Just not feeling it, which is sad because I enjoyed the first. Might come back to it later.

I made it 65 pages. Give me a medal.

I keep trying to make myself get back to this because the world building is amazing, but Rhys himself is ruining the fun for me. :|

I'm going to melt into a puddle of rage and disappointment and forget this book exists.

I think I'm going to have to DNF this one, and having read some other reviews, I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels the same way.

It started out really well, and while I'm glad I had no idea of the twist going in, once it happened, I rolled my eyes and sighed. Everything got a little tired after that, and I found myself less and less interested in the novel.

Starting the next part of the novel after the reveal with the most boring character's journal entries was not the best idea. And there was way too much of it.

Just couldn't get into this one.

I might have to go back and re-read [b:Soulless|6381205|Soulless (Parasol Protectorate, #1)|Gail Carriger|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1314020848s/6381205.jpg|6569140], because none of the books Gail Carriger has written after that series - despite being set in the same universe - have sat well with me. (The school one is in the same universe, right? I DNF'd that too.)

Have I moved past them? Are the new ones not living up to the Parasol Protectorate? Is Dama truly a terrible nickname? Is Rue just an unforgivable a-hole that I can't find myself liking because she doesn't have half the charm her mother had?

All these questions and more answered if I ever come back to this book in the future and actually finish reading it!*



* Which is probably be never, if I'm being honest.

Marking this one as DNF because aside from the Iron Druid story, I haven't found any of these entertaining. I think it's mostly because the carnival theme doesn't feel like it's truly there, and some stories treat the carnival as the vaguest of backdrops for a story that might fit the bill.

I read up to "A Duet with Darkness," so if there are other stories I didn't get to that you think I must check out, please let me know and I happily will.

Just can't do it. Can't go through a book where I hate almost every single character involved. Even after reading a summary of the book, it appears people (see: Heathcliff) get even worse, and I'm not down for that.

Then we were downtown, skyscrapers vaulting around us, and if I let my eyes unfocus it became a frost of chrome and glass, the trunks of massive trees quilted with fireflies.

Hell.

I really enjoyed [b:Unteachable|20877902|Unteachable|Leah Raeder|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1395677357s/20877902.jpg|25207434], and I was really looking forward to Black Iris. But this prose is just too much for me right now. I know others whose reviews/opinions I respect find the prose beautiful, but I can't with this:

Listening to her banter with Armin was like standing between two ballet dancers in a gunfight. They circled each other elegantly, feinting, pirouetting, setting up the fatal shot, and Blythe was usually the one to fire it point-blank to Armin's chest. He accepted his wounds with a gentleman's grace, and the dance resumed. I sank into the seat and let their voices hum on my skin.

My first reaction to the writing was that it sounded so much like a young author playing with words, trying to make something mean so much more than it is -- and you get a little bit of that when Laney talks about writing about herself, Blythe, and Armin.

I was staring at that rose-lipped mouth, then into his eyes, a clear reddish-brown like carnelian, speckled with tiny flaws of amber and copper where the light caught.

Fuck. They're brown. His eyes are fucking brown, okay? Stop being a terrible writer, Laney.

But lampshading the prose doesn't make it any easier to swallow, especially when the lines between what is real and what is Laney's story blur -- and blur even further when there's a pointed discussion in Laney's writing class about unreliable narrators.

It's frustrating.

We sat on a curb in a pool of warm whiskey streetlight.

Does the terrible thing Laney alludes to actually happen? How does the utterly fucked up relationship between Laney, Armin, and Blythe shake out? Does the purple prose come from the fact that it's all just a story that Laney's writing?

The more I read, the less I cared about these questions. So I made a choice.

Rain hovered midair in a diamond-flecked veil.