"You do not have to run if it hurts too much. You are already on track. That is more than enough."
I've been pondering how to write this review becaus"You do not have to run if it hurts too much. You are already on track. That is more than enough."
I've been pondering how to write this review because I want it to do justice to A Thousand Blues. But alas, I'm a scatterbrain hot mess so bear with me here. The summary here is that it's a heavy book that will break your heart but also feel like a hug, sort of like Lonely Castle in the Mirror.
Now, I don't want to play the comparison game here, but it's the best way I can talk about this book. Lonely Castle in the Mirror deals with human connection, the brutality of being young, family issues, and bullying (amongst other heavy topics). A Thousand Blues deals with a different set of topics that are equally devastating: animal rights, grief, the people that are left behind once your work is taken over by robots/AI, disability rights, being poor, AND going through life trying to avoid bad feelings.
I know, I know. It's a lot. This book is a lot and I found it to be perfectly balanced.
A Thousand Blues is the story of Coli and Today. Coli is a sentient robot made for the sole purpose of riding a horse (Today) in horse races. Today gets hurt during a race and Coli falls down the horse, getting trampled over by all the horses that ran behind. Therefore, Coli will be destroyed and Today will be euthanized. That is until two sisters come into the scene and work together to save both Coli and Today.
The story is told in POVs: Coli's, the sisters, the mother, and Today's vet. They all go through their own different stories and struggles, which is why this book has so much going on. I found the mother's chapters to be the most devastating for me and I found myself crying more than I'd like to admit. And, as dumb as it is, everything about Today made me furious (and as dumb as this will sound, reading about Today's love for running and the ending just had me sobbing. I love running and I saw myself in there lol).
I came into this book knowing nothing of the story and I almost stopped reading: I hate AI and sentient robots, the fact that the robot is named Broccoli made my eye twitch when I first read it. But I'm so glad I gave it a chance because this is one of the best books I've read in ages.
Bits I liked:
"She wished she had run so far away that she wouldn't have been able to come back. Instead of stopping at the racetrack she should have gone all the way to the southern tip of the Korean peninsula. She had not made the most of that first chance at freedom, and after that she hadn't come across another."
---
"Are you being avoidant? No, I'm not. Then why are you hiding? So I won't be so exhausted. Are you sure you're not running away?"
---
"'Time, for me, is frozen. It froze while I was waiting for him, while he was in that burning build-ing. It froze during the span of time I believed he would-must-walk out alive.'
'Why?' asked Coli.
'I've forgotten how to make time start ticking again.'"
---
"'Time keeps passing as long as you re not dead. Even if it stops for a moment it's not a problem.
Coli didn't respond.
'In fact, maybe that's not a bad thing for time to stop for a moment. If you speed through life you miss things.'"
Thank you Doubleday for the ARC! This is an unbiased review....more
Grief is such a heavy feeling. You never get rid of it. Once you’ve lost someone, you carry their absence with you, but you also carry the unasked queGrief is such a heavy feeling. You never get rid of it. Once you’ve lost someone, you carry their absence with you, but you also carry the unasked questions, the things you never got to say or do with them, and the goodbyes that were stolen from you. Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon is a book for those of us who know what it feels like to have lost someone. What if you could meet that person you lost one more time? Would you do it?
Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon is the first instalment of The Go-Between series. The go-between is a person who has a gift and can arrange for you to meet a deceased individual. The only rules are that, when you are alive, you only get to meet one dead person. And when you are dead, you can only accept to see one person. The deceased person has to accept meeting you and you can only meet them one night while the full moon is out.
The book is told in five episodes. Each episode follows different characters who seek the go-between to speak with someone who has passed away. We learn about their background leading to losing the person and why they’d want to see them again (i.e., what is left unsaid/questions to ask), how they find and meet the go-between, and the day they meet their loved one.
I adored the first, fourth (I’ll be forever crying about Kirari and Tsuchiya), and fifth stories. I was crying non-stop in the last 100 pages, the book made me so emotional. And it was strange because I did not care for the second and third stories, but the ending of both had me IN TEARS. It was such an emotional rollercoaster of a book. The episodes were just so easy to read and it was so easy to empathize with the characters. The last chapter was so satisfying because we got answers about who the kid is, how the go-between business works, and a beautiful reflection of the whole thing (meeting with the dead).
I’m going to keep this review short. This is a great book for book clubs and just as therapy. I think the reflection at the end about how important it is for us, the living, to feel the dead watching us was beautiful. I just felt it was all very touching. Again, as someone who has said a thousand times that I’d give anything I had to see my grandma again, this book just broke me. It felt like a warm hug. I just wish the go-between was real. I can’t wait for the next book. (PS: I think I liked this more than Lonely Castle in the Mirror.)
Bits I highlighted: “Being a witness to a person’s pain isn’t something you can do half-heartedly.”
–– “Don’t think about coming over here yet. It’s super dark.”
–– “...I still somehow believed I would make it out OK. I thought, there's no way I’m gonna die. (spoilers removed)... life is going to be so good from now on. Only good things would happen to us. I wasn't scared. I couldn’t breath, but I felt good. I knew you would be with me when I woke up.”...more
The Bound Worlds was the perfect ending to The Devoured Worlds. It’s always scary to read the last book in a series you love, but this not only exceedThe Bound Worlds was the perfect ending to The Devoured Worlds. It’s always scary to read the last book in a series you love, but this not only exceeded any expectations I had, but it did it beautifully.
If you know me, you know I love Megan E. O’Keefe’s space operas and I haven’t shut up about The Blighted Stars since I got my hands on that book. And here we are. It’s over and I’m in love with the ending. This was such a high-stakes book I knew, inevitably, characters would die. I told myself I’d be happy as long as a specific someone survived. And then I experienced the book through waves after waves of realization that I didn’t want anyone to die (not even he-who-shall-not-be-named).
The Bound Worlds felt like running an Iron Man (a crazy ‘obstacle course’ that not many people finish). And by the 85% mark, it all seemed to end… beautifully. But it wasn’t an ending. And what came after was such an emotional roller coaster I cried for the first time in three years (which is crazy, if this book has healed my tear ducts, I owe O’Keefe a beer lol). I’m going to do my thing and do my usual ‘fangirl’ review, meaning that I will talk about shit I keep obsessing about. I usually call it the ‘good’ and the ‘not-so-good’ list, but unlike Naira’s ‘to-stab’ list, my not-so-good list remains empty this time. This won’t have spoilers (but I will have spoiler talk at the end because wow).
- Characters: 10/10. Obsessed. What do I even say? I don’t do drugs, but what O’Keefe’s characters make me feel must be what snorting coke feels like. They’re funny, adorable, brilliant. By the end of the book I felt so dumb for how much I was crying. BUT I’ve spent so much time reading and re-reading about Nai, Tarq, Kav, and Kuma that I lowkey need them to come into existence and adopt me. - Twists: Shit man. Too many. So good. I didn’t expect half of them. If you’re reading this book, I’ll just tell you: don’t forget the Chinese rooms. And do keep in mind who resonates and who doesn’t. - No questions left unanswered and no loose ends: This. I had so many. All of them answered. Even at the end when I was bawling my eyes out and I was just thinking ‘I just don’t get why this had to happen.’ O’Keefe clarified it all brilliantly. And I do want to explain this wasn’t a deus ex machina kind of thing either. - The writing and pace: I love her writing. Pace-wise? Shit. This was fast-paced. You didn’t get a break until the 80% mark and then all shit blew up and the sobbing started. But I loved it. I wish we had 50 more pages after the end just to vibe with everyone and chill for two minutes. - Representation: I started my ‘O’Keefe journey’ with The Protectorate and I was coming from loving The Expanse series, and I was critical. Too critical. But the one thing that set O’Keege apart was just how deliciously diverse her characters are. We got nonbinary, we got trans, we got different ethnicities, we have straight, gay, old, and disabled (visually disabled but also the less visible kind). And it just rocks. I remember re-reading The Protectorate when I broke my right ankle because Sanda didn’t have a right leg and it just made me feel okay to know Sanda did not stop being badass and incredible for a single minute. And Naira is the same. I don’t have chronic pain or anything that I can sympathize with, but the visibility of this, the fact that we have a transgender main character, we have a nonbinary demisexual character, we have a mix of ethnicities and there is not an ounce of hate or discrimination. I always say sci-fi authors should do this: you’re creating a world and you have the power to make normal things normal. Sexual or ethnic minorities struggle in the real world, create one that isn’t as shitty. And O’Keefe is the queen of that. - The badass women: Naira, Kuma, Helms, Ward, Dr Sharp, Jana (special mention to Paison here). The men are also OK, I guess, but the women ...more
The world is ending. Not Earth - Earth is long gone. But the generational ship taking what may be the last remnants of humanity to a new planet. The wThe world is ending. Not Earth - Earth is long gone. But the generational ship taking what may be the last remnants of humanity to a new planet. The world (the ship) is broken and cannot be fixed, and they are too far away from the destination for anyone to save themselves by taking a shuttle. Myrra is a contract worker - basically, the granddaughter of someone who got a place in the ship by giving themselves and their brethren away as slavers - she works for a family of rich politicians, one of the few people to know about the world being about to end. They commit suicide to avoid being sucked into space and leave her alone with their baby daughter, persecuted by Security for possible murder and kidnapping. But here’s the thing, if she doesn’t run, she’ll spend her last weeks in a cell. And she doesn’t want that.
I am a sucker for character-focused stories. I usually become obsessed with a random character and instantly give five stars to a book but, here? I loved everyone (except Rachel, fuck Rachel). Myrra was so easy to empathize with, Charlotte was adorable, Tobias was amazing. The book was also strangely slow-paced. You’d think, the world is about to end, we have a runaway, and police after her, but we spend so much time in the characters’ heads and flashbacks. This is something I usually hate, but I somehow loved it. It made every disaster, every wrong turn, every bit of bad news so emotional.
The book is told in two POVs - Myrra’s and Tobias’ - and there are little bits in between about the cities they visit. They introduce how the cities came to be and explain how they will be destroyed once the world ends. It just broke me - seeing Myrra getting to Nabat and then being immediately introduced to how Nabat would end. It was like reading about a ghost town before it happened. I think I only started understanding we were actually going to see the cities die in the middle of the book, after a few disasters had happened, and my reactions went from ‘holy fuck’ to total dread very quickly.
The constant reminder of the world dying and the impending death of the characters instils this crazy sense of urgency in the book. Urgency for what? I don’t know. Finishing the book it’s quite ironic how stupidly hopeless I was while reading it. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a happy ending more strongly than I wanted it in this book, and I got it but not the way I hoped. And I think I cried about it as the characters themselves also cried about it, so that was cute.
I finished this the other day and I’m still speechless. The sorrow of the last few chapters has not left me. I sobbed for 50 pages and that’s insane. I still think a lot about some bits here and there that were brutally sad and they just got me really bad too. I don’t know, I just hope Marissa Levien writes something else soon because the fact that she’s only got this book out feels like a personal attack and I’ll be speaking about this in therapy.
So anyways, I recommend this to anyone who’s looking for something new and who likes: being sad, social commentary about inequality and class, character-focused stories, slow-paced dystopias, and how scary space is.
Fave bits: - And when the world gives way, she thought, will everyone here live as ghosts in space and haunt the place we once occupied, among the shards of metal and debris?”
- They have been waiting for oblivion; it has always stood right outside their door. There will be relief in finally meeting it, mixed in with all the pain, like pulling out a loose tooth—the soreness, the uncertainty, then a pop, a sting, a bleed, and: done.”
- “It was always going to be too much, at some point,” he said.
- My life is remarkable now, for having seen all this with you. ...more
I first learnt about asexuality and the ace spectrum in July 2018. I could even tell you the date it was, and that is because that same night I e-mailI first learnt about asexuality and the ace spectrum in July 2018. I could even tell you the date it was, and that is because that same night I e-mailed the author of this book, Angela Chen, and I sort of thanked her for making me feel normal. Now, I'm what some call a "lucky" ace - I don't hate sex nor am aromantic, but I feel different about physical relationships than everyone else around me and it's always felt a bit alienating. Chen made me feel I wasn't an alien back in 2018 when I e-mailed her and said "I think I'm ace", and this book did it all over again for me. I don't wish 2018-me would have had this book because 2021-me is very happy I read it at the moment. Even now that there's ace communities out there (i.e., r/asexuality and their awesome memes on Reddit), it's nice to have a reminder about how it is okay to be the 1%.
Angela Chen makes an incredible Asexuality 101 including stuff that I rarely see other aces talk about: race, disabilities, etc. It dives into the asexuality spectrum, allo-ace relationships, consent, and the hypersexualization of women and the LGBTQA+ community (and yes, ace hate too).
Many reviewers mention how this is a must-read for everyone, and I feel I'm biased but I agree. But I sort of do. It's not only about ace and what it means, but also about consent, and what glorifying promiscuity or kinky sex does to people who are "prude" or "vanilla", etc.
“It seems that the message is ‘we have liberated our sexuality, therefore we must now celebrate it and have as much sex as we want,’” says Jo, an ace policy worker in Australia. “Except ‘as much sex as we want’ is always lots of sex and not no sex, because then we are oppressed, or possibly repressed, and we’re either not being our true authentic selves, or we haven’t discovered this crucial side of ourselves that is our sexuality in relation to other people, or we haven’t grown up properly or awakened yet.”
Anywhoo - absolute favorite book. Bought the audiobook (full price) and now I'm going to get the ebook because there's so much to highlight in here....more
If I ever bump my head into something and forget the books I've read, make sure that this one is the first one I pick up.
Lonely Castle in the Mirror If I ever bump my head into something and forget the books I've read, make sure that this one is the first one I pick up.
Lonely Castle in the Mirror follows the story of seven children who are transported into a magic castle that exists, for around a year, behind their mirrors. In the castle, they meet the Wolf Queen, who tells them one of them will be granted a wish if he or she finds the Wishing Key but, if any of them stay after 5 PM Japan time, they will all be eaten. What seems like a quest in a magic castle, also becomes the refuge of these kids who have stopped going to school for one reason or another and find friendship and support with each other.
This book is just perfect. The story is beautifully crafted and the ending holds many surprises. Perhaps most importantly, Lonely Castle in the Mirror keeps you guessing. As a reader, you root for these kids and you're very conflicted as to what ending would be good - Who should use the wish? What would be the wish? Should the Wish be used at all? I was so worried I would be disappointed at the ending, but I was in happy tears and feeling all warm inside. And then I had sad tears because I don't get to spend time with the characters anymore (until I pick this book up again).
This is one of my new favorite books. I am so glad I picked it up....more
I don't know what it is with me and Caliban's War, but it just gets better every time I pick it up? I wasn't even annoyed at Prax's chapte2023 re-read
I don't know what it is with me and Caliban's War, but it just gets better every time I pick it up? I wasn't even annoyed at Prax's chapters this time and I'm so happy about it (though it may be because I just lowered my expectations when he came up or only focused on Amos, who knows).
Anyways, my thoughts remain the same: this is Avasarala's world and we're all living in it. But the real MVP for me is, obviously, Bobbie. We get to know her right before 'the incident' and the traumatized Bobbie we are left with is nothing less than a determined Valkyrie out for revenge - only to find a pistachio-eating grandma that then guides her to the 'right path' lol
Aight, I don't think I need to write anything here. Me is just fangirling. I'll just end this by saying Jim+Naomi make me smile, I will never not be obsessed with Amos, Alex is a cutie, and Cotyar deserves a hug.
Here's a gif of my two wives.
[image]
Bye.
2021 re-read
DANG. I wish I could be one of these people who actually review books instead of having emotional breakdowns over them, but YEAH. This book is just everything to me. I'm going to make it a thing to re-read it every year.
Bobbie? My fav valkyrie. I bought an MCRN tank top so I can workout to be like her. Yes.
Avasarala? My queen.
Amos? My big baby. I color-code my highlights and I use purple for stuff that makes me laugh, 70% of what he says it's purple.
I said it a thousand times, but Bobbie and Avasarala are just the most badass women ever written. One can only dream of being 2% as awesome as Bobbie is and dang, Chrisjen? I feel this is just her world and we just miserably live in it.
My only criticism here is that 1) Prax is Prax and if it weren't for Amos I would've skipped his chapters and 2) the TV show made such a hilarious spectacle of Avasarala, Bobbie, and Cotyar (I call 'em the ABC team) in the Guanshiying that the book version, which is very different, sort of feels like a let down. But still. God bless Bobbie.
---------- Review (2020)
Alright. Wow.
Just wow.
Avasarala and Bobbie have to be the two most badass women ever written.
I need to start re-reading this yearly. Running is the thing that gets me out of bed and I think about it all day. I used to say I hated running but lI need to start re-reading this yearly. Running is the thing that gets me out of bed and I think about it all day. I used to say I hated running but loved having run. But I’ve always been the type of runner who grins (and occasionally dances, yes) when I run. So I think it’s time to admit I actually enjoy running.
I like reading about running, but most running books are by actual athletes who prefer writing about the technicalities rather than the joy and process of running. Murakami’s relationship with running may be universal, but I haven’t found any memoir that expresses it so well. And it’s silly, but this book has made me cry every time I read it because I’m such a sap for this. I don’t run marathons like he does, I just don’t care. But I run daily and it’s what keeps my mental health in check and something that helps me work.
I especially love that Murakami writes about 1) running when you don’t feel like running, the relief of being done with your run. 2) How taking more than one day off running is a death sentence for your will to run. 3) How running is a negotiation between priorities: your inner world or what’s outside. (The amount of running accidents I’ve had proves I’m more of an inner world dumbass). 4) That moment when you’re mentally DONE with a run but you’re not actually done, and you know that if you slow down you’ll never get back to it, so you push.
Anyway, I’ll paraphrase, but my favorite bit is when he says we have just a couple of reasons to run and a grocery list of reasons not to. My main reason is that without running I’d be in jail for murder. You are all welcome. ...more
Third re-read - I will keep it short and sweet. I think I need to wait a couple years between re-reads as this was still very fresh in my mind. That bThird re-read - I will keep it short and sweet. I think I need to wait a couple years between re-reads as this was still very fresh in my mind. That being said, this is still a five stars read for me. This time around, I was team Noa again and I surprised myself by not loving Hansu (I don’t want to say I hated him, but he felt ugly and wrong) (which is perfect since I am going to hate him in the TV show. Istg I could not be more angry tjat they have picked Lee Min-ho for Hansu. UGH).
I also tried to engage with the latter chapters because I have a feeling they will be prominent in the show. I still didn’t much care for them (the whole Hana stuff is very meh to me). But at least I tried.
Anyways, there I go. See you in a couple years, Sunja.
——
Second time reading this and still five fat stars from me, it sort of felt like going back home to 'my' family if that makes sense.
Hansu is still my fave. I've been saying he's my favorite character out of every book I've read for years and the throne is still his ✨ Bless him.
Also, maybe I've changed since I read this, but this time around I sympathized more with Mozasu than I did with Noa and it gave me a whole new perspective of what the title means. I think Sunja makes the reflection of the little opportunities Koreans have in Japan a few times, and yet the first time I read this I was quick to go along with Noa and deem pachinko as the Korean 'curse' rather than a means to survive, too. Idk. I feel like I keep trying to decide which son I like the most and it's sort of as if I was a mother trying to pick a favorite son? I wonder if other readers have a clear favorite or Lee just made a real good job at making likable characters?
PS. I do have to say that the weird pacing of the book did bother me a bit this time and the last part of it felt like it came out of nowhere.
Loading...
