#and even the goodreads reviews

[kittensandforeheadkisses]

I am NOT going to let a one star review on goodreads ruin the emotional euphoria I got after finishing one of the best trilogies ever

[largishcat]

if there’s one thing i’ve learned from the trend of putting those little quotes on the back of books instead of a summary, it’s that apparently a lot of authors i admire really like books that fucking suck

[strawhatboy]

sooooo, I’ve been writing a fantasy novel for some time now, and I finally decided to publish it on Amazon next year. I’m dealing with the absolute mortification of sharing something like this, but I’m going to do it anyway. Anyway, I’ll show you the cover!

[gabriestat]

it's interesting how almost every ASOIAF new edition just looks plainly boring with those plain color + golden font covers but if you go look at the ones from the 90s editions the designs are always odd and fun, it went from that to just a cup in the middle of the page and a red background. sighs. how do i blame this on bookstagram/booktok/whatever

[douknowanoah]

OK. All the fandoms here go as follows takes deep breath

Lucifer, Good Omens, The Good Place, Lost in Space, Starship, Expeditionary Force, Epic: The Musical, Thessaly, Percy Jackson

[themyscirah]

Just finished rereading All Star Superman. It's a book that is incredibly bizarre in so many ways but still manages to make you feel something profound at times despite (or perhaps because of) how much it leans into the silver age weirdness of the character and lore

[sage-nebula]

Book Reviews: Good Omens - Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

Rating: 3/5

I first read this novel in 2009, when I was 19 years old. At the time, I thought it was the best book I had ever read. I fell in love with the humor, as well as the themes it presented, and I went on to read works by each of the individual authors. (Learning in the process that while I loved Terry Pratchett's work, Neil Gaiman's was not at all for me.) Now, having revisited this novel fifteen years later (using the copy I already owned), I'm sad to say that I don't love it as much as I once did. And no, it is not because Gaiman has turned out to be an abhorrent human being (though he has).

Good Omens is a novel featuring an ensemble cast, but is chiefly about the impending apocalypse that is to be brought about by the Antichrist. Due to a mix-up at the time of the Antichrist's birth, however, he was raised independently from the forces of Heaven and Hell, and as a result the fate of the apocalypse rests solely on his humanity.

What I discovered a decade and a half ago, after reading both a Discworld novel and American Gods, is that the things I enjoyed about Good Omens came from Terry Pratchett. The humor, the use of footnotes, the things it had to say about both humanity and spirituality — that writing style and those themes are present in Pratchett's works. Whereas, Gaiman's style focused on presenting story through use of metaphor in a way that, after awhile, feels try-hard. While the first time I read this novel I thoroughly enjoyed it, this time I had a more difficult time getting through it, and I feel that part of it is due to the disparity of enjoyment I feel from the style of the two authors.

For the most part, the humor of the book still hit. There were definitely jokes that have not aged well at all (e.g. the "it's funny because he's homophobic!" miscommunication joke with the American soldier at the air base, as well as several racist "jokes"), but several of the jokes that I remembered loving from the first time I read the book still landed (e.g. Crowley putting the fear of himself into his houseplants, the footnote explaining Aziraphale's excuse about "misplacing" his flaming sword when God asked about it, leading to God not asking him again). I enjoyed most of the characters, and in fact liked the Them much more than I remembered; their banter with each other is extremely natural, and they come across as the endearing children they were meant to be.

Despite this, there were definitely parts where I felt the book dragged. It took me longer than I expected to finish this novel because I would begin reading, and then start feeling very drowsy shortly after starting. This is unusual for me; if I'm interested in a book, often it will override my desire to sleep no matter how little I've had. Yet with this, there were passages following less interesting or likable characters (e.g. Shadwell) that, despite my best efforts, put me to sleep. It was also wild seeing how quickly the plot ramped up to the apocalypse before even the midway point of the book was reached, only to have the actual day of drag on. (Did we need so many cut-backs to what the police were doing on the M25? No.) The pacing of the novel presents a definite problem.

The romances in the book felt forced as well — and no, I'm not talking about Crowley and Aziraphale, because while one can easily ship them if they want to (and I think I've heard their relationship was made explicitly romantic in the TV show), they aren't written as explicitly romantic in the novel, and can easily be dismissed as friends. No, I'm talking about Newt/Anathema and Shadwell/Tracey. The first is particularly egregious given that she only sleeps with him because a prophecy said she was supposed to (meaning — did she feel coerced into it? and why is she still hanging around with him after, when they barely know each other?), and the latter is awful because despite the book insisting that this bigoted, crotchety old man is likable, at no point does he actually come across that way. The romances were not a central tenet of the book, but their presence still did detract from it, in my opinion.

Lastly, I would be remiss not to mention the anti-Asian racism that crops up at multiple points throughout the novel. Off the top of my head:

1.) The broken English used for the voice alert system in Newt's Japanese car;

2.) A Tibetan monk is referred to as having an "Oriental" face, and I believe that "the Orient" is also mentioned a couple of times;

3.) The factory that produces Newt's fictional car is said to come from Nigirizushi, Japan. There is no such place. Nigirizushi is a type of sushi. Now, since the car is called a Wasabi, one could simply say it was meant to be a joke . . . but Gaiman and Pratchett had absolutely no problem listing so many different towns and places in England (yes Tadfield is fake, but it's south of Oxfordshire, which is real), and had no problem naming real places in the United States, yet they couldn't be bothered to grab a real city from Japan? Not even Tokyo, well-known enough without having to look it up? It feels disrespectful and yes, racist.

Now, this book was published the year I was born. I cannot tell you from experience what attitudes toward East Asia were at the time this book was written, because I wasn't conscious for that. I know that, once-upon a time, "oriental" was an "accepted" term. But plenty of racial slurs start off as "acceptable" terms by those in power. And having Asian characters and places be the butt of the "joke" so many different times in this book didn't feel very funny to me.

With all of that said, while this is no longer a book that I would actively recommend, it's not one I would dissuade people from reading, either. The comedy, in places where it is actually effective, is entertaining, and while it is very surface-level, the questions it raises about religion and the concepts of good or evil can make the book an enjoyable read.

However.

If you do choose to read this book (or any other book authored by Neil Gaiman), I implore you to check it out from a library, get it second-hand, or hell, even pirate it. As I mentioned at the top of this review, I already owned this book. The reason I decided to re-read it was so that I could have a fresh perspective on its place on my shelf. But if I didn't own it, and couldn't get it from a library, I wouldn't have. What Neil Gaiman has done to countless women is beyond heinous, and he does not deserve your money. I implore you to not give it to him. And certainly not over this book, which is average at best.

Regardless of whether there is a Heaven or Hell, we do have Earth. Let's make some good choices while we're here, shall we?

[rosetintedkaleidoscope]

best books i read in 2023:

- comfort me with apples by catherynne valente. fantasy/horror. this is a creepy, dystopian, fairy tale kind of story. some biblical references. the creepiness builds up slowly through strange little details.

- quest for a maid by frances mary hendry. children's historical fiction / fantasy. 13th century scotland & norway. read as a child, completely forgot, then found in a used bookstore this year. it absolutely lives up to my memories: rich with details, from the foods to the clothes to the activities to all the little things you don't really notice that create a sense of another time & place. the loving attention to detail is a big part of why i like this book so much. also excellent characterization.

- nisa: the life and words of a !kung woman by marjorie shostak. nonfiction. okay, if you're following me you've probably heard of this because of @etirabys, whose posts inspired me to read it, but i had to include it anyway. based on interviews with a hunter-gatherer woman, it tells about her life and worldview. moving and immensely fascinating

- making babies: the science of pregnancy by david bainbridge. nonfiction. also immensely fascinating. my ideal kind of science book: readable yet detailed and in-depth, and full of strange facts. strong contender for the coolest nonfiction book i've ever read

- the ladies of grace adieu and other stories by susanna clarke. fantasy. wonderful eerie fairy stories

- we have always lived in the castle by shirley jackson. classic, horror. sinister and evocative. one thing i really like is that the characters are likeable and often happy despite the weirdness and the horror. it's optimistic and tragic at the same time, and gives you things to think about even after you're done reading

- murderbot series by martha wells. science fiction. it has an interesting plot and setting and all that, but the main appeal is the character and charm of the protagonist, a robot who hacks itself to gain freedom. all it wants to do with that freedom is watch tv, but dangerous stuff keeps getting in the way

[rokirokinorokkunrokkunrooru]

If I went on a rant irt discourse of fandom discourse specifically on the buzzword of "toxic yaoi" would any of you get mad at me for chronically online. I am a scholar and an academic but I have a soul that yearns to get mad over pixels online

[britneyshakespeare]

I had a dream I was following my work crush's Goodreads account. I didn't FIND it in the dream—I was already following it. A fascinating concept because I probably follow less than 10 accounts on Goodreads so I remember following every one of them, and he had his full ass name on there for some reason. And he was showing up on my feed because he has been very active going through lists of interesting lists I would frankly not expect the average young white man from New Hampshire to be reading, and marking things "want to read"

[macroglossus]

a lot of horror is just What If... a disabled person.... was PURE EVIL!!!! but i think at least recently i've seen more authors at least like. trying not to do that. anyways the book that i just read was published in 2017 and is so absolutely absurdly ableist that i actually had to stare at it openmouthed for like ten minutes after i'd finished it and the only reason i did finish it was because i assumed it must get better, which it did not in any way

[hexjulia]

someone should tell the writers who respond to negative goodreads reviews about this

[carriagelamp]

I finished my Chill Falling Asleep Novel and the one I meant to listen to next is boring as dirt so I have given up on it and returned it... now I'm adrift with nothing to listen to (⁠´⁠；⁠ω⁠；⁠｀⁠) save me

[butchnavi]

middle/high school me didn't form parasocial relationships with celebrities they formed serial parasocial relationships with random lesbian 20-something bloggers with a penchant for being 24/7 haters on increasingly obscure platforms (often that they had abandoned years ago) and would stay up till like 4am every night reading their posts from like five years back and collecting the Lore

[comfortcomes]

i feel like this is such an uncharitable reading of that statement like given the “““context”””” of oscar wildes life wouldn’t you assume that to mean “it pains me that he wasn’t able to explicitly write about the things he clearly wanted to explore in literature because of the constraints of the time that literally put him in prison” . which you can agree or disagree with but it actually seems pretty historically informed

[woodnrust]

Bought a book i've never heard of at full price off a whim only to come home and find that the book has so-so ratings on goodreads . Shoot me?