“He was an easy mark.”
First line in The City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty
Hi, guys. I hope you’re all doing well. WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words, and it’s meant to give you all a little insight into my reading this week. I’ll answer the 3 questions:
- What are you currently reading?
- What did you recently finish?
- What do you think you’ll read next
What did you recently finish?
I finished The Empire of Gold by S. A. Chakraborty, the final book in the Daevabad Trilogy, and gave it 3.5 stars, making it my least favorite book in the trilogy. For some reason, it felt incredibly meandering and I was constantly wondering when we’re going back to the good stuff from book two, but we never really got there. I can’t exactly go into specifics for the final book in a trilogy, but there were also some developments that I didn’t like and some I felt could have been explored further. Still not a bad book by any means, only a bit disappointing.
What are you currently reading?
I have about a hundred pages left of The Absolutist by John Boyne, and I’m digging it a lot. It’s reminding me why I liked this author’s style in the other book of his I’ve read, The Heart’s Invisible Furies, although it’s funny that I can tell that The Absolutist was written before that one.
It has some complex characters that aren’t there for you to root for necessarily, and it’s really interesting to follow. The book is structured in such a way that it jumps back and forth in time to uncover something that happened. I’m not a big fan of that structure, and I think that’s only thing that prevents me from being over the moon about this book.
I’m also reading some non-fiction, more specifically, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. I don’t know how to review non-fiction, but so far I’ve read about how the world is rigged against introverts… so at least it’s confirming what I believe a lot of introverts are feeling. It’s a bit depressing to read of course but also oddly comforting. It’s really stressing how many people are introverts and that they’ve all had struggles similar to the ones I’ve experienced. I’m expecting to learn even more as the book explores that power we supposedly have even more.
What do you think you’ll read next?
I’m going to read a novella from the Onyx Court series by Marie Brennan called Deeds of Men. It’s very short so I should be starting something else as well but I have no clue as to what. I’m conflicted because there’s a difference between what I want to read (Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb) and what I should be reading (A Star Shall Fall by Marie Brennan). I’m leaving it on a cliffhanger here so come back next to find out whether I started a new series or continued one.
First Line Reader 
The Empire of Gold is also my least favorite in the series 😅 I didn’t mind all the meandering that much, but I really wish the ending had been a bit more heart-wrenching! The finale just felt kind of anticlimactic compared to everything that happened earlier in the series… Still, I was so thrilled to finally be back in this world that I couldn’t help but love it anyway 🥰
And as for your conflict on what to read next – those choices all sound good! I don’t think you can go wrong, really 😉 I’m kind of jealous because the only book I’ve picked up this week is my Russian textbook – my exam is next week and I badly need to revise vocabulary 😅
Still, that’s not going to stop me from watching the game tonight! Best of luck to Denmark!!! Hopefully you’ll do a better job against England than we did!
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I think maybe the entire book felt anticlimactic for me. I didn’t feel the book had been building towards a bigger and more explosive ending than the one we got. I really wished they had all arrived in Daevabad sooner and maybe given Zaynab and Muntadhir more of a role to play. I was kind of upset they weren’t included in the finale at all (There will be a spoilery post about it but not until next week. It’s not that exciting because it’s mainly me ranting about the lack of Jamshid 😅)
I understand you being jealous of my dilemma because I’m definitely not jealous of your Russian textbook 😂
And thank you!! I’m so nervous! I really don’t want it all to end today but I’ll be even more upset to see England go through after seeing how their fans have been behaving. We need to win!
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NOOOOOOO!! If it hadn’t been for that unfair penalty, I really think you might have made that win 😭😭😭 But, if it’s any consolation, at least it’s pretty impressive that Denmark is the only team to have scored against England so far! You definitely have a team to be proud of! Although it really hurts having to support Italy in the final now. But I guess I still like them more than England, so it’ll have to do 🙈 (And yes, those English fans are seriously scary! I’m so glad I wasn’t in that stadium with them!)
But (on a happier note?) regarding Daevabad, I agree with you on a lot. I was also upset that Zaynab and Muntadhir (but especially Zaynab!) weren’t in it more, and I also would have liked more Nahri and Ali in Daevabad than we got. However, I did enjoy learning more of Nahri’s backstory through the time we got in the human world and thought Ali’s powers were kind of cool, so I was willing to forgive 😁 But anyway, I’ll save the rest of my thoughts for that spoilery post of yours – which I’m eagerly anticipating, by the way 😊 Even though I should probably be focusing on exams at the moment, so from my perspective, it might be for the best if you take your time writing it 😂
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Oh that hurt, very very much 😞 I don’t think I’ll ever understand why VAR didn’t do something about that penalty or why the ref didn’t want to see it. Everyone outside of England is saying it wasn’t a penalty! And with Schmeichel we definitely would have had a very good chance if we had made it to shootouts. But we are proud of the team! A semi-final was unthinkable before the tournament started and outright impossible after the Finland game but they made it anyway. And the World Cup is next year. (And on the lousiness of English fans: Danish TV interviewed a Danish fan after the game at the stadium and an English fan pushed her away so he could yell “go England” at the camera 😒).
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There’s no way that was a penalty! I’m still upset; that’s such a stupid reason to lose! 😤 And Schmeichel almost had it, too! 😪 I must admit I was very impressed by his skills, especially during that last match – your team is definitely World Champion material! Although, of course, I’m also hoping our own team will have gotten their shit together by then so that I’ll be able to support them for more than a handful of matches… 😅 (And I hadn’t heard that story, but it doesn’t surprise me in the least 😠 I’m certainly rooting for Italy!)
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I’m also still upset about it! It’s one of those games that we’re going to remember for a very long time. I need England to lose on Sunday to feel just a bit better about it all.
And I would enjoy being able to root for Germany longer too at the World Cup 😄 When it works, it’s really one of the most entertaining teams.
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Enjoy your reading!
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Have a great week of reading! My WWW post is here: https://wordywitterings.com/2021/07/07/www-wednesday-wednesday-7th-july-2021/
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