MIDYEAR FREAK OUT TAG 2024 // Mostly awesome books and a terrible one star

[@mattkean1128]

Well I'm looking up Alvaro Enrigue!

[@marianamasbooks]

Yesssss!! So good! 🔥 I’m currently reading Sudden Death by him and it’s also so weird and fantastic and hilarious.

[@justjuanreader]

I need that Kelly Bishop memoir so bad!!! Gilmore Girls is still the best TV show.

[@marianamasbooks]

Yes! It’s a show like no other. There’s literally nothing that can reproduce the exact Gilmore Girls vibe 😅 When you’re in a GG mood, you’re in a GG mood.

[@ellethinks]

You Dreamed of Empires sounds so interesting! I've added it to my TBR!🤓 Also that was an elegant review of Empire of Silence. I have a feeling if/when I try to review it on my channel it's going to turn into a ran. 😅 And I love that you figured out a way to make two separate midyear freakout tags. 😂

[@marianamasbooks]

Haha I purposefully tried to review it without ranting (mostly because of filming time 😂), but I could have easily gone for just plain rant 😂 You Dreamed of Empires is so good!!! 🔥 I’m currently reading another of his books. (I’m excited to film the historathon edition 😂)

[@davidnovakreadspoetry]

That cover with the tarot card reference is great! I’ve put _You Dreamed of Empires_ on hold - there’s a long queue ahead of me at the library - because the premise sounds interesting, and the historical research behind it awesome. (I’ll decide to read it or not after I’ve had the chance to give it a glance.)

[@marianamasbooks]

I do the same with books! I need to sample a bit of the writing before I decide if I want to read it.

[@tasosalexiadis7748]

Where in Empire of Silence does Hadrian change his opinion for "cool things to happen"? Did we read the same book? It is purely character driven where Hadrian's decisions drive the plot and not the other way around.

[@marianamasbooks]

For example Hadrian’s dislike of violence. At the beginning of the book he despises violence so much that he actually leaves the coliseum in the middle of an ongoing fight, even if he knows it’ll get him in trouble. And then he actually ends up fighting in a coliseum. I just think it’s a strange choice from the author to have your character (who is supposed to despise violence on principle), end up fighting and training fighters. It goes against everything he supposedly believes in. He could have had Hadrian do whatever other low paying (less visible!) activity. The unregistered assistant in a clinic, a bartender, a trash collector, whatever. But myrmidon was, I guess, cooler than trash collector 😅 I don’t think a story being character-driven should be justification for inconsistency in the set parameters of the story.

[@tasosalexiadis7748]

@@marianamasbooks Well people change especially teenage boys who are so full of themselves like Hadrian. And Hadrian chooses violence after he has been living in the streets in poverty for a couple of years, have his gf die to disease and join a gang where he watches his gangmembers getting sentenced so a case can be made here for character progression. Moreover he was never truly peaceful, he beat up Crispin before he left home.

[@marianamasbooks]

@@tasosalexiadis7748 It would have been interesting to see that explored. I know this was a debut so maybe in future books his pov writing is improved. Though as I said in my review, there were many problems for me with the book, it just wasn’t for me.

[@tasosalexiadis7748]

@@marianamasbooks Fair enough. I only object that the main character changed his opinion artificially for the plot. I don't think that happened in Empire of Silence.