 200 pages, it was an absolute chore to pick up. i dreaded it. i could only make myself do it by sandwiching chapters between chapters of other books i wasn't really enjoying (otherwise there was no way i was returning to it).
matters were made worse by the fact that i was reading an ebook with a tiny font, meaning i had to read 4 normal-sized pages for what counted as 1 page, and by the end my laptop was so overwhelmed it required 10 seconds to turn those pages, and 10 seconds is actually a long time if you think about it in that context, the context being that this book is 637 pages long. so, to me, 2,548 pages.
i now understand sisyphus completely.
but at some point, my feelings did a 180. even when i was reading books i liked, or listening to enjoyable audiobooks, or picking up my most anticipated read of the year, or even - gasp - watching tiktoks...i kind of always low level wanted to be reading this.
it's that good.
it's very one of a kind: three kids die and come back, and there's a death-like figurehead and a magical music teacher and a cursed splinter and a moon woman and a haunting carousel and a child named carousel. there's an unforgettable unrealistic town. there's a series of weird annoying romances. there are twists and laughs and tragedies, and all of them made me actually feel something, which - to those of you who know my whole thing - is not nothing. (see: my cold dark chunk of christmas coal of a heart.)
when i got past the rock-pushing task of the page count and the brain-murdering task of the first third, i had a really good time.
that's not nothing, either.
bottom line: i'm having the fun kind of unpopular opinion again.
4.5
------------------------- tbr review
me at a horror movie: :) me at a haunted house: :) me at a long book: AHHHHHHHHHH
but my favorite part of this was the food descriptions.
unfortunately, the rest was extremely repetitiveof course i want to read about magic fox girls.
but my favorite part of this was the food descriptions.
unfortunately, the rest was extremely repetitive. we have two perspectives, one of a fox girl and the other of an aging investigator, both of which sound interesting and aren't. each perspective just follows its respective protagonist as they go from the same place to the next, looking for the same thing, unchanging in themselves or in the plot. i waited for this book to pick up and it never did.
the writing was also strange—a lot of moments where something would happen, and then it would be rhetorically referred to as if it didn't. a character spots another character, and then 2 sentences later, when he starts speaking to her: "he'd managed to find me after all." like, no, he just saw you. we just talked about that. "she'd used her patron's name, hoping it would open doors. which it had." okay, why did we have to say that then. it resulted in me going back and rereading a lot of paragraphs and getting frustrated.
the ending and romance came out of nowhere, after hundreds of pages of sexual harassment, but there were parts of this i enjoyed.
i just wish there were more of them.
bottom line: more foxes, more food, less weirdness.
(2.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
reading murakami is like a game of russian roulette, except instead of a blank it's a wonderful one of a kind work of brain-expanding magical realism reading murakami is like a game of russian roulette, except instead of a blank it's a wonderful one of a kind work of brain-expanding magical realism and instead of a bullet it's misogyny...more
the REAL haunting was the disappointment we found along the way.
and we found so many:
the names in this — lucky, maverick, rebel — are so insane as to the REAL haunting was the disappointment we found along the way.
and we found so many:
the names in this — lucky, maverick, rebel — are so insane as to actually continually take me out of the story. it's like reading a quirky romance novel while a series of "unique baby names i love but am not going to use" instagram reels autoplays at the same time.
beyond that, the romance (which is, yes, the plot), centers around maverick (sigh), who is a supernatural ghost hunter type tv show guy, being extremely protective of lucky (don’t even get me started), who is…also a supernatural type tv show ghost person.
i do not like Alpha Male Protection type setups at the best of times and this particular one is just ridiculous. this is the rough equivalent of the vp of your department calling you at 9:45 am every monday through friday while you write emails because he’s worried for your safety. THIS IS JUST WHAT BOTH OF YOU DO FOR A LIVING.
she also says at one point, completely seriously, that she avoids anywhere she thinks ghosts might be. she says this in conversation with her ghost-hunter love interest, while in their second haunted location, while in the midst of filming their second ghost-centered project.
there are so many moments like that: very self-serious, emotional conversations that actually have no connection to what is literally going on. i don't know if i've ever felt this before, let alone said it, but it seems like this book was written on vibes. no plot, no plan. just whatever happens happens, logic be damned.
this book is so weird, and so unnecessarily long, and so frustrating. i can't quote to you from my ARC but it also feels...the polite term would be "under-edited."
i can really see why so many of the reviews are from readers who couldn't get through it.
bottom line: i didn't DNF this book, but i might as well have.
it's a spoiler, but (view spoiler)[fox girls (hide spoiler)] are so in right now! this is the third new release i'vi hope this series goes on forever.
it's a spoiler, but (view spoiler)[fox girls (hide spoiler)] are so in right now! this is the third new release i've read about them this year, and i'm not mad. they're cool as hell.
this didn't feel at all like an installment of this series, which is normally slow, storytelling-centered, and thematically meaningful.
this was a fun creepy mystery with a plot twist. not what i expected, but again, good with me.
i do think this fell apart towards the end, having bit off more than its barely 100 pages could chew, but who can blame it.
i don't think we needed all of these characters, and i was annoyed by the traces of romance, but if you have the opportunity to cram upsetting taxidermy, crumbling old castles, scary girls, fatal flaws, mysterious teapots, talking birds, booby trap planning, messy libraries, murder-based secrets, manually turning a mansion haunted, estranged adult sons who are biters, and bad seafood in one book, you take it no matter the cost.
and the cost is not that steep.
bottom line: this book has everything. except the right page count.
(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
i wanted to read this because it just seemed so goddamn cool. and then it WAS so goddamn cool.
the art of this was incredibly beautiful, AND the story i wanted to read this because it just seemed so goddamn cool. and then it WAS so goddamn cool.
the art of this was incredibly beautiful, AND the story was so cool. that combination deserves the graphic novel achievement award.
i wish there were more time to spend on the romance so it'd be less insta-love-y, but that's often the tradeoff you take with mythology / fairytales anyway.
and i'll take it!
bottom line: all the highs and lows of mythology and graphic novels. but mostly the highs.
the feeling of satisfaction when you finish an incredibly long book: wired
the feeling of satisfaction when you finreading incredibly long books: tired
the feeling of satisfaction when you finish an incredibly long book: wired
the feeling of satisfaction when you finish an incredibly long book without enjoying it for even a moment: whatever is better than wired
reading murakami is always a balancing act between how brilliant he is and how misogynistic he is, and let me tell you this one was pretty heavily leaning one way!
it is actually just arduous and difficult to read 1,318 pages of women being described by their breasts. i have a pretty high tolerance for sexism in media, perhaps to a worrying extent, but sexual assault, pedophilia, and harassment were at the core of this plot. it's a lot harder to ignore the very strange way murakami writes women when that's the case.
but even beyond that, reading from the perspective of a female character who cannot go a chapter without thinking about her boobs...it gets old! i don't know when murakami encountered a beautiful woman who apologized to the ugly older men she slept with for the size of her chest, but i'm praying for her healing.
bottom line: i'm going to keep reading murakami. i'm just going to delete this book from my brain....more
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