#RedSister

[quirkycatsfatstacks]

Red Sister ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Can somebody please explain why I didn't read Red Sister sooner? This book had been on my radar since it came out (2017), yet I never read it (until now, obviously). Why?! It's SO good; I wish I had let it into my life sooner.

There's a lot I could say about Red Sister. I worry that a lot of it would be near the spoiler side of things, so I will try to be careful. Believe it or not, there are two points of time for this book. There's Nona's present, which takes up most of the book, and then there's a point set in an indistinct future. That future has some dark implications, and it'll take readers most of the book to get to the bottom.

In truth, I don't know how I feel about that future timeline. At first, I wasn't invested in it (not knowing the characters involved yet). But by the end, I could see how it all tied together and had more than one reason for caring about those events. Still, I hope the next book further explores the time leading up to that moment. There's still so much to learn!

I want to say that the first chapter of this book is outright mean. Once I realized what Mark Lawrence was telling us, I felt like I had been slapped in the face. So do try to be prepared to get hit right away. But also, don't let that discourage you from the rest of the book because it is so worth it.

Highlights: Warrior Nuns Fantasy of Epic Proportions Stubborn/Determined Characters “Chosen One”

[asexualbookbird]

love when my book club book feelings are vindicated 🥰

RED SISTER is meh. and sounds like Lawrence did Weird Things with the ending too?? I will fimish it (I'm about 68% in) because it's just interesting enough and feedback wasn't abysmal. And yknow. Sunj cost etc etc

also! people showed up who didn't read it at all! which! is such a vibe! sincerely and unironically i love that. show up to a book club knowing nothing and deciding based on vibes if you want to actually read it what a fantastic way to go about things.

it was a fun group tonight and next we're reading Monk & Robot :D

[tanoraqui]

Other things I like to think happen in the wake of Leon Stamatis’s final death:

The will Uriah Connolly found wasn’t the first anyone had seen of Leon’s will, because of course Leon had updated copies backed up with his lawyer, bank, and a public notary. Instead, it was a draft of his next update, which he hadn’t yet finalized enough to officialize—not fully legal, but clearly intended. To Uriah’s mild embarrassment, it included 6 months of rent and etc. utility payments to himself and other relevant parties on behalf of Michael Tate and/or anyone else who might be sleeping on Leon’s couch at the time of Leon’s death.

Ben Affleck produced a eulogeic biopic of his friend Matt Damon. He considered starring in it as Matt Damon, but eventually decided (on advice of his new friend and formal jail neighbor Nica Stamatis) to direct instead. To Nica’s discomfort, he wrote in Nica in as the misremembered role Matt Damon initially gave her. He offered to let her play her own part; she declined. She asked Nicole if she wanted it and Nicole thought about it seriously but also declined—she likes being a newswoman.

“Matt Damon: The Story of Matt Damon by Matt Damon’s Friend Ben Affleck” may not have been a perfect movie, but it was made with so much obvious love that it won several major awards and launched Ben Affleck back into a real directing career.

Michael invited Autumn and Ada to the premiere. Carrington Vanderbilt, the man Matt Damon died trying to save, had minimal screen time, but in what he had, he was presented as a regretful and loving failure of a husband and father who is robbed of his chance to apologize just as Matt Damon is robbed of his chance to continue being Matt Damon. (Ben Affleck had consulted on the script with Nica, who'd forwarded him to Louisa.) On balance, it was…

Yeah, it was even weirder and more awkward than their first Wonderland date. But in a good way.

Michael and Autumn resumed dating shortly thereafter. He moved in with her and Ada in Providence and they got married in Wonderland. Tyrell was their wedding planner, of course. Louisa broke her own rule to photograph her best friend’s wedding—they were going to hire someone else; they did hire someone else, and Louisa kept telling the other person they were doing it wrong, and taking over. Phil smuggled himself back into Boston to sit on Autumn’s side of the aisle.

There are exactly 2 photos of Phil at the wedding: 1 from the other photographer of him throwing a delightedly laughing Ada (ringbearer ofc) in the air, and 1 clumsy one from Louisa of Phil tripping on a stray streamers and faceplanting in one last pile of cheese. There’s a less clumsy, though still not professional, photo taken by Gemma of Louisa in her Best Woman dress bent over with laughter as she wrestled her camera into place for that shot. Wendell has it framed.

Louisa and Wendell neither get married nor have children, though they do get a beagle. Bagel the beagle helps Louisa sniff out clues (usually food) and likes to harmonize with Wendell. Wendell actually makes this work, musically. He briefly blows up on TikTok for being “the guy who sings with his dog.”

Meanwhile, the Redsistance is still hard at work helping people get by, a task that has alas grown no easier with Emily officially resigned and living in New York. However, typically, it’s MD:TSoMDbMDFBA that really kicks off the downfall of the Bespin regime and everyone associated with it. She basically killed Matt Damon, and that other guy, the loser dad! Legion remains present in everyone’s homes, and its shops are still everywhere, but the people boot out Mayor and elect something like a moderate Democrat, who promptly drops 95% of the exploitative fare and jail things, and un-exiles the Wonderland community…though doesn’t do much to re-provide housing for them…(to be fair, other people do live there, now)…

That’s manageable, because also meanwhile, Dimitri and Mallory have befriended the secret rodent civilization living in a parallel city below Boston (as secret rodent civilizations live beneath most major cities in the world). They—the rats, mostly, but also mice, squirrels, etc—have become allies and business partners with the Wonderland community, much like at the end of The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (Pratchett).

Btw at some point Dimitri and Nica went on a road trip down the coast, maybe to visit relatives in Virginia. Along the way, they met the Jersey Devil (literally some sort of supernatural creature), and Mothman (a now-old man who played a prank with a good costume in the 60s and felt obliged to keep it up. Dimitri puts him in touch with Darby Cooper and they become happy penpals for the last years of Darby’s life.)

Isaiah and Melissa become a crack political activism team. They don’t always agree on exactly what the best path forward is, but they agree on most of their goals and it sometimes seems like they can almost read each others minds.

Mark Wahlberg starts vengefully stalking the guy who plays Matt Damon in MD:TSoMDbMDFBA, and ends up with a restraining order from Boston entirely. Fuck Mark Wahlberg.

Nica works in the Redsistance but she also goes back to work in Singer’s Sewing Machine and Vacuum Repair. Yeah, she’s rehired partly because of the amazing advertising of MD:TSoMDbMDFBA, but also because she was the best damn sewing machine repairer they ever had. She starts part-time—she’s also busy with the Redsistance; an unnoticeable, forgettable face is a real asset—but it’s not long before she’s full-time, and not long after that it becomes Singer&Stamatis Sewing Machine & Vacuum Repair. She keeps the name when old Mr. Singer finally retires, though she branches out to repairing more odds and ends of common household mechanisms.

It’s an innocuous little store. In the back room, while the proprietress repairs, she also hosts visiting revolutionaries, politicians, and the press, Hollywood directors and local artists, and one famously missing man who always comes home between adventures—who sometimes tugs her out, laughing, onto the road with him. She also welcomes anyone in the neighborhood who needs a good listening ear.

At some point, someone dies. Probably suddenly, maybe violently (they ARE all making trouble for powerful people, after all). Don’t ask me who; I refuse to contemplate it! Instead of moving on, however, they’re caught by Gemma in another crystal ball.

She hunted down the original supplier who made them for Magic Staples, see. “What the fuck, Gemma?” ask multiple people. “So we can say goodbye in our own time,” she says.

“…and it was an incredible tactical advantage for a bit there,” she admits. “Just briefly! Until they’re ready to move on!”

“…and I wanted to see if I could still do it,” she eventually confesses. (It’s all fine, though. Mostly, they all just get that extra chance to say goodbye, then Gemma breaks the ball.)

It turns out that the person who used to bless those crystal balls is the same seer who sold Dimitri those parting puzzle boxes. They’re completely unhelpful, information-wise, but they do advise Dimitri to visit China. Dimitri is still pretty busy fighting omnipresent capitalism in Boston, so he books a flight rather than try to get a job as some sort of sailor again. His plane goes down over the Pacific, but only one passenger is lost…Dimitri, of course.

Nica fights to remain calm. She’d know if he was dead, she’s sure. Somehow. Anyway, it’s Dimitri. Adventures just happen to him. He’ll be fine, and he’ll come home.

She’s right. Dimitri arrives home about a year later having found Amelia Earhart on one of those one-coconut tree islands where time doesn’t really move. (She, too, is Like This.) He brought her home with him. Dimitri and Amelia get married couple years after that.

They try to use Dimitri and Amelia's weird tropiness to bust Ethan's evil necromancy/mind control/cheese robot lab on Coney Island. Surely THAT'S a mystery to reveal to the world! Their attempts at contrivance keep failing, though; eventually they conclude that this sort of thing depends on whatever-it-is being an unsolved mystery to Dimitri and Amelia themselves (until they solve it). And they already know about the evil necromancy/mind control/cheese robot lab.

Fortunately, while Legion did immediately use its massive information-gathering reach and money to purchase as many of those fully functional glass balls as they could, and hired some skilled but unscrupulous psychics to summon ghosts into them, it turns out that it's an incredibly rare ghost who has both the wide-welcoming compassion and clockwork-like mind to function as the massive inter-human connector that Ethan and Legion seek. Leon was, as we all knew, both incredible and unique.

It all comes to a head at last when a young girl's grandmother dies, in one of NYC's many districts of immigrants. The grandmother was special because, among other things, she was strict and precise but always loving, and enough of a witch to own a really good old crystal ball (not one of the half-plastic knockoffs you get these days). The girl is special because, among other things, she, too, has some innate supernatural talent, and she doesn't want to let her grandmother (and sole guardian) go, and also she can talk to animals like the youthful protagonists of the Rescuers movies.

Cheese robots steal the crystal ball containing her grandmother's spirit. Her friends among the secret rodent city underneath NYC reach out to their allies in Boston for aid. The Bostonian rats tip off their trusted humans. Legion is still a massive evil international corporation which may or may not actually be run by humans, but its necromancy/mind control department is broken for good by the power of bildungsroman.

Emily files for divorce.

[unicorn-lullaby]

I might not be able to make SSO RP videos like the actual proper creators BUT I want to make up poorly-written horse stories like I did when I was 12, so here, have some gifs and the next part of a little story

ft Redsister going for the best actress oscar

Part One - Part Two

"She's been running around all day… it's like she just wants to escape." Wynonna's cat, Billy, overwhelmingly did not care what the mare was doing

Wynonna was ordered to go to bed for the night, but she kept wondering if the mare was still running wild…

Part 2 of something. Tune in next time!

[microbians]

REDsistance Avatars II coming back Wana a real 1/1 #PFP no one but you have? Enter The REDsistance https://instagr.am/p/Co6mnuIKYsO/

[geekynerfherder]

#RedSister, book 1 of the #BookOfTheAncestor trilogy, written by #MarkLawrence (@mark___lawrence), first published #OnThisDay in 2017 by #HarperVoyager (@harpervoyagerus @harpervoyager_uk)⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ UK #FirstEdition #CoverArt designed by #HeikeSchuessler (@judgebymycovers)⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #CoolArt #Art #Books #BookCover #BookCoverArt #1stEdition #Hardcover #NonaGrey #Abeth https://www.instagram.com/p/CNQNnCOBKkY/?igshid=vhec5us6hs7c

[braincellsart]

“Your weaknesses have more to teach you than your strength.” - Grey Sister #marklawrence #fanart #braincellsart #redsister #greysister #bookoftheancestor #bookstagram #booklover #book #bookstagrammer #booksofinstagram #fantasybooklover #fantasybooks #fantasybookstagram #fantasyillustration #epicfantasynovels #darkfantasy #illustration https://www.instagram.com/p/CAilt3eDX3g/?igshid=1twsl3sgf6g68

[silvershanica]

Book Review: Grey Sister, Book 2 of the Ancestor Trilogy, by Mark Lawrence

So I finished this one a week ago, but got busy and forgot to post up my review. However, in the spirit of better late than never, here it is!

I loved Red Sister. The first book of the Ancestor series, it was a fantastic epic grimdark fantasy. It left me wanting more and so I couldn’t be more excited when Grey Sister finally came out in mass market and I could get my copy (I have a thing about books in series being in the same format...you know what I’m talking about). But with the second book of any trilogy, there is always the fear of the “saggy middle”. We’ve all seen it with books, and with movies, where the action drops off and the book seems like a slog because we’re being set up for all the big things that will happen in number 3.

I am thrilled to say that Grey Sister more than lives up to it’s predecessor! The story had me hooked back in right away, and I did not want to have to stop reading (sadly one must do things like work, eat and sleep...) because I just wanted to know what happened next. I was thrilled to get into the head of more characters in the story, along with following Nona’s journey. It was great to see the curtains pulled back and learn more about the backgrounds of some of the most important and influential characters, getting hints about what is coming next without having anything given away. Its been a while since I’ve been dragged into and held with a story the way the Book of the Ancestor series has grabbed me. Mark Lawrence is a master storyteller and does not disappoint.

I am so excited for Holy Sister to come out that I have done something I generally hate doing for book series I love - I’ve put the hardcover on hold at the library so I don’t have to wait so long to read it! I desperately want to own it, of course, but until the mass market comes out to keep the shelves looking pretty... I was actually shocked (and I really don’t know why, the series is just so good) that I was the 12th! person to put a hold on Holy Sister, despite the book not even being out yet. All I can hope is that the 11 people before me are fast readers...

If you haven’t seen it yet, you can read my review of Red Sister HERE. And if you haven’t yet begun to read the story of a young girl named Nona and her quest toward becoming the most amazingly ferocious fighting nun you’ve ever heard of, you need to start now!

[karinawebster]

first book purchase of the year 😍 it’s a hideous cover (sorry!) but i’ve heard so many good things about this series. Robin Hobb says it’s ‘a two-in-the-morning page turner’... i’m so excited to get to this one soon 😄 hope all of you are having a great start to 2019, i start a new job on Monday so really fulfilling the ‘new year, new start’ mantra 😂💕 ______________________________________________ #bookstagram #bookish #redsister #bookoftheancestor #paperback #bibliophile #booklover #igreads #reading #bookstagramfeature #karinareads #fantasy #fiction #goodreads #bookdragon #readersofinstagram #booksofinstagram #bookworm #booknerd https://www.instagram.com/p/BsQWIHZHmYE/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1uhu0e7mlivmj

[divishareads]

I really liked this book a lot. especially the cover and the way Nona is standing.. I really like the way all the girls were represented and how they fought together.. It was passionate and intense and kept me hooked throughout the entire read..!

[adayinbookland]

Let’s start July the right way: with new books 🙌🏻😜 🔸The Future is History by Masha Gessen 🔸Age of Myth by Michael J. Sullivan 🔸The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan 🔸Red Sister by Mark Lawrence 🔸A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza • Have you read any? 🌷 • • #aplaceforus #fatimafarheenmirza #contemporaryreads #redsister #marklawrence #theeyeoftheworld #robertjordan #fantasyreads #ageofmyth #michaeljsullivan #thefutureishistory #nonfiction #unitedbookstagram #bookishpost #bookhaul #newbookstoread #readergram #bookstagramit #booksofinstagram #booksbooksandmorebooks

[books--and--shit]

5/5 for this amazing book! My review will be posted up later tonight! . . . . . #RedSister #MarkLawrence #fantasy #book #reading #bookstagram

[mitriel-blog]

"It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy Convent Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men.” #RedSister by #MarkLawrence

[last-page-books-blog]

#bookstagram #booksofinstagram #booksgram #bookstagram #book #read  #monthlychallenge #augustbookchallenge  #august #bibliophile #yabookstagram #yalit #redsister #greysister #holysister #TBR #fantasybook #thebookoftheancestor #marklawrence @harpervoyager_uk @mark___lawrence https://www.instagram.com/p/B1t2-SbgzRA/?igshid=1rz8lhpr1p6uz

[microbians]

#artvsartist 2022 / Enter the REDsistance art may be a serious business, but that doesn't mean we can't have a little fun with it. So let's give a shoutout to all the artists out there who bring color and laughter into our lives with their amazing creations. #artvsartist2022 #artislife #artistsofinstagram https://instagr.am/p/Cl_NQ_OKuai/

[geekynerfherder]

#RedSister, book 1 of the #BookOfTheAncestor trilogy written by #MarkLawrence (@mark___lawrence), first published #OnThisDay in 2017 #CoverArt by #BastienLecouffeDeharme (@deharme) #CoolArt #Art #NonaGrey #Books #BookCover #BookCoverArt #Bookstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/B-kQqTYlwYd/?igshid=1ft1ce0rykwt8