Shadow of Blahhhh – Deborah Harkness

Before I Kindled the sequel to Deborah Harkness’ atrocious A Discovery of Witches, I asked myself, Why?

Why would I put myself through that mind-numbing frustration, vacillating between being impressed with descriptive writing and being appalled at the utter stupidity of the so-called romance and the so-called plot. Plot! Hah! My roast vegetable have more plot than this book. Plus the roast vegetables are freaking delicious!

Look at all that delicious plot. 

Why? According to Seth, it is because I enjoy being miserable. He should know, he has to listen to me when I am. Also, that sounds like something my mother would say about me. My brother claims he understands that I have to see this through. I HAVE TO KNOW. Or maybe I am a sadist, like that lady who does chapter by chapter reviews of 50 Shades of Grey. (I have heard a lot of accusations saying this book is un-American despite being set in Boston or whatever, because of tea or prams or whatever, but my main bug in this line is the spelling of Grey. Grey is British spelling; Gray, American. Everytime I see the cover, I mentally correct it to Gray).

Every dang time.

So far I have gotten to Chapter 4. As you can imagine nothing important has happened, even though they are on the run for their lives basically. Christopher Marlowe makes an appearance. Other people do too, but I had to read Faustus last semester (weird and unimpressive, only because I was expecting something like a play version of Swinburne’s Faustine), and was curious about Marlowe. Of course, Marlowe is in love with Christian. I mean Matthew. Because Matthew is so lovable despite being grumpy, rude and one-dimensional. Also stupid. How stupid? Oh LET ME COUNT THE WAYS.

One of the reasons they go back in time is because the Congregation (the Creature Council, basically) disapproves of marriage/mating between species. Diana and Matthew are threatened and tortured because of it. And also because drama = plot for Harkness. So in modern times, Matthew says the Congregation is not as powerful as it once was, but they still managed to do a lot of harm. So what is the first thing Matthew does when he GOES BACK IN TIME, WHEN THE CONGREGATION IS EVEN MORE POWERFUL?

He fucking tells everyone that Diana is a witch and she is his wife. Every. Bloody. One. His servants, his friends, the bitter guy with an unrequited love for him. And for what purpose? No freaking idea. It doesn’t serve anymore purpose than if he’d just  told them she was his captive, or some girl he’d found or some friend of the family’s that he was now responsible for. Nope. Matthew is SO BRAVE, that’s why he tells every Tom, Dick and Harry that the goddamned witch is his wife. What happens? She gets accused of witchcraft in the village.

In fact, this is unworthy of a full facepalm because it is just too ridiculous.

The other reason they go back in time is because witches of our modern era are weak and   have no mojo to teach SuperPoweredGoddesWitch Diana to get a handle on her powers, and so they need a proper witch from the past to educate Diana. So I assumed that when they chose that specific time to return to, it was because Matthew knew there would be a witch or witches there to teach Diana. Otherwise, what was the point of going all the way back there and putting your friends and family in jeopardy while you took off, right?

This is how I think they feel about their friends and family.

So guess what happens when they get there. Nothing. Nothing happens. Because Matthew not only doesn’t know a single goddamn witch, THEY’VE ALL MOVED AWAY BECAUSE OF HIM. This may have occurred to him while hatching this plan with his mated nitwit Diana, but as you can see, Matthew is not the brightest bulb on display. Instead of some awesome witch, they drag in the village healer so that Diana can show off in front of her so that later she can accuse Diana of being a witch in the marketplace. Oh joy.

See what I mean by frustration? Yet the descriptions of food is just so wonderful, and I can see there’s a talented writer under all that absolute buffoonery.

That’s right Deadpool, a man I would love more if he were not so incomprehensible.

Big Bad Wolf

Went to the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale. Despite the fact that my room is littered with small mountains of books, I still bought more. I couldn’t control myself. Not with books. Never! And I managed to get Bitter Seeds! The top was a bit ucky, but that’s okay. It was the only Bitter Seeds I found and I would have taken it even if a seal had drooled on the first ten pages.

My haul:

1. The Undrowned Child, Michelle Lovric (The blurb said ‘mermaids and venice’. So I bought it)
2. Heart-Shaped Box, Joe Hill (I’d heard about the book and it sounded creepy. Also the cover was nice)
3. The Unincorporated Man, Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin (Read about it on a sci-fi list. They also had the Unincorporated War, but didn’t get that, just in case)
4. The Skull Beneath the Skin, P D James (I don’t remember if I’ve read this Cordelia Gray book, but I don’t really care. I love P D James)
5. Original Sin, P D James (Mum requested for Chris. Probably to prove that Dalgliesh is not as great as Morse. But that is, of course, impossible)
6. The Vesuvius Club, Mark Gatiss (This book is ridiculous. I borrowed it from the Singapore library ages ago, and I had to have it)
7. Bitter Seeds, Ian Tregillis (;,,,,,;)
8. Kraken, China Meiville (For Seth. It sounds interesting anyway, even though I couldn’t get past page three of the overpretentiously convoluted The City and The City)
9. Some Dragonship Book for Ben
10. Some Book of Useless Facts for Ben (That was the actual name of the book)
11. A Jamie Oliver cookbook for Seth’s mum
12. A Nigella cookbook for my mum/me

SIGH. And I only spent RM 130 (this ‘only’ is subjective, as I’m pretty broke. But for 12 books I think it’s freaking amazing).

Malaysian Dreamgirl, Why Did I Miss You?

For the past few days I’ve been sleeping at 2 and waking up at 7/7.30 to complete my assignments, freelancing and work work. And I still haven’t finished yet. The only relief I have is that I’ve completed my response paper on Measure for Measure. I feel like the empty carcass of a dolphin. Not sure why, but that’s how I feel.

Ah, sweet sleep. And sweet hours wasted with random internet surfing! How I have missed thee! Now I can go back to a some semblance of normality, especially after spending the last hour reading about Malaysian Dreamgirls season 1 after Seth mentioned that Cindy Tey, whom I saw at the Das Auto show, had won it. DID YOU KNOW EVERYONE THINKS SHE CHEATED? AND EVERYONE WANTED HANIS (who has an awesome blog, I love reading it) TO WIN? Where was I when all this drama was going down???? And they don’t have anymore MDG. MANNNNNNNNNNN. And if this was the Malaysian version of ANTM then…idk what to say. (also I cannot really say anything since I never watched it and know nothing about it) Except that Hanis is the only one who even resembles a model by a stone’s throw, and I think the only one who’s getting regular paying jobs? Maybe Jay too, she has that sort of face.

The rest of them just don’t have that face. You know what I mean? When you look at a model’s face, you can tell. This face will be transformed. But those faces don’t look particularly transformed. They look kind of lame. Sorry. Who am I to say anything anyway? I take crap photos all the time. But if you’re going to be a model, then at least some of your photos should look…alien…you know what I mean? Nobody wants a model that looks like the face in the mirror.