I don't like the way she answers letters by telling a story about herself. Reminds me of being part of a disjointed conversation, where the other person isn't really listening. Not to me at this moment 

Was reading this super slowly and had to take it back to the library 

Really boring, super slow and wasn't catching my attention at all

Too YA-y for me

Not at all holding my interest 

Too disjointed and fragmented for me, it was really hard for me to follow. I would absolutely try something else by this author, just not in this style. I ended up skimming through loads of this and felt that I was doing it a disservice, so decided to DNF. 

The concept of this is interesting, I like what he's trying to do and I definitely see why this was longlisted for the booker this year. In the context of the longlist and Case Study being longlisted as well, it makes total sense on this shortlist. 
I'm personally just not interested though. Quite liked the first story but when it got to the second, I just found it really tedious. I can appreciate what he's doing, I think it's cool, but subject wise just doesn't get me going. 

 Discussed in episode 70 of the Bookcast Club podcast. Episode here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1116755/10694500

This was extremely slow in a way that felt bogged-down to me rather than deliberate. The extensive world-building also came at the cost of the characters in my opinion, they were all rather two-dimensional.

The queer elements of this were also quite disappointing - this book is lauded as having good queer representation but I found it way too heteronormative. Even having a gender-flipped world of queens and the world inherited via the female line, there was still a lot of discussion about the queen marrying a man and producing an heir, and almost all of her value is placed in her ability to do so.