cannons commented on a post
lowkey racist undertones? i never like when authors write dialect of non-native english speakers…and i especially don’t like when it’s a white author writing from the perspective of a white character who is frustrated with non-native english speakers. there’s a scene with an asian doorman that made me uncomfortable, especially with the casual way by which it’s mentioned that other workers blame the asian worker for things that go wrong. it had basically no impact to the story, too—i would have slashed it out if i were the editor.
in general, the passing nature by which the narrator refers to people of color is…weird. it feels like that scene in TSH where bunny (i think it was him?)goes on a racist rant that literally adds nothing to the story; richard doesn’t even react to it. so like…what’s the point of casual racism lmfao.
aside from that. this book is really wordy. like almost excessively so.
Post from the The Goldfinch forum
lowkey racist undertones? i never like when authors write dialect of non-native english speakers…and i especially don’t like when it’s a white author writing from the perspective of a white character who is frustrated with non-native english speakers. there’s a scene with an asian doorman that made me uncomfortable, especially with the casual way by which it’s mentioned that other workers blame the asian worker for things that go wrong. it had basically no impact to the story, too—i would have slashed it out if i were the editor.
in general, the passing nature by which the narrator refers to people of color is…weird. it feels like that scene in TSH where bunny (i think it was him?)goes on a racist rant that literally adds nothing to the story; richard doesn’t even react to it. so like…what’s the point of casual racism lmfao.
aside from that. this book is really wordy. like almost excessively so.
cannons started reading...

The Goldfinch
Donna Tartt
cannons finished reading and wrote a review...
i really loved the writing style in this book, which alternates between sadie and jonah’s perspectives. in my humble opinion, the writing is superb.
the most compelling aspect of this story was the deep and complex relationships between sadie and her sister, francesca (chess for short). i really liked that mcalister delved deep into family dynamics - i would argue that the primary conflict isn’t romantic at all, but familial.
but that’s not to negate the fact that this is, in fact, a romance. and if you like fiery, sharp female characters and equally sharp but down bad male love interests, you’ll enjoy this one. i especially liked how jonah defended and supported sadie even when they were academic rivals. men, take notes.
my only could’ve-been-better notes are that some of the elements feel slightly underbaked, such as jonah’s strained relationship with his parents and the actual academia setting. i thought we’d see more about them actually in a work setting, but it’s sort of glossed over, and those elements are largely told to us rather than depicted. i thought mcalister’s best scene was the “getting together” scene / “love confession” scene. it was masterfully done.
overall, a quick, nice read that i plowed through in mostly one day.
cannons commented on a post
someone please tell me it gets better than this, i dont know how much longer i can do this
cannons started reading...

An Academic Affair
Jodi McAlister
cannons finished reading and wrote a review...
this is a decent romance to me...after the first half of the book. i fear 20 year old me would have eaten this one up, but after quite a bit of dating experiences/relationships, i found it very, very difficult to care about the main characters - even naomi, who is the sole narrator. i didn't care about their relationship or the conflicts they were experiencing; i found their interactions to be so incredibly frustrating and both characters were equally unlikeable. when it's clear that two people are this unhappy in a relationship, they need to break up and move on.
i think it could have done a lot better if naomi has a lot more wistfulness/sadness towards the beginning for the relationship they used to have. instead, the story is riddled with juvenile pettiness. and man, are they vindictive. i didn't find any of the "pranks" they were doing funny at all.
i did enjoy the eventual development (re-development?) of their relationship as they coalesce. i wasn't completely satisfied with the second half of the book as i feel like it could have gone a bit deeper regarding naomi's feelings of inadequacy and how she has a tendency to 'be a ghost', as nicholas says.
overall this was a solid romance but not anything i'd clamor about. apparently a movie based on this book is coming out and i actually think this might translate better in film format.
Post from the You Deserve Each Other forum
Post from the You Deserve Each Other forum
cannons commented on a post
he deserved it and she deffo made sure he knew it
cannons commented on a post
no bc i’m def not cut out be a rom com mc bc if a man tried to tell me to bake HIS COWORKERS cookies while he’s TAKING A SHOWER there would be no romance story to share bc the relationship would be over
Post from the You Deserve Each Other forum
no bc i’m def not cut out be a rom com mc bc if a man tried to tell me to bake HIS COWORKERS cookies while he’s TAKING A SHOWER there would be no romance story to share bc the relationship would be over
cannons commented on cannons's update
cannons started reading...

You Deserve Each Other
Sarah Hogle
cannons started reading...

You Deserve Each Other
Sarah Hogle
cannons commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
If you had to recommend an order to read the author's books in, what would you recommend and why?
So far, I've only read one EmHen book (Book Lovers), and I'm not sure which to try next. Like, obviously I can read whichever one I want, but I was just curious if anyone had any thoughts on a potential reading order. Like, maybe certain ones have certain vibes? Most serious to least serious? Least well-written to most well written? Best MMC to worst?
With Ali Hazelwood, I've read Deep End and PSR, but I'm curious about her other works too!
Feel free to share any thoughts! (This is my first post on here teehee)
cannons commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
first off all I want to say, that the aesthetics of this app are 100% me, and as someone who made their own gameified reading tracker in notion, I love the direction this app is taking + I think it has amazing potential. but, sadly, it loses me in the actual execution of its UI & features. here's some constructive feedback to the devs 💕
UI:
Homepage is too focused on your social feed and not enough focused on your reading. I know that this is a social reading tracker, but it is still a book tracker. We have the ability to make TBRs, plan our reading, and our yearly goals, join quests (all amazing features) but the information is hidden behind menus, and not visible anywhere else on the app. This makes the features, at least imo, fall short in execution. The homepage should give me an overview of my activity, as well as my social feed, and not only the book I'm currently reading. Suggestion: Show yearly goal, let us select if we want to see our yearly or monthly planned books, and how much of these we've read (and cherry on top would be how many pages/ day I would need to read in order to achieve my goal of reading my planned books). Optionally you could let the user choose what information is being displayed on their Homepage, so everyone gets a tailored experience to their needs.
Quests: one of the features that made me download the app, sadly the one I'm most dissapointed with. a) as a free user I can't make my own quests. sucks, but ok. b) no filter function! this makes it basically unusable, sorry. This is such a basic functionality - I should be able to filter quests by: a specific book/ genre/ books on my TBR/ books on my interested shelf. c) the algo doesn't show me relevant quests either, so I'm left with doomscrolling until I find something that could potentially sound like something I'd be happy to engage with
Library: planning function is cool, but I wish the UI was better here. Instead of going to plan > to month > and see your monthly plans I would suggest 2 buttons on top (+ monthly plan; + yearly plan), and then underneath show a visual of your planned books (similarly of how the homepage shows all your current reads)
Discover: similar users are NOT shown by order of % similarity. how can it be that my first suggested person has 6% compatibility, and I need to scroll 10 users down to see someone whos reading tastes are 30% similar. please, I beg, make a sort function.
Misc. Features:
anyway, that was all, I wish the devs all the best, and am interested to see how this app will improve in the future ✨