Who's here for the Leigh Bardugo challenge? 🙋🏽‍♂️

I can’t say I love the premise of this story: a woman needs to be married in the office in order to fit in? What century are we in? Because of this, the FMC lies and says she’s married when she’s actually divorced. Better to say nothing. She goes on to agree to a next day appointment with her boss’s partner, who is marriage counsellor, with her and her non-existent spouse. Again, what century are we in? A lot of readers find this set up funny, but I’m finding the humour rather cringey and forced. I hope this improves. I’ve often found romances can have cringey beginnings but manage to sort themselves out after that initial meet-cute.

Also have to say personally, I really don’t like Erin Mallon as a narrator. The other two narrators (MMC & marriage counsellor) aren’t that great either. I find EM tends to overact. This tends to backfire when the humour is forced. I usually don’t mind Teddy Hamilton, but I’m not vibing with him here. I’m trying to sort the narration out from the story. Unfortunately, Libby does not have an ebook copy of this so I can’t switch.

Giving this a third try. We’ll see how it goes again

you know the gif from icarly where she screams and gets blasted by a bright light for a second. thats how i felt seeing the text coming from robin hobb where its like. size 9 and this is like size 13 or something cjbeidsjdbw like wow. its like im reading in full capitals in comparison

and not like, how many books you want to read this year or actual quests you're currently working through (tho those are really fun too, so lmk those too if you want) but like what are some personal reading goals/quests/ideas you have at the moment? now I'm finishing up with the semester I'm thinking about reading seriously again (but maybe a bit too soon cos im not quite done yet hahahaha)

For me, some of them are:

• I really want to read all the Lord of the Rings books (I was read the Hobbit when I was a kid but mostly forgot everything hahaha)
• and also all of Agatha Christie's work (I've read a couple and I have the Mysterious Affair at Styles out from the library rn)
• I actually do want to read through one of the quests hahaha but I haven't decided which one yet cos a sidequest seems easier but i know there might be books I don't want to read so completionist badges might be off the table for a bunch of them (smut is a hard no from me so let me know if you have recs 😁)(im thinking one of the fantasy ones???)
• also, the readalong books, as well as Dark Wild Shore which is our unofficial southern hemisphere winter readalong book
• also with the Southern Hemisphere books, more local stuff (New Zealand and more generally SH stuff)
• I've been wanting to read the "classics", but like, both literal greek/roman stuff and whatever the "classics" are. maybe a list or quest for that 😆
• I've been wanting to get into comics for a while, and I just read Batman: Year One which I enjoyed, so more of those!! (I've been following this list)
• After John Flanagan died earlier this year, I've been wanting to reread all of his Ranger's Apprentice universe books
• also, Redwall
• Mistborn. and then, the entire universe
• maybe a little non fiction? I was recced some classical history books by @eleanors in this forum post
• trying to keep up with the 500 books i randomly impulse requested from the library
• i dont buy a lot of books, but ive a few on my shelf i need to read 😭 so also those
• and i want to reread the hunger games books before the new movie
• and not reading specifically, but I said i was going to review more books this year, and so far,,, ive reviewed zero. so more book reviews!!

So I have definitely got way too much going on, but what about you guys??