Fortnightly Update

October 16-29, 2023

Late? Yes. But with good reason. I had to finish a different post before I could do this one. Have also just been juggling a few things I need to finish up by the end of the month, next month, year etc. So many things and when am I supposed to do them all?

Might have to give up sleeping tbh. We will see what happens :’)

Reading Updates

Before I Let Go by Marieke Nijkamp
I think this is one of those books that I know I had feelings about, but they’re not feelings that can really be explained. It was dark, devastating, and ominous. It was blunt. Nothing was held back or brushed over.
It left me with mixed feelings and questions, while also feeling satisfying and complete.
And I can’t explain it.
I do think it’s important to acknowledge what this book does though, because this is a book following two best friends. One of them is dead in the present day, but there are flashback chapters and letters that show us more of her.
I think the way Kyra’s bipolar is shown and the way those around her react to it is important because it shows both extremes. It shows how people around her treated her differently when she was first diagnosed, how they were cautious and distant, to how they suddenly loved her when they decided she was useful. The two extremes of rejection and support, and how they can both be toxic and harmful.
It also shows how she felt about it, how it affected her and the ways it affected her life. Throughout the book, we get to see what her episodes were like, and what she was like during them.
All of this is shown through a combination of present-day chapters, flashback chapters, and letters Kyra wrote to Corey.

The House for Lost Things by C.G. Drews
(this is the third book in The Boy Who Steals Houses trilogy, which, if you don’t know, is my favourite book, and you should totally go read it)
It’s over. It ended. No thoughts, only screaming.
I wish, I really wish I could give a coherent explanation of this series and what I love about it, but I fear it is impossible.
As much as I love this series and would read it forever if I could, I do truly believe this book had the perfect ending and was a brilliant conclusion to the series. It wrapped everything up so well, it gave us (and them) hope.
Honestly, I was so scared to read the ending but I keep thinking about it now (even almost two weeks later) and it's one of the most satisfying endings to a story or series I've seen.

Goosebumps: Why I’m Afraid of Bees by R.L. Stine
Please, why was this so bad? It had a kind of interesting idea, but the execution was just… boring and weird. Not good weird. Just… weird.
Again, low-tier Goosebumps.

Cutting Your Teeth by Caylan Macrae
Bisexual vampires and family trauma? Sign me the heck up!
I’ve had a few books let me down lately, but this one did not. It definitely has a few issues that need to be fixed, but the overall book was pretty good.
I did a full review of this one on the Quiet Writers blog.

Tokyo Ghoul by Sui Ishida
All fourteen of them…
I expected this to be really good, but I was honestly a little disappointed. I think if not for all the issues that made it difficult to read, it would have been great. This series has a really interesting idea, fun characters, and, of course, trauma.
But there were a lot of things that made it hard to read, and that made it hard to enjoy.
At times, it feels like it’s just being dragged out. There are chunks of information that are repeated, drawn-out information that feels unnecessary, to a point where it feels like I'm reading a textbook or Wikipedia page just shoved in the middle of a chapter.
There are skit pages, which I guess are supposed to be for fun, but they’re just shoved into the middle of the book, often not in the right place for the timeline, and they serve little to no purpose.
Then there’s the speech. We have speech bubbles that aren’t pointed or aligned, making it unclear who is talking during a conversation. Sometimes there will be a single bubble on one page that looks like it's still the same conversation, but then on the next page you realise nope, that's an entirely different scene and they just shoved it into the middle of the previous scene. The background text will sometimes appear so that half is on one page, and the rest of the phrase doesn’t show up for three pages, so you go through all the conversations still taking place and then have to flick back to see how this phrase started because you’ve finally found the end of it.
There was also a whole heap of stuff left open at the end and hinted at a sub-plot throughout the series but never actually went into that (so I'm assuming that's what Re is about? but who knows at this point).
I still somewhat enjoyed reading this series, but there is a lot that felt unnecessary, quite a bit that wasn’t wrapped up or concluded at all, and a fair bit that just isn’t well structured.
On a positive note: Juzo alone makes the entire thing very worth it.

Writing Updates

To continue from the previous update: I finished the Quiet Writers website. I also updated my own website. But I’m now considering adding another page to the Quiet Writers site to link the reviews we’ve done… not sure yet.

This month’s Patreon story was supposed to be a horror/spooky vibes kind of story. I had one in mind, half-written, planned out. I also had several backup options. But they just would not cooperate.
So instead, I put them all aside and pulled up an idea I’d had a few months ago. I’ve been thinking about this story, but have made zero effort towards actually writing it.
But now it’s done: a sort of retelling of The Princess and the Pea, but it’s gay. I’m quite excited about it, actually (maybe because it’s been flitting around in my head for months, who knows). This month’s story is called From Pianos to Petals, and you can read it here.

Now I just have to write November’s story, finish everything for The Colours Started Shining Through, and somehow do NaNoWriMo… which starts in less than two days, but I keep forgetting about it and have done zero prep. But it’s totally fine.

Absolutely fine.

We got this.