Phoenix Logan
At first I was unsure because I'm not usually a fan of distant, restrained writing. But this book hit different once you get about a third of the way through. I didn't want to stop once it got to that point. The prose (no quotation marks, random capitalization, run on sentences) made me feel like I was going insane along with the protagonist. A really great portrait into interiority, like, some of the mental processing beats were incredibly depicted. Thought provoking. The kind of book that you need your friends to read so you can discuss and try to figure out what the hell just happened.
Honestly so good. I love Piranesi's character. He's so funny and aloof yet completely serious which is a sweet spot for me. The mystery pulled me along in the story - i felt like i was discovering the mysteries of the house at the same time as Piranesi was, and I was genuinely confused how the Other had gotten a ham and cheese sandwhich.
The symbolism and themes were so prevalent and layered. This is the kind of book you could read many times and get something new out of it each time.
it was very interesting! It gave language and theory to a lot of things I’ve been thinking about and feeling. That’s what made it a powerful read for me. That said it was fairly dense, and there were a lot of “what the whole are you trying to say” moments. But overall this book is going to stay with me, and I’m going to use what i learned from it to talk about capitalism and educate myself further.
The style is academic, yet extremely opinionated, which i happen to like. I do feel like some sections could have been condensed, and the book could have been half its size and still given the point across. In general, i was surprised with the understanding and compassion dworkin shows right wing women - that they are making pragmatic choices given systemic sexism.
giving it five stories because i could not put this book down and i felt legitimately shook after (similar to tWotM). That alone deserves 5 stars.
My main complaints were that I wish this book were longer. Overall it felt rushed at the expense of the character development. I wanted more character moments, especially with supporting characters. For example, I didn't feel fully invested in the Luceum cast of characters because I felt like everything was going too quickly. (I loved how Luceum felt as a place though, the scenery/atmospheric descriptions were beautiful.)
The characters on Res I wanted more of. I wanted to see the scenes where Vis rekindled his relationship with Ulcisor, more between Vis and his old classmates, or even more between Vis and Livia. There were also no scenes of Vis working in the senate, which I wanted to see.
I just wanted more of the characters. And I felt like the politics/plot were more of a focus. I hope the next two books will be longer or that there will be more focus on characters. Because that's why a lot of us are invested in this series.
Also what happened to Aequa made me almost want to stop reading. I felt like it was unnecessary and bordered on grimdark for the purpose of shock value, or to signal that the book was “serious.” I'm trying not to be salty about it, and respect the author's decision, but it's hard. I didn't think it needed to happen.
Honestly this was so good, especially the character of Cannon themselves. I've never read about a stoic, female character with the weight of the world on her shoulders like this before. I thought it was original and an honest portrayal of the long term friendship that's easy to take for granted and family duty (the scenes where cannon called her mom made me genuinely tense).
I also liked the slow build of pent up emotions through the magpie symbolism
