Eddie's Monthly

Whoops, did I forget to write my reading report again? In my defence your honour, I was on vacation and this just slipped my mind. Anyways, let's see if I remember what I read last month:

Friend's Journal – Friends

We got the friend's journal with Tetyana, for the first time in a long while, and I read all the entries since. It was so nice to read about everybody's adventures and have them be in their own voice. And it was a thing to also have them in their own writing.

I love all the collages, drawings, stickers... the journal exudes such aura now. From the side it looks like it's almost doubled in size. Awesome.

Body and Soul – Loïc Wacquant

Loïc is a quirked up white boy who decides to start training for boxing with the Woodlands boxing club, a club in the black ghetto of Chicago in the late 80's. He's doing this as ethnographic research. He interview boxers and trainers, and takes in the atmosphere and dynamics of the club, but also of the different places the clubs evolves in.

This took me almost 3 weeks to read, which is way too much. It was incredibly dense, with the writing being unnecessarily convoluted. Here's and example of a sentence:

These elements of an anthropology of boxing as “biologico-sociological phenomenon ” [134] set into relief the central place of practical reason in this limiting case of practice that is pugilism and invite us to move beyond the traditional distinctions between body and mind, instinct and idea, the individual and the institution, [135] by showing how the two terms of these perennial antinomies are constituted together and mutually support one another, specify and reinforce themselves but also weaken each other in the same movement.

what?

It was alright. The author does refrain from judging the people in the gym,, which is very interesting and is more transcribing what they tell him and each other and how he feels, leaving the analysis for more big picture things. It is more centred around him and his experience here, leaning boxing and being at the gym in a world that is very much not white. You almost learn more about what the quotes from the Woodland boxer's/trainers, like DeeDee, than Loïc analysis. It was interesting to see how lucid they were on their situation, when they talk about their lack of options, and the 'redevelopment' plans for the area (which DeeDee calls something like 'de-[n-word]ification plans' instead). DeeDee was kinda the goat. It was really touching to see how he cared for the boxers of the club. I thin the book falls short in its promises. At the beginning he's like “you'll learn how I almost gave up on academia and considered going pro in boxing” but all of that is never really mentioned again, at any length.

Fourth Wing – Rebecca Yarros

It was alright. Then after the first sex scene (which — not a sex scene expert here — was kinda boring) the book quality takes a nose dive and I had to push to finish it. I have notes that I took during my reading of this book. I'll just dump it here without editing anything:

Really weird. It looks like everything is very removed from the action, as if it was told as something that is to be looked at rather than something you're supposed to be immersed in. As if the story was in third person.
The book is also very hazy — there's no solid foundation of the story, where I know what I'm standing on and what is logical there. The worldbuilding is so sparse that everything feels a bit random and non sensical. It's almost as if the book expected its readers to have internalised the YA dystopian rulebook and was now running with it without explaining stuff. How people react to thing make no sense. But everything is so predictable at the same time — the 'ennemies' to love plot, that she'll bond with a black dragon (this hasn't happened i'm 100 pages in but this is my prediction). Jacob truely walked so Dain could run.

The main character's horniness is also a *tad* overbearing at times.

Riorson sorry I meant TMU, force of habit

Man, fuck Dain

The events and story feel very disjointed

People just die all the time for no reason, and people are so shocked every time because they forgot that people died in the “bootcamp that will fucking kill you”. Also how does this society fucking function

Liam is the goat

Riorson inhales — Violet: “omg that was so hot”

There's a big conspiracy thing going on and the higher ups are hiding info from everyone, the state looks extremely authoritarian and repressive BUT let's challenge the first years to steal information and show it to everyone without us checking it first. Like, the mind readers are killed on sight ffs

Also: anything happens — “and all hell breaks loose” (but there are no consequences afterwards)

The end of year battle or whatever makes no sense — dragon on dragon violence? How little valuable are riders and their dragons?

The sex scene was painful to read, felt very YA

The quality of the story drops off a cliff literally after they have sex for the first time

Dain acting hurt that she “choose” xaden over her — YOU'RE NOT EVEN IN THE COMPETITION ANYMORE PAL, YOU'RE IRRELEVANT, KILL YOURSELF

Xaden: i worry so much about you that's 90% of what I do — fuck off, I'm so tired of the gruff overprotective male dude archetype, who trusts her to make her own choices, but actually everything they do revolves around her

Omg violet is fucking stupid. She's supposed to be wicked smaaaat

The dreaded act 3 breakup

“We have to take out the riders” yeah fucking obviously, they created the wyverns dumbass. how did it take you guys so long to figure it out

This. Type. Of. Writing. Is. Unsufferable.
All the modern expressions too

Also, last point: Someone pointed out that storygraph actually had a “questions” section for this book, and one of them was along the lines of “Violet has joint issues, do you think she's important representation for people with physical disability”. Fuck no. She's literally is the worst, most harmful kind of representation of a physical disability like that. Everything she does is just pUSh THroUgH tHe pAiN — it's not how it works. She subluxates (how tf do you even spell that?) every joint in her body but is just fine to do incredible feats of strength right afterwards. There's no debilitating pain, no loss of strength or range of motion, which are all things that happen when you hurt yourself that severely. Not even talking about the long term damage that would be caused by ignoring issues like that and still pushing on joints that are damaged. There is no handicap. She fucks up her knee? She's still able to sprint and kick people. Dislocated her shoulder? She'll still do all the sparring sessions in the world without issues. The most infuriating is that she has access to magic healers, who would actually make it so her disability doesn't impede on her training, BUT SHE CHOOSES NOT TO USE THEM BECAUSE IT WILL MAKE HER APPEAR WEAK. What's the subtext here? If you have any kind of physical issues, don't seek help or treatment, it makes you appear weak, just keep pushing?

Iron Flame – Rebecca Yarros

CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE BOOK, I KNOW YOU GUYS ARE NOT DONE WITH IT, SKIP THIS UNTIL YOU ARE (or if you don't care)

It was also alright. Some things are way worse, some things a a tiny tiny bit better. Note dump:

“Gruff dude who only grunts and talks with his fist and kills people without remorse and is extremely violent but he's sweet just for me” trope

Violet is the most specialest little girl, she's got the biggest black dragons (they're the rarest!)
She's not getting one, but two black dragons. I predicted the black dragon stuff, but now she's also getting the super special holo rare shiny full art golden dragon.

Why isn't she going to her mom about this? Dain's dad just threatened her??? And her mom already demoted him so she knows they're not colluding

Oh we graduated from a fake enemies to lover and horny all the time thing to an annoying 'will they won't they', after having passed the obligatory third act breakup in the last book.

The power balance between humans and dragons is extremely inconsistent. 'Humans are lucky that dragons accept to bond, and the dragons dictate everything in the relationship even killing humans without repercussions', and at the same time the humans can restrict the freedom of dragons for petty business and there's nothing the dragons can do.

The parapet challenge makes no sense. What the hell is this stupid entrance exam.

We need and “eye widening” + “brows lifting” counter

Wtf are the others doing while that dude tries to kill Violet? Just standing around? And where did Violet's power go? She could just fucking zap him like a mosquito, no need to roll around on the ground like an animal

The super secret course that nobody knows about which involves...[checks notes]... abducting every third year in broad daylight. Right...

Xaden: [wears anything]
Violet: omg he looks so hot in this

“Gods [variant of 'Xaden is hot']” — Gods, I'm gonna kill myself if you keep repeatedly using this expression

Everybody smirking or smiling all the time

———– end of first reading ——-

“Abusing your power is extremely dangerous and can kill a rider and its dragon” carr and varish: “Violet, please continue produce a shit ton of lightning past your limit” which almost kills her, her dragons, TMU and his dragon. That makes no sense

In this exercise, we'll have potentially 30+ people die including 4 riders and maybe their dragons, healers which apparently are very rare, just to check that they can read a map. We're in the middle of a war and are severely understaffed btw

Chapter 13 quote: “Dragons do not answer to the whims of men” — this whole book has been about dragons submitting to the will of people who are not their riders, hello???

Thank god, finally the dragons are doing something against the stupid human decisions. Now do the same for being separated from saegyl

Ah yes, the mandatory, very useful and efficient, culling by torture, inflicting life long injuries and trauma. Exactly what you need for every single dragon rider of your army.

Jack coming back makes no sense

‐———— end of second reading? ———

Part two

The author is allergic to saying “penis, or cock or vagina”. What? Saying those words is not elevated enough, it's too base? Fucking american puritan culture, i swear if I have to read “his length” instead of a much more normal “his penis” one more time you'll find me swinging by the “length” of a rope

has the most powerful signet ever, is sooo smart, a hot ass boyfriend, is the daughter to a general, but also was chosen by the last living dragon of the seventh race. Right

Final thoughts:
Slightly better than the first (but maybe only cause I got used to the bullshit). Some massive issues — non stop ellipses even within chapters that feel pretty weird to read. The writing style gets a really fucking annoying at times. The Xaden Violet arguments were fucking stupid. I'm glad the author stepped away from just having generic dystopian YA elements be the center of the story (although the new 'original' story makes absolutely no sense). It was also sooo long for no reason.

I think I gave up on writing notes halfway through the book. And I've only written once sentence about the third book yet, while I'm 70 pages from the end. Are you surprised I am reading the third book? To be completely honest, this series might be a little guilty pleasure of mine, while the books are not very good, and the writing is even worse, I do get some form of enjoyment out of it. For me it's not infuriatingly bad, just mostly slop bad, and I can enjoy some slop from time to time. I will share my overall thought on the series in my next reading report

I'm currently at 25/61 books read in the booklog, and at 8541/20157 pages — or 42% and 41% done respectively. We're not on track anymore. Everything is going to shit with this project. See you “next month” (in 15 days)

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie – Award winning author