Rhui Jin

I wanted to like this story, but the characterizations were pretty poor. I listened to the audiobook version of this, and when the main character describes her husband, she frames it in a way that sounds like it's supposed to be a green flag, but in actuality, it felt like she didn't really know him at all, and any sane person would start firing questions.

The plot revolves around Tricia and Ethan, who recently married and are looking to purchase a new house. They got stranded in one of the properties their agent was supposed to showcase due to the weather, and decided to stay in for shelter. After some peeking around, they realized that it was home to Adrienne, a psychiatrist who had disappeared mysteriously.

Although I did appreciate the case transcripts Adrienne's POV provided, I felt that the twists were predictable and sometimes non-sensical. The writing style was also not my cup-of-tea, and to be frank, it did feel pretty cliched at times too. If I would to compliment the author, I would say that I think she did a good job in showcasing the unreliable narrator, as she was very unreliable. Sometimes Tricia would provide very clear clues that she is aware of whatever is in front of her, and sometimes she is sort of 'faking' her inner monologues.

This was an easy listen overall, and I can see how it could be entertaining for some readers. The pacing was smooth, and one could probably finish it in 1-2 sittings! Not my taste, but perhaps someone else's...

I’m sorry, P, I think this might not be my genre...

If you’d like to read the book yourself, you can find it here: https://bookshop.org/a/117995/9781728296166. By purchasing through this link, I’ll earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you), and you’ll be helping support independent bookstores. You can read more about how Bookshop.org supports independent bookstores on their website!

I had this sitting on my Kindle for a good few months and I can't believe I just only read it. I loved the entirety of this book. From the simple yet beautiful writing which made me want to continue reading at the end of each chapter to the fleshed out characters and world building. I do not have any faults for this book and it's definitely one of the best I've read this year. I'm not going to give away much because reading this with the bare minimum context allowed me to fully immerse in the beautiful world that K.Ancrum had crafted. The slow burn was perfectly paced and it was nice that the romance wasn't exactly the main plot of everything but played a large part in the story. The ending was also great. I didn't expect it to go that way and I'm glad that the two main characters were able to break the chain that made them friends in the first place.

Reread 3/1/21 : 4.5 Stars! I reread this in audiobook format and I found it a much better experience compared to my first read. I still love the letters between Red and Blue but I found the world much more interesting this time around. The narrator does a good job and this is also probably one of the best sci-fi romances I've read too! This feels like a book worth rereading from time-to-time and you'll probably notice much more things on the subsequent reads because boy, I forgot/missed out on many smaller details.

2019: 3 Stars. A good book but the flowery writing was confusing for me but the letters between the characters were really enjoyable! I'll have to reread this again soon and attempt to understand it better.

Hey Hadrian, Crispin isn't that bad!

The co-founder of Chess.com puts out an autobiography - one would assume it would be about his journey into creating the world's largest online Chess platform (and a large contributor to how large online chess has become, professional and non-professional wise), perhaps following the standard high-school-dropout finds an incredible idea and makes big bucks getting a startup with no VC funding, etc.

But this wasn't quite like those stories, and I had a great time with it. This follows Danny's journey in a cult called "Church of Immortal Consciousness" and how he essentially grew up being passed around the community members within the cult, was manipulated into thinking that his "purpose" was chess, and emotionally (and physically) abused by the adults around him.

Apart from the recounts of his experience within the cult, I found his account of the Hans Niemann scandal particularly interesting. With my very limited (and perhaps biased) knowledge of the scandals recounted by a few chess YouTube personalities, it seems that Danny is very firm in his stance that Hans did indeed cheat and has a history of cheating.

In light of the recent death of Daniel Naroditsky, I kind of hoped that the book could've touched on that topic as well. Especially that Daniel has been outspoken about being selected to be proctored by Chess.com and has mentioned how some of these playing conditions had led him to unfair playing conditions. It really does seem like cheating is going to be dominating the conversations within chess communities for the foreseeable future, and frankly, I don't really know how the issues could be resolved.

Overall, I recommend this book, but I did wrongly assume that it would've been more focused on Chess.com's formation. It definitely did touch on that but the majority of the book is centered on Danny's journey (understandably so), and even when he was focusing on Chess.com matters, the Niemann v. Carlsen scandal took up the majority of the word count.

If you’re interested in the book, you can check it out here: https://bookshop.org/a/117995/9781541703308. I earn a small commission if you purchase through this link, at no extra cost to you.

If you'd like to see some of the references for the above, visit my blog linked with this post!