opalwatchbooks

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BABE WAKE UP, NEW “WE WERE LIARS” BOOK DROPS THIS NOVEMBER

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Me

Chat between me and my grandmother.

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ACOTAR Review: what.

dear god I normally get like. a single note on my posts on this account. but I have a feeling whoever sees this one will not like it.

I honestly have no clue where to start? This is the last time I'm trusting BookTok. I finished reading "A Court of Thorns and Roses" about a week ago and I've been putting off writing this because I've been racking my brain for SOMETHING positive to say (I did find one thing, I'll finish off this post with that).

I'll just start with what I found to be most criminal, and that is the characterization and the way the relationships between characters (fail to) work.

Firstly, Feyre. How do you manage to write 400 pages of a novel and not give your main character an inkling of personality? Feyre's characterization essentially boils down to "Okay so I'm going to make my protagonist dumber than a sack of flour, but she does need some positive qualities... oh I've got it, she PAINTS!"

That's it. That's the character. Through the entire novel, she was acting like that one TikTok audio that goes like "this man KIDNAPPED me! I can't stop looking HATEFULLY into his sexy, evil, sexy eyes. He put me in this sexy dress that's short, and I pretend to hate it to piss him off, but secretly I like it. He offers me food. How do I know he hasn't poisoned it? He takes a bite of it. Damn he's good." (That last bit actually fucking happens in the book.) I've dug through my camera roll and I found a silly animatic with the audio - it's Squid Game yaoi so you'll have to forgive me.

Expanding on Feyre's stupidity - dear lord almighty. "Tamlin told me not to go into the woods- fuck I went into the woods OOPSIES. Literally everyone in the palace told me not to go outside during this holiday- fuck I went outside OOPSIES. Alis told me not to drink the wine- fuck I drank the wine OOPSIES." ALL OF THESE SITUATIONS RESULTED IN TERRBLE CONSEQUENCES. WHY DID SHE NEVER LEARN TO LISTEN?

The main love interest is so forgettable that I had to google his name. It's Tamlin. Okay what does this man have going for him um... well first he's kidnappy and mysterious, then he's super duper sexy (he falls in love with Feyre despite her lack of personality, meaning there's no fucking chemistry between them), then he's all sad and angry, then he's rapey, then he's kidnapped himself, but oopsies there you go, Feyre saved the day. I'm not joking when I say there's no fucking chemistry between Feyre and Tamlin. It's literally just "I have no interest in this man... wait he has a sad backstory and abs, fuck I want him so bad, even though he pinned me against a wall and gave me a hickey after I told him to stop."

I'd like to take a break to discuss that by the way? What's up with YA novels marketing the overstepping of boundaries and consent as sexy? There is nothing sexier than a man who respects your consent. Even though that's just my opinion and people can be into whatever the hell they want, these novels are marketed to teenagers who are still developing their views on what a healthy relationship is, and nothing screams "healthy" like "hey stop doing that... well you overstepped that but I liked the way it made me feel, it so I suppose it must not be sexual harassment and therefore I'm still into you." I'll get back to it in a moment.

You know who else is super rapey? Rhysand. He spends 99% of his time in the book hitting on/manipulating/sexually assaulting Feyre, but in the final chapters of the book, all of a sudden it's not mentioned anymore and the narrative lends him pity, and he's suddenly painted as more of a chaotic neutral? Excuse me? And if my minimal research serves me well, Feyre is buddy-buddy with Rhysand in the sequel? EXCUSE ME? After he sexually assaulted her, humiliated her in public in front of Tamlin, manipulated her into a bargain... he gets to be part of a love triangle? Jesus CHRIST.

Feyre's sisters are too boring to talk about, moving on.

Alis was mildly enjoyable at best but her personality was utterly and completely inconsistent, moving on.

Lucien. I liked Lucien. He was very silly and was the saving grace of this book. He was the only one who seemed to have Feyre's best interests at heart. He was funny and had a personality (crazy that the bar for characters in this book is "have a personality"); he's got a good sense of humor, is the only one who reacts rationally enough to some random human killing off one of his best friends, is admirably loyal to Tamlin, and is the only character who fucking does ANYTHING when faced with the threats against the Spring Court. We stan Lucien.

Okay, besides characterization, I felt the plot/conflict of the book wasn't too poor. It did feel a bit muddled at times, and nothing getting explained before everything is suddenly dumped on the reader makes for a boring-then-extremely-confusing read. It's a bit hard for me to say anything on the plot because it was also not quite memorable for me personally. When Feyre was magically turned into a Faerie at the end of the book through the power of love and magic, I was like "huh that sounds like the ending to Twilight..." Imagine my surprise when my girlfriend googled it and ACOTAR is, indeed, a Twilight fanfic. I also saw online that it's meant to be a play on Beauty and the Beast, which I didn't pick up on, so... that part is subtly incorporated enough, I suppose. The difference is Belle actually has a reason to fall for the beast.

You know what is memorable for me? The stupid fucking riddle at the end. As soon as I heard "solve my riddle," I knew the answer was "love." You can't have a riddle in a shitty fantasy YA novel without the answer being "love." That's just more bullshittery from Feyre I suppose - went through three months in a dungeon with nothing to think about but the riddle, and couldn't even cough that up as a guess. I suppose it would have made more sense if Amarantha stated that Feyre only gets one guess and if she guesses incorrectly, she dies, but that isn't the case. I don't really know what was stopping Feyre from going through every possibility when presented with the opportunity to solve the riddle. Also, what do you mean the crazed-evil-batshit-genocidal-dictator-pimp wrote a riddle where the answer was "love?" That doesn't make any sense. I don't care if "iT wAs A cUrVeBaLl," it just doesn't make sense. When Feyre's life now revolves around her love for Tamlin, why would you make that the solution to the riddle???

A note on the smut - BookTok had me thinking this was the dirtiest, spiciest, messiest smut. Droves upon droves of people proclaiming that they couldn't hold themselves back from Tamlin and his faerussy. Imagine my shock and concern when I found this book in the YA section of my library... and then sudden relief when I finished the book and discovered that the people on BookTok must never have opened AO3, because there was nothing in this. I'm not complaining whatsoever, because if it's written for teenagers, it better not have wild smut in it. If you're going to read this expecting things to get down and dirty, just know the most erotic word in this book was "breast."

I liked the worldbuilding, and the idea of seven courts where each of them has a different climate going on is neat. The descriptive portions were well-done, and the author's use of imagery added an extra layer that pushed me to keep reading when I simply could not care. The sheer amount of dashes and ellipses made me want to cry and had me questioning if ChatGPT was used. That physically hurt at many, many, many points. I digress. I'm also a sucker for fantasy romances, I can't lie. This one was just not it. So naturally, the next step is for me to read the sequels and review those, too. I originally started this series because I saw someone on BookTok label it as "misunderstood villain." There is nothing more I love love love than a misunderstood villain (see: Chrollo Lucilfer from HxH, Lio from Promare, other examples that I'm just too sick of writing to list). I just desperately need a break after that shitshow of a novel, so I'm taking a break to read the "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series." I just finished the first book so I assume a review is due on that (pssst... It was much. much better than ACOTAR).

TL;DR ACOTAR gets a 2/10

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Why at no point did Feyre even think to explain that killing Andras was a mistake and she genuinely believed him to be a wolf?

[opalwatchbooks]

Animal Farm

Apologies for misspelling "Jorjor Wel" in my last post, shame on me.

Anyway I just read "Animal Farm" by Jorjor Wel (George Orwell hehehe) and, much like 1984, the ending was very bitter. However, unlike 1984, the ending of Animal Farm left me angry, most likely because it hit too close to home given today's political climate in the US (i don't know what things are like outside of the US because I'm just a dumb American). Also I didn't think the book would be about a literal animal farm so now I kinda just feel dumber lol.

I really don't feel like writing this right now. "Oh Opal why don't you write later when you feel more enthusiastic about it?" Shut up idc, I'm just gonna keep it brief.

Firstly, I feel like this book does a much better job of getting its point across than 1984. Rather than being told, "Napoleon is a fascist dictator piggie, this makes him a bad piggie, the animals should take him down," you're kinda just forced to keep on reading while Squealer's excuses keep building and the animals continue to believe the excuses and believe Napoleon is good. It hurt to read for me because it is a near-perfect embodiment of the MAGA movement. I don't even feel compelled to discuss the parallels because I fear they're painfully obvious. The animals REFUSED to believe their own memories, and trusted every word of their authoritarian leader, no matter how ridiculous it was to do so.

There's so many interesting things I wanna say, but I'm tired so I'll just focus on what captivated me the most: "four legs good, two legs bad." This line was constantly repeated throughout the book by the sheep, and was originally created when they could not remember the seven commandments, so they were boiled down into that simple phrase. Because of the lack of specificity, the sheep (and all the animals) lost sight of what that phrase was originally intended to represent. It was not the humans that were directly labeled as the enemy, it was everything the humans were doing and embodying, thereby making them enemies. In other words, it wasn't the humans walking on two legs that was bad; it was their drinking, their abuses towards the animals, their killing, their neglect, their superiority. By boiling down the seven commandments into "four legs good, two legs bad," the sheep lost sight of what exactly it meant to fight against tyranny. Their domination of any conversation or protest by repeating that phrase pushed down the nuance of the seven commandments, figuratively and literally giving Napoleon more room to break them without complaint from the other animals. As Napoleon's power grew, the sheep figured that as long as he was walking on four legs, he did not pose a threat. Orwell's (yes I'm getting so serious here that I'm not memeing) warning about simplification becomes surprisingly relevant in the modern trend of asking ChatGPT to read your papers or books for you and spit out a simple summary. By doing that, you're losing the nuance of what you're meant to be consuming, and this leads to future misguidance of your actions.

On that same note, Boxer's repetition of "Napoleon is always right" further brainwashes the animals, to the point that when Napoleon is walking on two legs at the end of the novel, the sheep proclaim that walking on two legs is better, despite what they've been so-stoutly believed and proclaimed throughout the entire story. I had such hope that when Napoleon walked out of the farmhouse, the sheep would yell "four legs good, two legs bad" and the animals would finally overthrow the pigs. My heart sank when I turned the page and I saw the sheep had modified their catchphrase to fit their belief that Napoleon could do no wrong. Much like 1984, I was very disheartened by the ending, constantly hoping for a rebellion that would never come. Actually let me fix that by writing a fanfic rq. Ahem.

The animals had finally realized that Napoleon was lying to them the entire time. In fact, the one thing Napoleon DID NOT lie about was the trailer Boxer occupied really did belong to a veterinarian who had not had the chance to repaint it. Boxer suddenly reappeared on the farm, old but in perfect health! He rallied up the animals and overthrew the pigs, killing the pigs and men at the table. At the veterinarian, he had learned the other 22 letters of the alphabet, grabbed a bucket of paint, and repainted the seven commandments on the side of the barn. He proclaimed that would be the last case of slaughter to ever occur on Animal Farm. They drained all the alcohol in sinks, locked up the farmhouse, and everyone lived equally (and Snowball came back and brought with him democracy and a bunch of corn and oats and apples yay!!!!!) The end!

Well I sure hope everyone liked Animal Farm Rewritten by yours truly. I said this would be a short post. Anyways now I'm picking up "A Court of Thorns and Roses" by Sarah J. Maas. I'm well aware I'm probably the last person on earth to read this, leave me alone.

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on page 56 now, Napoleon is PISSING ME OFFFFFFF

just realized his name may have been intended to foreshadow the fact that he would become a dictator. I'm SO MAD ABOUT THE DOGS.

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Jor Jorwell

Hey it's summer so I can start reading and watching TV again, which means more activity for my side accounts.

I just finished reading "1984" by George Orwell (Jorjor Well hehehe) and my thoughts on it are surprisingly lukewarm. I felt as though it was very on-the-nose in terms of its message. "Propaganda bad, tyranny bad, oppressive government bad." Yes Mr. Well, I am well (no pun intended) aware of that. Maybe it was a more profound message when the book was originally written? idk

I thought the dynamic between Winston and Julia was interesting. Winston was hoping to take down the Party, whereas Julia was only looking for small acts of rebellion (she's like the modern "I don't really get into politics). It's wild to think that someone could be so aware that their government is completely and utterly corrupt, but remain entirely neutral (if not displeased) towards the idea of taking down that oppressive force. Me personally, I could never get along with Julia, but perhaps that's just a flaw on my part. Her neutrality itself is a form of rebellion in the context of the novel, so maybe that's why I don't feel like strangling her the same way I do towards dudes who "don't get into politics" - everything Julia does is inherently political, including her not giving a gaf. I still wanted to yell at her for falling asleep every time my boy Winston was yapping about politics though.

I hated reading through the never-ending excerpts from Goldstein's book, but someone brought up an interesting point: Orwell may have included those to lull the reader into a sense of safety before dropping bombshells. The boring political text, coupled with the fact that Winston is reading in a hideout where he feels hidden away from the eyes of Big Brother, emphasize the complete and utter shock of the climax (e.g. the party catching him). It almost didn't work on me because I half-considered skipping the long stretches of yappage, but WE PULL THROUGH!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉The ending of the book was also completely unexpected. Even when Winston was in the Ministry of Love, I hoped and prayed against all odds that somehow a bomb would go off and Winston would enact some revolution, or AT LEAST he would get his final wish of dying while hating the Party. What do I get? Winston dying (up for debate if it was literal or figurative, I think literal) whilst loving Big Brother and feeling completely disinterested in Julia. My heart sank, knowing the entire time that there was no escaping that ending, and yet I refused to believe it down to the last page.

Overall, I think the best party of 1984 was the memes it spurred. Every time I was reading, Eva (my beautiful perfect gf) pointed to the book and said, "This is literally 1984." I hate her /j. My in-laws ask me to load dishes into the dishwasher? "This is literally 1984." My boss asks me to do a simple task while I'm clocked in? "This is literally 1984." I have to wake up in the morning? LITERALLY 1984!!!

Anyways I'm reading Animal Farm by Mr. Well now. It's shorter, so I'm grateful for that. I'm on page 38/152 and I appreciate how this one gets to the point. I already feel as though there's no point continuing because 1984 was predictable along the entire way, so I get the sense that I already know what's going to happen. The pigs are going to take over, it will be just as oppressive as Mr. Jones' reign was, the message is there is no good form of government or tyranny will always emerge if left unchecked for the briefest moment, yada yada something along those lines. But guess what? WE PULL THROUGH WE NEVER DNR 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 (except for the last book in the "Good Girl's Guide to Murder" trilogy, I wish I had DNR'd the first book so I never would've had to read anymore of that flaming shitstorm).

Anyways I'll post again when I finish Animal Farm.

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okay HAYMITCH! O M G

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currently clocked in at work but too tired to focus on homework (even tho i already drank the entirety of my daily coffee) so I will read some more <3

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I am currently reading "No Longer Human" by Osamu Dazai (my only piece of BSD merch) and I'm on page 70 out of 177. I bought the book so I can read it and then watch Wendigoon's video analyzing it, and maybe read Junji Ito's manga adaptation.

I bought this copy from a small queer book store in downtown San Francisco while on vacation with Eva (my gf) visiting her brother. I was having a terrible day at the time, but now I look back and smile whenever I pick up the book.

Unfortunately, classes started up again on Monday and I haven't had time to do anything fun, especially leisurely reading. In terms of what I think of the book, I'm enjoying it, but it's nothing remarkable yet. I find that some of the best books usually start out mid and pick up halfway through (The Great Gatsby, Where the Crawdads Sing, etc.).

Anyways, I post this just to get myself in the habit of posting about reading. The last book I read was "Where the Crawdads Sing," so I'll post a book review of that when I have more time. I just need to find a book review template I like. Google isn't giving me anything.

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Intro

Hello! You've stumbled across my blog for everything related to reading. Expect me to post and keep track of my reading lists, share my thoughts about books while I'm reading them, and write reviews of books after I finish them.

Before you follow, read this post from my main account Link to my main blog: Opal Link to my blog for tv/movies/manga/anime reviews: Opal's Entertainment

Favorite Books: -"We Were Liars" and "Family of Liars" by S.E. Lockhart -"Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley -"Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens -"The Hunger Games" Series by Suzanne Collins -"Insignia" Series by S.J. Kincaid (I have not read this since middle school so I cannot say for certain if this is still good)

Happy reading! <3

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Made an intro post for this account and it deleted itself -_-