Abdullah Meeting: “The Stardust Thief”

What we enjoyed about the book:

  • Dropping the title in the book quite late, fascinating
  • Vibe was great: sultan, souks, bazar
  • 1001 Nights vibe, does not feel stereotypical, weaved into it very well
  • Arabic setting, does not feel forced, does not fall into ‘Oriental’ stereotypes, Kuwait-American author does a great job
  • Stories within stories cool
  • Story about storytelling, meta, how stories change through telling it, oral tradition nice
  • Easy to read, young adult patterns
  • Arabic language in the book works very well
  • Like in Arabic: “Neither…” instead “Once upon a time”
  • Not overexplaining culture, language etc. –> does not alienate or other
  • Immersive!
  • Fast-paced but does not feel rushed
  • “Mazen is my baby”, golden retriever vibes
  • “Aisha, I love her”
  • Characters are great
  • Nice plottwists! 40 thiefs are (SPOILER!!!!!) also djinn (partly)
  • Quadir ❤ drinks pure sugar, sweet!
  • Not a strong focus on romance
  • Ahmed is a good person partly doing the wrong things partly but thinks he’s doing the right things; as a love interest interesting –> does not see djinn as people; duality of it interesting in connection to L.
  • Relic idea fascinating, L. struggles with that
  • Djinn culture vs. human culture: memory = relict –> should go to different people and be kept in use
  • First half of the book quite cosy
  • Forced quest was to be expected but it was interesting
  • Positions of the brothers connected to the mothers; influences their relationships a lot
  • Djinn in exile idea interesting
  • L. not realizing O. is M. was hilarious
  • Mazen has a nice character development
  • M. never has a problem with L. or A. taking care of him
  • Aisha’s character arc fascinating: deal with a djinn, connection to 1001 story!
  • L. complex character, leaning on Q., not the “strong female character” stereotype, traumatised, but also trying to find a balance in her life between being vulnerable and being independent; well done
  • A. ends up liking M. against her better judgement – hilarious!
  • A. has a toxic crush (????) on O.?
  • Using djinn blood sinister “I loved it”; djinn died: vivid nature in the desert

What we discussed:

  • Aisha too preoccupied with herself to notice anything off with Omar etc., funny
  • Ahmed’s fate not as surprising but meh
  • Beginning not fast-paced enough?
  • World building underused but djinn world etc. will be focussed on in the sequels so that’s ok
  • Mazen gullible, naive and does not question anything
  • Third brother not really given enough space and complexity
  • Plotwise not incredible original, characters a bit predictable too
  • Body switching could’ve been used more to understand Mazen more (or Omar)
  • Mazen very passive; dislikes his privilege but does not do anything about it
  • Mazen is a bit mindless, immature, had been too pampered; does not think about consequences
  • Characters a bit too young? YA trope again?
  • “Everybody need a hug and therapy again”
  • L. and A. could bond more, more female friendship?
  • How do ghouls work???

Ratings:

  • 5/5 magical relic
  • 4.5/5 sinking cities in the desert
  • 4.5/5 undead ghouls
  • Some people had not finished the book yet, so more ratings are coming (here or on the Discord!)

Riordan Meeting

What we enjoyed about the book:

  • Writing style funny
  • Chapter titles great
  • Fast-paced, never gets boring, no lengthy bits
  • “Felt like coming home a little bit”
  • Nostalgia
  • Greek history and mythology accessible (could go deeper)
  • Made us interested in Greek mythology
  • Impactful, got some of us into reading
  • Rereading it and knowing who the villain was, was cool
  • Still fun to read as an adult
  • Perspective of Percy well done, writing style mirrors the focalizer
  • Sass and sarcasm was great
  • Mythology taken serious but not overly so
  • Some of us read the books first as a kid, others the movie, different paths all led to us really liking it
  • ADHD take interesting: partly superpower, book also structured in a way that makes it easy to read for people with ADHD
  • Dyslexia and ADHD not a death sentence, superhero and not stigma (both a bit extreme) interesting
  • One of us bought the book on Jan 21, 2014 (10 years ago!), “super random” but so cool!
  • Some copies have literature circle questions, very cool –> make readers little literary critics?
  • Difficult topics handles with grace: bad relationships with parents, mental health, abusive parents, neurodivergence
  • Cerberus likes to play fetch ❤
  • Hades was not the big villain, that was cool, Loki vibes intensify; Hades in graphic novel very different

What we discussed:

  • Americanized mythology a bit meh, center of the world the US? Pff…
  • Structure: one chapter = one monster, bit repetitive? What do they bring to the story? Some too random? Go a bit deeper into the monsters…
  • Bit boring: Poseidon’s son? Water guy. Match the categories! You can only have these abilities!
  • Fatphobia
  • German translation: “Missgeburt” used frequently, off-putting; ADHD also mistranslated –> ridiculous
  • Percy’s reactions sometimes not age-appropriate; Percy gets over her mother supposedly dying pretty quickly? Unemotional…?
  • Mother a very flat character in the first book, fleshed out later, just there to love and motivate and die for Percy!?
  • Character development throughout the series sometimes a bit weak
  • Annabeth Percy relationship based on the parents fighting a bit underused
  • Killing the stepdad bad?! Very Greek mythology revenge? But dubious message for kids
  • 12yo saving the world trope bit meh (we know it’s empowering and all but why can’t adults just explain things? And allow kids to make better decisions?)
  • Oracle vs. agency not explored enough
  • Nobody graduates from Camp-Halfblood? How terrible is that?! No perspective for the godlings? Those who leave go into hiding but never show up again? Lazy storytelling?
  • All the kids need therapy 😦
  • Hero does not know anything trope so annoying – everybody assume knowledge
  • Zeus just cannot keep it in his pants – YUCK –> imagine reading a book set in the universe for adults and tackling the even more disturbing bits of Greek mythology
  • Challenging what makes one “godly” or “monstrous” was not challenged enough –> very black and white but again, it’s a book for kids

Weird ratings:

  • 5/5 Cerberus ❤
  • 4/5 Master Bolts
  • 3/5 Monsters of the Week
  • 4/5 fake sneakers
  • 4/5 minotaur horns
  • 4/5 oracles

Fawcett Meeting

What we enjoyed about the book:

  • Wendell (controversial conversation starter!)
  • turn the book took when Wendell arrived (improved the story)
  • fairy world, storytelling
  • nice world-building
  • Irish folklore etc.
  • different fairies for different places –> regionality
  • scholarship / fairy academia great
  • institutionalisation of folklore, yet general population does not like the scholars
  • the ‘folk’ part of the story about the ‘Folk’ despite the academics meddling
  • Emily’s scientific mind fascinating, yet utter lack of awareness for danger, more scholarly interest than self preservation…
  • dog ❤
  • E.A. Poe references great, also a “Black Cat”
  • Emily learns the Fairy language, committed
  • Emily struggles to see fairies as subjects vs. objects
  • dehumanisation/humanisation…what’s human?
  • W.B. Yeats
  • Katherine Briggs
  • logic vs. chaos
  • Emily does not change much throughout the book?
  • morale of the story: everything works better when we solve problems together (as a community)
  • footnotes nice (for some)
  • overall enjoyable
  • lumberjack love story amazing, easy queer rep
  • really entertaining
  • Wendell as a fairy great: witty, cheeky, charismatic, annoying

What we discussed about the book:

  • we hated the love story (not all of us, but many)
  • Wendell as love interest meh
  • does not feel like a healthy relationship either
  • autism-coding of Emily very problematic and stereotypical
  • romance incredibly rushed
  • changelings also very weird
  • students are caricatures
  • academia part so underused: Wendell as professor about himself, could’ve used that much more, hilarious
  • Wendell lots of red flags
  • “it was revealed to me in a dream” type of academic that Wendell is –> could’ve been used more for comedy
  • language barrier solved too easily and quickly
  • weird pan-Scandinavian thing going on, felt like lazy research
  • bastard child of fairy king unimportant all of a sudden
  • vibe actually better than the story
  • meta parts great but underused
  • disliked the ending: too rushed, too damsel in distress, too many plotholes
  • pacing issues, partly boring passages
  • glaringly obvious plotholes
  • Emily frees herself from the curse (badass!!!) and then goes to the tree anyways???
  • dark side of Wendell could’ve been explored more
  • too much for one book
  • too convenient: coat as deus ex machina?
  • what happened to the changeling? kid needs therapy now? parents’s story also enigmatic?

Ratings:

  • 4/5 despite the flaws, enjoyable
  • 3/5 silver needles
  • 3.5/5 changelings
  • 3/5 Let’s get married so I get my thesis done
  • 3.5/5 everybody needs therapy
  • 3.5/5 fairy trinkets, “knocking off points because of the romance”
  • 4/5 cute brownies

Summary Donna Tartt

What we enjoyed about the book:

  • very engaging, “pleasantly surprised”
  • hating all characters was the point?
  • Julian a mysterious figure: cult leader? enigma? shadow figure? dangerous? at fault for Henry’s fate?
  • “I loved this book”
  • tragic novel, made a person feel sick and sad
  • invites a reread
  • pretentious students fun
  • humour: “Francis is such an icon”
  • book haunts you after you finish reading
  • what did Henry whisper to Camilla???
  • detective story inverted, fascinating
  • homeric beginning: Bunny will die –> waiting for it do happen; whodunnit in reverse
  • tons of plottwists
  • writing style captivating, pleasant to read
  • narrative situation: Richard looking back, can we trust him? Nah
  • unreliable narrator
  • “I liked the friendship”
  • a secret kept them together, cult, are they really friends?
  • class difference very interesting, made Richard more human
  • very toxic relationships
  • Richard as the outsider
  • Can we trust Richard at all?
  • winter episode terrible but told us a lot about Richard
  • fairly small group, good for readers to remember who they were
  • Henry: we need to know more, idealised Julian to a fault
  • “morbid longing for the picturesque” – vibe
  • “they’re all damaged and they all think they’ve found solace”
  • money is not an obstacle for the group, only Richard is poor: yet he is the only one who manages to obtain a degree and find financial stability?
  • priviledge: dark academia, the arts, philosophy, philology –> far from the mundane
  • giving yourself over to pure thought clashes with Richard and his material needs
  • transition when reading: I want this, dream, nightmare, reality
  • rich people (in academia): “they can afford to be assholes about it”
  • making the decision to kill Bunny –> paint Bunny as the villain –> Bunny also violates the aesthetics of the group
  • various interpretations exist alongside each other: supernatural involvement? magic? drugs? All of it?
  • Fantasy reading of it: https://www.tor.com/2022/02/04/how-donna-tartts-the-secret-history-hides-fantasy-in-plain-sight/
  • Euripides: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0092 –> great tragedy, chorus in plot, Dionysus –> frenzy
  • Nietzsche: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51356/51356-h/51356-h.htm
  • Nietzsche –> Apollonian and Dionysian –> Apollo: rationality, order, art, msic, poetry, logic; Dionysus: wine, irrationality, chaos, passion, dance, no control
  • Richard not being part of the ritual makes him twice the outsider, by killing Bunny he finally joins the group for real
  • before / after structure good
  • fragmented narration of the murder –> suspense
  • puzzle narrative
  • Bunny murder not at the end, unexpected
  • 5 Act structure by Aristotle
  • “Goldfinch” by Tartt: character from “Secret History” shows up, nice!
  • fascination of The Occult: secret knowledged, limited access –> speaks to us –> bigger than us
  • several secret histories: the group has one, the ritual is a secret too
  • book about obsession

What we discussed:

  • chapters too long
  • everybody’s toxic
  • first part was great, second part just “what the hell”
  • incest part a big NO
  • all female characters are horrible?
  • dark academia = toxic masculinity? objectifying women?
  • “I was waiting for Charles to die”
  • Henry killing himself out of character?
  • Richard as narrator: do we truly know what happened?
  • “I liked that not everything lined up” –> question everything also frustrating
  • “book made me feel extremely stupid”
  • passion of the characters: extreme emotions not something we feel yet still feel jealous about?
  • layers: illusion of characters but also readers
  • checklist for everything gothic, sublime, romanticism
  • plottwists in the end not as grand as expected (like Greek classics, for instance)
  • genre limits the book a bit?
  • stylistically the book could’ve been more experimental
  • Richard not likeable: motivation does not always make sense — what is he not telling us? Richard an opportunist but not as obvious and disruptive as Bunny
  • dark academia: white, rich men?
  • no one sees Camilla as a person? Implicit criticism?

Ratings:

  • 4/5 Henry deserved better
  • 3/5 Julian Daddy TM Issues
  • 4/5 Henry ghosts
  • 4/5 Bunnies
  • 5/5 Mystery pill bottles on my shelf
  • 3/5 It could’ve been shorter
  • 5/5 I’m toxic af and I’m proud of it
  • 4/5 everybody needs therapy please
  • 4/5 If we were villains was better
  • 5/5 Greek sacrifices