Otilia
this was fine, but i was honestly more invested in the end note about the research that went into writing this than the book itself. i spent pretty much the whole time wishing i was more familiar with the mahabharata so i could better understand the function of this book as a retelling, if that makes sense. i kinda wish patel had chosen to focus on one or two limited storylines from the epic and engage with those more deeply, even if that meant taking more creative liberty, rather than tackle the whole thing. (side note, i also think it's commendable that she did, in fact, manage to squeeze all the main plot into a few hundred pages and still produce a coherent narrative).
on that note, many other reviews have mentioned the disproportionate focus on the men, despite the titular character being a woman, as a main negative point, which is a completely valid critique. i personally didn't mind it here, but that ties into my previous point: i was more interested in learning (about) the original story than anything else, and a bunch of men beefing with each other is what you get from that, so i can't complain. i found it entertaining enough. the fact that everyone is also varying degrees of awful & messy is something i love about (some) myths in general, and so that was a highlight for me here. i think it did a decent job of exploring themes of morality in relation to duty, divinity, and power without feeling preachy.
that's more or less all i have to say about it. i think patel's flowy writing really shines in the audio version, in part thanks to sneha mathan's lovely narration, and that alone probably increased my rating by a solid star.
my main issue with this is that i felt like there were one too many monologues. i found everyone's perspective beyond insufferable, and i'm not sure any of them were new or interesting. the characters are very clearly acting as mouthpieces for a philosophical thesis on suffering and nihilism more than they are characters in a story, which is not inherently a fault. in this case, however, i thought it didn't really work, because the switch-up between the really gruesome and violent in-story bullying scenes to this sort of story-external dialogues and meditations often rendered both sides unconvincing. as a result, for a book dealing with such a heavy subject, it felt quite silly at times. why does a middle school bully suddenly talk like he read nietzsche to justify his bullying? maybe i just didn't Get It™.
nevertheless, it's a really short novel and so its scope is appropriately limited; i never felt like it needed to be longer, or that it was trying to do too much. on the contrary, i actually thought the middle was getting a little repetitive, and we were just reiterating the same points over and over without taking them anywhere new. it doesn't help that the writing is quite bland (or maybe that's a translation issue?). again, not an inherent fault, but for me it made getting through some of these scenes feel a bit like a chore. overall, not for me.
really compelling stream-of-consciousness which you can't help but get absorbed into. honest, capricious, and deceivingly short. i still can't tell whether its portrayal of internalized misogyny is intentional, but i was genuinely struck by the coherence with which this theme emerged and the humanising way it was handled, even if it's not necessarily the central issue of the narrative. definitely worth the read.
it's been a long time since I've felt the urge to reread a book the minute I finished it, but the master and margarita has certainly earned that badge. what a way to free the spirit of imagination during and era that did its best to stifle any last remnant of it. I usually prefer to avoid this word, but I truly believe bulgakov was a genius. this has everything. reflections on good and evil and repression and (the comfort of) conformity, all wrapped up in wild shenanigans, delicious irony, and magical absurdity.
manuscripts truly don't burn and love is the way out!!
I enjoyed reading this but ultimately it fell flat for me. As others have mentioned, the student/teacher (and, really, ugly age gap, in general) has been done so many times from all possible angles, so it's quite ambitious to try and add something new to that. Perhaps a little too ambitious for a debut novel? I'm not saying this to undermine McCurdy's skill, because she's clearly got it: her writing was the highlight of this novel for me. She's got a strong voice, sharp and intentional, fitting a lot of meaning into few words, and I can see myself picking up a potential future venture in fiction, if she chooses to do it again (not really interested in reading her memoir). I also really liked Waldo as a character, and her relationship with the teacher came across as appropriately insidious (I disagree with the idea that the lines of victimhood are blurred and/or that Korgy is too lame or not calculating enough to be a groomer; I though his strategic moves were clear as day from the start and were simply camouflaged by Waldo's skewed perspective).
Nevertheless, while there was some exploration of twisted power dynamics and the structures that perpetuate them, I felt like the commentary was a little surface-level, and that perhaps spending more time exploring Waldo's relationships with her mom and Frannie would've really added to it. I thought the final 20-30% or so was losing track of the book's direction, and I found the ending anticlimactic and a little cliché, abruptly cutting the thread instead and tying a quick knot instead of doing the work to spin it into something more insightful than than Listen To Your Body and Be In Tune With Yourself. I think, overall, some of the problems might stem from McCurdy relying a little too much on the reader's familiarity and/or awareness that this is partly autobiographical. I was left feeling like it was missing something.
This is the kind of intergenerational saga that needs solid technical skill to pull off, and I'm not sure Wilkinson has shown that here. I loved the concept, especially the threading in of anecdotes and bits of history or science. I was decently invested in the plot after about a third or so, and really wanted to enjoy the book even though I'm personally not a fan of this kind of direct, simple writing (which I think is a matter of taste, so I'm not really including it with the issues below).
Nevertheless, so much important stuff happens off-page or through short summaries that it was just frustrating because it causes so many other problems. Characters barely get to interact with each other in meaningful ways, and there are so many whose POVs we quickly circle through that we don't really spend enough time with any of them so as to get to know them or explore any significant aspects of who they are, no time to see them grow or change. I spent a good deal of time wondering why I'm reading about a scene instead of actually reading the scene. Also, much of the plot is pushed forward by random coincidences, to the point where I can't suspend my disbelief anymore. How do these people repeatedly recognise relatives and friends they haven't seen in 50 years (or even at all!) instantly, just by looking at them?
Overall, it just feels unpolished and I think that's a shame because I would've loved this had it been told with the level of finesse it needed.
Cooming back to the universe was truly the best part for me. I really felt like I was a teenager again, picking up ADSOM and being completely absorbed into the world and the magic. Maybe that's why I didn't mind the fact that, to be fair, about 80% of this book is one long introduction to the (presumably) upcoming sequel(s). Was all that backstory necessary to set up the plot? Probably not. Did I still greatly enjoy learning more about the world and the characters in, at times, excruciating detail? Mostly yes. Schwab really has a knack for writing characters that feel real and alive. That said, I was occasionally bothered by the fact that she seems to want to make sure that everything is accounted for and made explicit to the reader. It's been years since I've read any of her work, so I don't remember whether that has always been the case. I get why you'd want to do that, but I think there's a difference between plot holes and a little mystery, and I personally enjoy the latter. I like it when things are left up in the air for the reader to interpret, and here no stone was left unturned, save for some loose threads (haha) that will obviously be picked back up in the next book.
Maybe it's this need to overexplain / provide too much detail that made the final plot twist completely predictable, at least for me. (At least, I assume it was intended as a plot twist.) I saw it coming the minute it was set up, and while that didn't really dampen my enjoyment of the story overall, since, as I said, I do love Schwab's prose and I could honestly read about these characters doing fuck all for 600 pages and not get bored, I still felt a little disappointment when it was revealed. I'd still been holding out the hope that I was wrong and I'd get surprised. Although that didn't happen here, I think there's enough intrigue regarding the overarching storyline that I'll still be looking forward to the sequel.
Especially regarding whatever's going on with Kosika and White London! I said it in a forum post when I was about halfway through the book, but out of the two new protagonists I find her story the most compelling. Maybe also due to the fact that, again, I could guess quite early on where Tes's was going, whereas with Kosika I had no clue. As I said in that forum post, I just love a weird girl with offputting vibes!! I hope she gets even weirder.
Overall, I loved this despite its flaws and I'm upset at myself for taking so long to give it a chance. I'll be here patiently waiting for the next installment.
This is the kind of book I wish I'd experienced as a Netflix original that gets cancelled after one season, just so I would be spared the sloppy writing and get to enjoy some pretty costumes and Edwardian England settings instead (of which the book provided only a faint echo).
Mediocre writing (how many similes and random italicised words are too many? this book can demonstrate), protagonists with undistinguishable voices in the alternating POV, two-dimensional side characters and cartoonishly evil villain(s), predictable plot. The magic system was the highlight, I liked the idea a lot, but even that felt like it hadn't moved past the concept stage by the end: half of the questions about how it works were explicitly presented through either the 1) non-magical character's inner monologue as a “oh wow I should ask about this later because we're in the middle of something now” list that is never addressed, or 2) the magical character's inner monologue as “oh wow this is ancient magic that hasn't been studied yet and I can't wait to learn more about it” list that is never addressed. Not sure if this was by accident or an intentional cop-out, but I had to laugh.
I don't mind a slow pace if everything else is done right, but that wasn't the case here. I did eventually get invested enough to be able to finish, but I still kept checking how far I'd gotten thinking I'd made progress only to see the bar had only moved up by 2%. Glacial would be an understatement. I ended up skimming through the last few chapters and sighed in relief when it was finally done.
I'm not sure why this gets added to feminist literature lists (title, maybe?). Granted, it does raise points that are relevant to feminist critique, but, in my opinion, the book's thesis re: gender is anything but feminist (if we take that to mean ‘advocating for women's rights and equality', that is, which is the meaning I imagine feminist lit lists are using). I'm not sure if Harpman actually set out to explore what being a woman would be like in the absence of men, but the narrator never exists in such a world. Not just because of literal male guards being present, and later on dead male prisoners, but because of the highly gendered patriarchical values that the other 39 women very much upheld and passed down to her, even as they avoided talking about men, relationships, sex, or reproduction – values which the narrator never challenged, but internalised and carried with her until the end. It seems to me that the book is either saying that emancipation isn't possible, or that it shouldn't even be desirable in the first place, because while life without men might seem peaceful (but is it, though?), it is nonetheless empty and pointless. This is, in part, why I wonder how Sophie Mackintosh understood the book's message as hopeful, because to me it is clearly meant to be a tragedy no matter the angle.
This is, of course, not to imply that the book is any less valuable from a literary perspective. When you take the feminist lens away, I think the ways in which it plays with its broader themes are very compelling, especially questions on the meaning of humanity and community/isolation. But I do still wonder whether the feminist lit label comes from people reading it so entirely differently that they get a completely opposite interpretation than me, or if it's just a female author = feminist literature accident.
I'm not always sure with Sally Rooney if we're meant to frown at the characters' outbursts of pretentiousness, or if they come out like that unintentionally. Reading Conversations With Friends I wondered the same, but by the end I felt closer to the former interpretation. It had a clearer sense of self awareness that I didn't really get from Normal People.
does for fascism what Lolita did for pedophilia. or at least tries to, with varying degrees of success, the main issue being the pacing. if you're gonna write 500 pages of cognitive dissonance and paranoia on steroids, I'd at least want consistent pacing of the plot to keep me sane.
i think nobody else other than snow should've been the protagonist of this story. i'd even argue that his character staying consistent throughout is a good choice; if he started out as good, this would've run the risk of making him sympathetic. that said, his shift from bad to worse feels quite abrupt in the last part of the book, which in the end goes back to the issue of pacing. i wish it had leaned more into the philosophical aspect and done so more organically — having the mad scientist give you homework assignment feels a little corny, like oops can't today i have an evil thought due monday. i did like the part with clemensia and the snakes though; i wanted more of that rather than chaosconflictcontrolESSAY_2final_edited_v5-FINAL-1.
the other characters were compelling but I do think they fall a bit flat, by virtue of seeing them through snow's twisted mind, where everyone is suspicious by default. but perhaps that's also the effect of his projecting. he believes humans would all kill each other for power because that's what HE would do, and he's so self-absorbed he can't fathom anyone not being like that. we don't see any growth from anyone else because he either can't see it or looks away when it happens, one way or another.
in an attempt to tie it all together SOTR just spawned dozens of plot holes and inconsistencies that undermine the brilliance of the og trilogy and made 0 new statements in the process. I had major expectations from this and all I got was half baked ideas, sloppy fanservice, and mounds of wasted potential. it just confirmed my long-held belief that if we had to get a haymitch book it should've followed him as a victor and mentor, after his games — at least that would've been a fresh perspective in the series.
Random thoughts:
- Maali quickly became one of my favourite protagonists. He reminds me so much of Young from Love in the Big City. Sardonic, sceptical, sarcastic and self-aware. Although extremely flawed, his love is genuine, and you can feel that in the way he talks about DD and Jaki — but also Sri Lanka.
- I found the prose in this book absolutely stunning — some of the most vivid and creative descriptions I've ever read. Few things are as palpable as the afterlife recounted by Maali: “Ranchagoda's body looks made of coat hangers and his uniform drapes upon it.” (p. 49); “DD remains polite and his syntax does not waver but you spy lava bubbling beneath his eyelids. He always plays with jewellery before he explodes. He is squeezing that ankh on his neck like it is bubble wrap.” (p. 52); “ Shadows move across the asbestos and not all of them belong to the cats or the bats or the roaches or the rats. Do animals get an afterlife? Or is their punishment to be reborn as human?” (p. 91)
- I loved loved loved the ending — so satisfying. I love how the entire point of writing this in 2nd person came full circle — because this story is not only about Maali. It's his story, but it's not about him, it's about all of us, me, you. The universals of human life, the most constant of which is death.
- And I also loved how the point of the magic system was explained towards the end: where ghosts can influence the affairs of the living, and the revelation that everything we do is the result of their interference. Our thoughts and feelings are whispers from those who came before — perfect metaphor for generational trauma in a story that is partly about the horrors of a war whose purpose nobody remembers but whose wounds remain deep.
- I do wish the pacing was more consistent. I liked the reflective tone throughout, but the 2nd half definitely dials up the action compared to the 1st. I still love the way the intrigue is set up though, it feels subtle in the way it's constructed stylistically, many clues are throwaway bits in seemingly random places, but the impact lands every time a reveal happens.
Am I trippin or has it always been this weird for teenagers to have nicknames (allegedly) based on how many girls they've slept with? Or is it like a cultural thing? Do rich Americans just be like that sometimes?
Or maybe I've just grown up more than I'd realised? Because whatever the reason, I would sooner believe the earth is flat than the fact that a 16 year old pampered child fucks so hard he's New York's most notorious playboy. But then again, I've never been to New York.
Other than that, I had to open google dot com at least once per chapter in order to understand what the rich kids were talking about. And look, although I always end up frustrated, I low key like reading about rich people. Their lives are so fuckin surreal, I swear, it's like reading fantasy but with less cool magic tricks and more useless, stupid drama that gives me reason to feel somewhat superior for not partaking in any of that irl. The downside of that is that they're all so fucking annoying. By the end of this book, I could only stand 2 characters (that I actually hated in the beginning).
I've never read more than a few chapters Anna Karenina, and it's been sitting on my shelf for years. I've only seen the Keira Knightley adaptation (if it's a Keira Knightley period drama, I have to see it). And the most important thought I remember having is that I didn't mind her cheating as much as I should, because it was the 19th century and she virtually had no rights. I could sympathise with her. I mean, it's not as if Anna could just tell Karenin boy bye and be done with it, you know? She'd properly be ruined for life. And I'm usually very, very unlikely to excuse cheating, but I made an exception for her.
So what I feel doesn't really translate well into the modern setting is Anna's cheating. Her excuse for not breaking up with her boyfriend first was total bullshit, as well as her “couldn't help myself” act she pulled after. I say Alexander was boring as all fuck and at times annoying, but he did seem like a decent guy. And that's why I couldn't really cheer on for this version of Anna.
What I did really like was the style & diversity. The random perspective shifts were a bit confusing at first, but once I got used to them, they made sense.
Steven and Kimmie's character developments were great, to. I could not stand them for the first half or so, hopefully for obvious reasons, and by the end, they were pretty much my favourites. I do believe that Lolly should have broken up with Steven, though. Sure, I loved his growth and his character at the end (and especially his relationships with Anna and Dustin), but I think maybe losing Lolly would've taught him even better. As for Kimmie, she was absolutely unbearable until she got her shit together. But after that? Girl, u can do better than Dustin (I liked Dustin, but oh if only his story was more focused on his family and friendships, which was actually interesting, rather than his fawning over Kimmie for the entire book).
Anyway, I'm generally all for reading about that life of debauchery that would make Lord Henry proud. I'm all for the family drama and. But I can't take it seriously when they're all spoiled kids acting like grown ass adults and never doing anything teenagers do. Go do your homework, bruh.
(also, what was up with Vronsky's name being Alexia? out of all the options he had to be called a Greek female name :)) as if he wasn't ridiculous enough already)
“We are on the right side of history,” he says. “And we are going to survive to write that history. Wait and see.”
I picked up this book one evening when I was kinda tired but didn't want to go to bed yet. Long story short, I stayed up until 4 am reading. I just could not put it down and when I did, it was only because I was physically unable to keep my eyes open any longer. Well, Like a Love Story hit me like sucker punch. It was raw and angry and so, so full of love that I felt my eyes water a couple times during the last 50 pages or so.
The book is pretty straightforward. It's set in 1989/90 New York and it follows three teenagers: Reza, a closeted Persian boy who's just about to start his senior year at a new school; Art, a proud and open gay kid with shitty parents; and Judy, Art's best friend, who dreams of becoming a fashion designer and whose beloved uncle Stephen, a gay man, is suffering from AIDS. Reza starts dating Judy, but falls in love with Art, and things get really complicated when the truth comes out and they have to deal with the consequences and decide what and who is more important to each of them.
I'll say this now: it was a bit difficult to like these characters at first. Reza was quiet and a little bland. Art seemed self-absorbed and reckless. Judy kinda hated her parents for no apparent reason, which irked me. But as I read and began to understand each of them, their problems, their thoughts, I grew to love them. They felt real and honest and so utterly human. Every character did. Tara (Reza's sister) was amazing; while I was reading in my exhausted state at around 2 am, I opened my notes app and wrote, and I quote, “I fuckin love Tara. bless her. She's amazing and i wanna marry her. I wanna marry Tara right now.” So there's that.
I loved Uncle Stephen so much that I could barely get through his death scene. The pain was palpable and I was angry, so angry. I just wanted to yell at somebody. I wanted to get out in the streets and scream at people. I learned a lot from Uncle Stephen. Like this, short, quick reminder: “Hate is just fear in drag”. Or this poem right here:
“But I'll tell you what we will never be deficient of. LOVE. We love art and beauty. We love new ideas and pushing boundaries. We love fighting against corruption. We love redefining archaic rules. We love men, and women, and men who dress like women, and women who dress like men. We love tops and bottoms, and top hats, especially when worn by Marlene Dietrich. But most of all, we love each other. Know that. We love each other. We care for each other. We are brothers and sisters, mentors and students, and together we are limitless and whole. The most important four-letter word in our history will always be LOVE. That's what we are fighting for. That's who we are. Love is our legacy.”
was
had
“I have a little time,” Saadi replies, his mouth full.
“The opperative word there is little,” Abbas says. “We all have a little time, and we should do our best with it.”
SY75
“Autoboyography”
historical events
“We all come from love. And that's where we're going, too. Where we are now, that's the complicated part.”
This is actually the first time I write something resembling a review with the intention of making it public. In the past, I've had scrambled thoughts scribbled here and there, but, mostly, the closest I ever got to a review was sending incoherent rants to my best friend, and even those only happened when I either absolutely hated or absolutely loved a book.this is more like my thoughts put somewhat eloquently, and my personal experience more than a helpful review, but stillHowever, something about this one pushed me to write this. I honestly haven't been this touched by a book in a very long time. I remember reading [b:Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe 12000020 Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, #1) Benjamin Alire Sáenz https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328320260s/12000020.jpg 16964419] last summer. I was on a train with my grandma, it was a particularly long journey, and I finished it in one go. The reason I'm bringing this up is because I got a similar feeling reading Autoboyography, although the circumstances are as different as they can be (I was pretty much glued to my bed), I related to the characters and the stories in ways that I can't easily describe.I loved Tanner and Sebastian from the moment I met them. I loved their dynamic and their interactions, but most of all I loved how they managed to find common ground. Since I am an agnostic bi woman who comes from a non-religious family that is pretty similar to Tanner's (very open, accepting and loving, but not only), I could really see a part of myself in him. And reading his story was as heartwarming as much as it was eye-opening.I think this is mainly why I felt this book so deeply: it was like a bit of an epiphany. Before reading it, I was convinced that I knew all there was to know about religion, homosexuality and the relationship between them. I'd thought that I'd read and heard enough on the matter, that I understood all sides of the issue and, in my head, there wasn't much to debate. But boy oh boy, was I a fool.At first, I didn't exactly understand Sebastian, I didn't quite see where he was coming from and I couldn't comprehend the nature of his struggle, since his experience was so very different from mine. I was not brought up in a religious environment. I've never said a prayer before eating. I've never attended a church service in my entire life. I was christened Orthodox, but I've never embraced it as my faith, and I probably never will. So, yeah, it took me a while to understand Sebastian's thoughts and feelings on the matter. Yet, by the end of the book, he easily became one of my favourite characters and I fully empathized with him. I'd never known how difficult it has to be, being queer and religious at the same time. It had never crossed my mind how such a situation might affect familial relationships, I never understood the complexity of it until now. And it honestly broke my heart a little bit, because it also dawned on me that there are people out there who have to go through this, who can relate to Sebastian, and not only sympathize, like myself.There was this particular quote that actually gave me goosebumps: “I don't actually care if you break my heart, Sebastian. I went into this knowing it could happen and I gave it to you anyway. But I don't want you to break your own. You have so much space in your heart for your church, but does it have space for you?” This was the moment that all the aforementioned realizations just came to me at once and, had I been Sebastian hearing that, I think I would've simply started to cry. I just felt his inner crisis and I honestly just wanted to give him a big long hug. Oh, also—the fact that Sebastian had no one to talk to about his feelings (except for Tanner, who, let's be real, wasn't exactly the perfect, unbiased listener), nothing to guide and help him through this besides his own judgment and faith, hit me really, really hard.And even though the romance was the focal point of the book, I love that other relationships weren't neglected. Tanner's friendship with Autumn was amazingly developed and the way they were able to communicate and talk to each other like responsible people was, really, inspiring. I did feel like their hookup was initially oh so dramatized, and then suddenly almost completely downplayed. I mean, in the form it was first presented (i.e. Tanner thinking something like “this is the moment he knew......he fucked up”) I expected it to be the main source of conflict going on, but in the end, it wasn't. And to be fair, I'm not even complaining about it. I would've hated it if the story went down that road. Tanner's family, too, was amazing. His parents reminded me so much of my own parents, and his sister reminded me a lot of my own sister. And if I hadn't already been aware of how utterly lucky I am to have them, this book would've shown me that, too. If only every family was so open-minded and accepting...All in all, apart from the previous little remark, I can't seem to find any other fault in this book. I absolutely loved it and I stand by my claim that everyone should at least skim through it. It sends a great message and it's highly educational, it touches a chord in one's heart, while also being funny, fluffy and entertaining. I never thought I'd read a book so focused on religion (especially when so many either glorify or condemn it), but it was so well-written, so considerately approached, that I enjoyed even those parts.
There's just something about Adam Silvera's books, man. I don't dwell on them too long and they're not the first that come to mind when someone asks me about my favourites. Still, I have yet to find one that I didn't spend all my waking moments reading and that didn't fucking shatter my heart into tiny little pieces. And then I move on and remember them from time to time and I go like, wow that was fucking depressing and I loved it. It's a weird relationship to have with books but I wouldn't change it for the world, I'm always looking forward to anything this man writes.
Anyway, I'm still disappointed in myself for not seeing that plot twist coming. Especially since I've watched Eternal Sunshine. In my defense, I'd just had my mouth cut open so I was a little bit distracted by the pain as the anesthesia wore off and the dread that my stitches would suddenly for no reason pop open.
Where do I even begin with this mess of a book?
Suffice to say, if the average Romanian young adult knows more about your book's topic than you, the author, then I say you did a bad job. And this is why, if you wanna write a book not only about a different culture, but a whole nation's history, you either research it until your eyes bleed, or you simply don't write it. Although, I have to say the whole premise of the book is insulting in itself. A “retelling”? This isn't Beauty and the Beast. And it's not Dracula either, which would've been fine since it's fiction. But. You don't just get to “retell” a nation's history to appease your own what-if fantasy. If you wanna write weirdly specific genderbent RPF, just do it on ao3 like everyone else and don't cash in on another people's culture.
But let's say, for the sake of debate, that you're gonna write the book anyway. Yeah, it's kinda offensive, but what do western audiences care about world hisotry, right? And I don't really blame them, to be fair. Dracula sells. They're gonna buy into this no questions asked. Still, I'd like to think that at the very least you would put some effort into naming your main lead, right? Right?? Well, fun fact: Ladislav is a masculine name and it's not even Wallachian/Romanian. Obviously it makes sense for a Wallachian woman to have a male Czech name. Look, my ancestors didn't suffer centuries under Ottoman domination so that some random American could “rewrite” an essential part of that period, because she probably heard somewhere the (alleged) story behind Dracula and though yeah, that'll do, and then proceeded to read a few Wikipedia pages once and called it research. And don't even get me started on Radu (at least she got his name right) who is a walking, talking gay stereotype straight out of the 80s (feminine, frail, pining over some straight dude).
These are just some of my observations. I didn't finish the book because I just did not have the energy to get mad at it any longer. In any case, if you ever wanna “retell” history that doesn't belong to your culture and hence isn't yours to tell, how about you: 1) don't.