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Which Book Are You Currently Reading?

Cfrock

Keep it strong
Joined
Mar 17, 2012
Location
Liverpool, England
Nevernight - Jay Kristoff
This is such a wonderfully indulgent, adolescent, edgelord book. It kicks off with parallel scenes of the protagonist's first time having sex and first time killing, and then goes on with a school of assassins, a burning hunger for revenge, dozens of bloody, violent deaths, and powers over shadows and darkness, because black is the coolest colour.

At no point is this book embarrassed of itself, nor should it be. It's actually well written, unlike a lot of books born from the same love of unhappy endings and smoking at school. I'll definitely check out the sequels.
 
Nevernight - Jay Kristoff
This is such a wonderfully indulgent, adolescent, edgelord book. It kicks off with parallel scenes of the protagonist's first time having sex and first time killing, and then goes on with a school of assassins, a burning hunger for revenge, dozens of bloody, violent deaths, and powers over shadows and darkness, because black is the coolest colour.

At no point is this book embarrassed of itself, nor should it be. It's actually well written, unlike a lot of books born from the same love of unhappy endings and smoking at school. I'll definitely check out the sequels.

The fan art looks like Castlevania.

I approve.
 

Mamono101

生きることは痛みを知ること。
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Nov 17, 2011
Location
The Makai
Recently just finished Imaginary Friend, by Stephen Chbosky. This book was really good and reminded me of early Stephen King novels both with the style of the writing and structure of the plot.

I also recently finished I’ll Give You The Sun, by Jandy Nelson. The concept was interesting as was the structure. Two twins, one girl, one boy, both fall in love with the same guy. At the same time something happens that shatters their relationship. The book is told from both perspectives but one perspective is in the past, and the other 3 years in the future which helps keep the mystery about what happened to their relationship. My major complaint is the ending of the book. It ended on a happy note, but felt extremely forced and unnatural to the way the plot seemed to be going.

And currently reading All The Bright Places, by Jennifer Niven, about the relationship between a girl dealing with her sister’s death, and a boy who wants to kill himself. They meet when the boy stops the girl from killing herself one day at school.
 

Cfrock

Keep it strong
Joined
Mar 17, 2012
Location
Liverpool, England
Seventeen - Hideo Yokoyama
The last book I read was very fancy with its language and vivid with its imagery. This was the exact opposite, being very direct and to-the-point, even reiterating things again and again as reminders. It could come off as dry but it draws you into the newspaper office environment all the more for having a, I suppose, journalistic 'accent'.

The story is about Yuuki during coverage of the worst real-life air crash in history and how that one week of his career helped him re-evaluate what his life meant and what was important to him. It's moving, but with a kind of emotional distance. His job is so stressful and his life seems so unfulfilling that there's an inherent tension not so much in what he's specifically doing but in his circumstances in general. The book makes you long for the release its ending finally gives you.

It was good.
 

Cfrock

Keep it strong
Joined
Mar 17, 2012
Location
Liverpool, England
Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Pretty good. Feels a bit rushed in places, and it meanders a little (insert river joke here) but not to the point of distraction. There's two main plot threads going on that aren't related to each other and the book basically drops one while it focuses on the other a few times as the story goes on. It's not as bad as in some other books I've read, but it does feel a bit sloppy at times.

My main gripe would be the author masturbating about London so much. You get this in any book written by someone who lives in the place the book is set. We get the names of streets and brief histories of locations and buildings every single time anything happens, and it's only ever interesting to people who live in those places. Even then it's not interesting to most because you're not here for a amateur guided tour, you're here for a story.

It's never just running around a corner, it's running down Bow Street and turning on the corner where it meets Russel Street and Wellington Street. It's a kind of literary paradox because writers who do this tend to not describe their setting, instead relying on real-world references to do that work for them. The problem is that unless you know these places as intimitely as the writer these are just names of streets and buildings that may as well be fictional. The writer uses real places to make the story more vivid and grounded, but by doing so they eschew the scene-setting description that actually makes a story vivid and grounded.

I personally know exactly what Bold Street is like, but saying 'I walked down Bold Street' and expecting the real-world reference to be enough isn't going to give you anything close to what that place is like. If I want you to know what I know, the street name alone isn't going to do the job. I'll still have to describe it the way I would a fictional street, but Ben Aaronovitch doesn't do this for his beloved London. Thankfully, most of the story takes place in the one part of London I've actually spent more than a few minutes in, so it didn't get in the way of the story too much, but it's a pet peeve of mine when a setting falls flat because the writer knows it too well and assumes their audience does as well.

Overall though, it was a decent book, and I would never have guessed that the creepy maid creature would bite a man's willy off with her tuppence.
 
Trump vs. China by Newt Gingrich

I've currently read the first part, which is 150 or so pages, and I've learned a fair amount about China that I didn't know. What was perhaps most revealing to me is how far ahead of us they are when it comes to 5G development and that the U.S. has a 5G problem due to not being able to use the same low frequency other countries will use due to using it for the Department of Defense.
 

Cfrock

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Mar 17, 2012
Location
Liverpool, England
Did he dress as girl to get mjolinr back???
Yeah, lmao. They trick a giant into thinking he's Freya and Thor eats a whole ox and loads of fish, all while trying to hide his big beard under a veil. As soon as he gets his hammer back he kills the giants because, like I said, Thor loves killing a giant :rosa:
 

GrooseIsLoose

Slickest pompadour in town
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Aug 16, 2019
Location
Skyloft
Concepts of physics by HC Verma

This book is probably the best book for theory as well as for exercise.
Every possible question on Mechanics, Thermodynamics, and Magnetism has been covered. But Modern physics was a bit to advanced for a higher secondary level book.

I rate this 4/5
 

Cfrock

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Mar 17, 2012
Location
Liverpool, England
The Morganville Vampires Omnibus - Rachel Caine
This was a single volume containing the first three books in the Morganville series. I'd never heard of it before but found this in WHSmiths for £3 (three vampire books for £3?! Sold!). It was alright. I mean, it's kind of like Twilight but not as... crap. It's urban fantasy written by a middle-aged woman who keeps thanking people on LiveJournal, which should give you a general idea of what it's like. There's nothing remarkable about these books but they were fun for what they were. I do like me some vampires, and some Goth girls, so I got on with it fine.

Worth the £3.
 

Princess Niki

Allons-y
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Aug 27, 2011
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Alola
I got bored so I started reading the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (I have them all in one book). The books are better than the movie cuz they have so much extra details, like the first chapter take place during that Podrace he talks about when it gets brought up, where he loses cuz of Sulbulba flashing him with his vents.
 

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