rcsebudbcy

[rcsebudbcy]

Cover Art Guesses

YES!

Time to guess the meaning of the cover art. I'm going to ignore certain things because the artist definitely has a style and you can check their work out at https://www.instagram.com/carloseqo/

Also please take everything I say with a grain of Salt - I like to have fun. And today that means finding references in a picture like its a Static Image in an English Final.

Firstly: Boy does Hunt look good. Thank Goodness The first book was red and we know that blue is the colour of the book and Hunt isn't actually blue and therefore I can admire the Art.

Does this meant the Third book is House of Shadow and Flame because surely is there was a Water book that one would be blue right? So we might also have our final book title.

Got some Thunder and Lightning vibes - mmmm storm god? I like that.

Wings! yes!

No more crown of thorns!

Look Closely At Hunt's Face... I'll get a close up for you....

We have some lovely cut outs in terms of flowers and carved porcelain style on his skin - but overall the artist also loves this in other images too - so there is a style there.

He appears to either have horns above each eyebrow, or if you look above the nose it could be a crown or moon.

The shape that isnt really repeated elsewhere in the cover except on the head below him where it looks like eyebrows - but these "horns" go in the opposite direction and they look like Horns.

It could also be a sideways crescent moon though.

The crown could have three points, as light is directly hitting the centre of his face its trick to see the central shape in the middle.

Those eyes? One Bright and the other dark? are these showing that Hunt has mixed ancestry and some hidden secret? It also matches Bryce on the HOEAB cover because she had one eye dark and one eye light. While Bryce's were the whites of the eyes that were dark and light Hunts is the iris.

Snake? Oh I guess that is some garden of Eden reference? (BUT also, please realise this artist loves snakes so It might just be a snake and same for the crescent in the heart of Hunt's chest.).

Don't talk to me about the Gold crescent whoever did the text overlay for the cover title cut the poor snake out badly out of the moon. Hopefully we can see the image in all its glory like the original CC:HOEAB cover image.

Wolf Sword perhaps? Is this a reference to Sabine? is this a reference to the wolf sword that had power that Danika wielded for the family in HOEAB? Or is this a reference to another mythical creature? I thought it was the wolf because we have wolves also surrounding him on the edges of the cover.

They appear to be baying and surrounding hunt.

They could also be a reference to other shapeshifters since it has been mentioned that there are more.

A little trickier to see but i'm sure people have already found is the Alicorn! A pegasus unicorn. Aka a reference to Jelly Jubilee (or to Alicorn's in general? maybe? can I get some please?).

[rcsebudbcy]

That's Jelly Jubilee over Hunt's heart awww😭

[rcsebudbcy]

It has been a while since I have last written a review on a book (sadly so) and in addition to that, this is the first review to go up on my book blog on Tumblr. I want to preface my review with a notice that English is not my first language, hence mistakes may occur in the following review.

SPOILERS AHEAD

***

After having The Illuminae Files Book 1 „Illuminae“ by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff on my radar ever since it was released in 2015, I finally came around to reading it this year, 2021. I was mildly intrigued by the concept of this book since it is not written in typical prose much as you are probably used to reading. Instead, the story unfolds itself through chat records, audio and video transcripts, E-mails, documents of other sorts and visuals. It is presented as a collection of files (hence the title of the series) and right of the bat we get to know that everything we are going to be exposed to has happened roughly a year in the past.

I will first and foremost praise the book for its intentions. The concept is quite unique and you won‘t find many books with a similar style. Kudos for creativity. Though: Personally, the combination of a sci-fi story and a non-consistent way of storytelling resulted in a huge lack of enjoyment. It felt info-dump-y at times; and although I rarely have many problems with being thrown into cold water and a pool of information my brain cannot comprehend instantly at the start of a book, Illuminae genuinely made me feel dumb all throughout the entire novel. I can somewhat excuse this by saying that I usually never read sci-fi - when I do, it happens very sparsely - yet it is a matter of fact that I enjoyed this book less and less the more I read it.

Next, I want to touch upon the writing style. While I liked the E-mails and especially the chat excerpts between Kady and Ezra (I thought they were most accurately written from a teen‘s perspective), I was unbelievably close to ripping my hair out and sending the book flying across my room (I could not practice the latter urge. I borrowed my copy from the library) whenever there were the security camera transcripts, as well as AIDAN‘s data pages. I have no idea what happened there but in comparison to the files Kady retrieved or the E-mails - both of which were written quite realistically in my opinion - those felt way over the top and childishly exaggerated.

The subjectiveness of the video transcripts was horrible: It distanced me so much from the story itself because they felt utterly comical. The attempts (failed miserably) at humor made me roll my eyes and sigh more than I could keep track of. It seems as if the book wants to be more than it is. My rating would have improved by a lot if the seriousness of the story was kept consistent and believable.

AIDAN…was a whole mess. The pages dedicated to his POV contributed to the pain this book inflicted on me…a lot. Obviously, this takes place sometime in the future – 2075? 2175? Perhaps even 3375? – so I am aware that there possibly could be a time in which AIs are able to simulate human emotions. I am aware that it is not entirely impossible to program an AI to have a fraction of self-awareness. Yet, it did not click with me that AIDAN is able to feel the desire to hold someone (Kady) in his arms. He felt too human (which was the point, probably), which in itself is not a problem, but then he constantly emphasizes how he is only a code and that he does not have a human’s physique. I GET it. Thank you AIDAN for reminding me a zillion times that you are – in fact – an AI.

In addition to this, I have yet another problem with AIDAN which has bothered me oh so much. Why is he speaking (thinking? BEING??) so poetically? I could easily find ten metaphors and three similes within two pages of AIDAN-text. It already bothers me plenty when real human of flesh and blood speak in an unrealistically flowery style – although I love pretentious writing. But then, in AIDAN’s case, you have a AI speaking more pretentiously than I have ever read before. It was a-nnoy-ing. Jeez.

More critique to come. I am convinced that I am part of the minority who does not think Illuminae deserves the hype it gets. I have to be; the Goodreads rating is 4.25. I am going to try to keep the following critique short.

A) Kady. She. Is. Annoying. I cannot pinpoint exactly as to Why I find her so unbearable. She just…is. Presumably because of the whole breaking-up-with-Ezra situation as well as her thinking a lot of herself. There are moments in which I like her. But in hindsight, she is stuck in my brain as The Unlikable Girl.

B) Kady and Ezra should have went the lovers to friends route. Them rebuilding their romantic relationship did in no way further the plot. It did not even feel natural that they made up via text and E-Mail. Clearly, they had not much of a choice, considering they were thousands of kilometres apart on two different spaceships. Still, I believe Kaufman and Kristoff could have found a better way to put the relationship of those two in rice.

C) Ezra’s death. He should simply have stayed dead. Would have made the whole thing much more dramatic and impactful. I see no reason as to why Ezra should have been spared from death. Especially because the vibe of this story was dark enough to justify it. I loved the plot twist of AIDAN revealing that he had fooled Kady. And all the epic-ness ceased away when it was resolved in the end that Ezra actually has not died. Totally lackluster.

Finally, my rating for Illuminae: One point five out of five stars. My biggest disappointment of the year. I was so excited to eventually read this book. I was ultimately let down by it and am not going to continue this series.

[rcsebudbcy]

you read one book and suddenly every song is Dark Academia.

[rcsebudbcy]

you read one book and suddenly every song is Dark Academia.

[rcsebudbcy]

Lesemonat Oktober Zweitausendzwanziig

- "Kill or Be Killed #3" von Ed Brubaker

- "Stolz und Vorurteil" von Jane Austen

- "Romeo und Julia" von Shakespeare (10/10/2020)

- "Der Vogelgott" von Susanne Röckel (10/10/2020)

- "Kill or Be Killed #2" von Ed Brubaker (02/10/2020)

[rcsebudbcy]

Willkommen!

Hier poste ich alles, was nicht in meinen Instagram-Feed soll.

Für die, die mich nicht kennen — hier ein paar Infos über mich.

Sprachen faszinieren mich und ich würde liebend gerne Linguistik studieren. (Der Fall wird nicht eintreten, weil die Zukunftsaussichten nicht so rosig aussehen...deshalb wende ich mich – vorausgesetzt, dass alles klappt – der (Kriminal-)Psychologie zu.)

Dieses Jahr entdeckte ich meinen absoluten Lieblingsautor, Hermann Hesse, ganz zufällig!

Einige meiner Lieblingsbücher sind: die "Splitterherz"-Trilogie von Bettina Belitz, "Unterm Rad" von Hermann Hesse, "Die Geheime Geschichte" und "Der Distelfink" von Donna Tartt, "House of Earth and Blood" von Sarah J. Maas, "Will Grayson" von John Green und David Levithan, "Two Boys Kissing" von David Levithan, die "Carry On"-Trilogie von Rainbow Rowell, und viele, viele mehr....

Ich liebe Bücher, die mir seelischen Schmerz bereiten...solche, bei denen man weint und weint und lacht und etwas mehr weint...

TEE! Und Kaffee!!

"Stufen" und "Der Dichter" von Hermann Hesse weckten mein Interesse an Poesie (...Dass ich anfing zu weinen, während ich "Der Dichter" zum ersten Mal las, bleibt unter uns...)

Musik und Ballett sind zwei der wichtigsten Elemente in meinem Leben!

Sollten mir mehr Fakten über mich einfallen, werde ich diese Liste erweitern!<3

Viel Spaß auf diesem Blog! Meine Inbox, PMs und Einreichungen (?lol) sind natürlich offen^^