Post from the The Girls I've Been forum
Post from the The Girls I've Been forum
seema commented on skylarkblue1's review of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Content Warnings:
Graphic: Suicide, Grief, Grooming, Medical Scenes, Gun Violence, Homophobia, Blood, Cancer, Injury Detail, Misogyny, Racism Moderate: Gore, Domestic AbuseWhile the writing for the characters was ok, and there was a pretty well written scene, this book suffers pretty badly from a severe lack of care towards the industry and especially the developers. It being marketed as a book for people not into games is pretty accurate, and it doesn't even try that hard to get people interested in games either. To start with, the good: I did enjoy some of the characters at points. The disability rep and how the characters (mostly) interacted felt pretty realistic. I also quite enjoyed a specific scene which I'm not going to spoil, but it is quite well written and honestly was quite nice to read. It's presented in a decently unique way and executed decently well. And now, the negative: Starting off with the bad parts for the characters, the main 2 can often be incredibly insufferable at points. Additionally, the book glamorises a teacher/student relationship and *grooming*. I could not believe just how hard this book tries to redeem Dov and constantly explain away and excuse his LITERAL GROOMING. Even at the end of the book he's being defended and loved... even after there's been quite a lot of abuse seen from him throughout the book?? It's not even like the character has a form of stockholm syndrome or something, the way the book is written defends Dov's actions and lifts him up. Additionally, this book doesn't really do much to bring people not into games, into games. It keeps pushing the narrative of "violent games make violent people" (and Gabrielle, half life 2 is not a violent shooter lmao). I went to a bookclub for this book, everyone else didn't have much of an interest in games. I went to just try and give some context to things as a game dev, but was instead met with a lot of hostility. This book seemed to take their already negative opinions of games, and boost/validate that. If you know about games as well, the timeline makes absolutely no sense. For most of the book, I had no idea when it was set. And there wasn't really much point to mess with timelines? Why couldn't the MMORPG have a realistic timeline instead of the incredibly short time it had? Why couldn't games have their actual release dates instead of saying they released at the same time? Like it would have changed nothing with how much this book hops around time to just be accurate other than make it make sense to those who know those details. It also never actually tried to have a proper conversation about crunch, women having credit stolen from them (see next paragraph lmao) and just how fucked the industry is and was getting over the timeline of this book. Like it attempted to bring up these issues, but nothing ever actually got resolved. Especially the crediting problem, which was pushed at me as being the main point of the book lmao? The only thing this book cares about is the romantic dance between Sadie and Sam and the *constant* "will they won't they". And for the kicker: "Solution" in the book is a real board game called "Train" created by Brenda Romero. Even the description Sadie gives about Solution is *exactly* how Brenda described her game. It took both Wired and NYT asking the author after Brenda came out about it all, after release, if she knew about Train for her to finally admit that yes she did know about the board game and yes it was an "inspiration". The copy of this book I read still does not include a credit, despite many many books and games being credited. (Though, for all the acknowledgments tries to absolve itself, Eric Barone is the (mainly) sole developer of stardew valley. It was created by him, not just "designed by". If you can put that harvest's moons creator "created" that, you can put that Eric created SV). While the ending of this book is touting about how less crunchy things are and "oh wow more women!" in those years the ending is set in, this was happening in ubisoft: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250310-former-ubisoft-bosses-on-trial-in-france-over-alleged-harassment-1 Don't try and start a conversation about a topic you have no care to actually learn about. We need books on these topics, but we need it written by someone who actually gives a shit. We need fiction based on the games industry and this book honestly proves that even more. You do not need to go technical with it, it can very easily stay accessible for those who don't know much about games. Fiction can be used for a lot of good, to help break stereotypes, to help dispel myths.. This book does none of that and instead helps push the negativity.
Post from the The Girls I've Been forum
seema commented on a post
Just starting this one that I am reading for a vlog. It really dives right into it. I'm interested to see where this goes and why it's a fave of one of my friends.
seema commented on a post
Anyone else planning on jumping into this when it releases? I didn't realize it comes out next week 🤯
seema commented on a post
Dear lord, I am so scared to start this book. Everyone says this book will make you feel all the emotions. It has take me a few years through these books. But I made a goal to finish it this year! I am so ready but also so sad this is the end.
seema commented on astral.projection's update
seema commented on lucyPagebound's update
lucyPagebound started reading...
I Who Have Never Known Men
Jacqueline Harpman
seema commented on a post
i love naomi novaks' uprooted and spinning silver so i was always looking for books that had a similar feeling, and i'm so excited to see that this series has it even though i'm still at the begining! (i wish that i could find more stories like these..
seema commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
Hi all! Quick announcement that we have temporarily removed the ability to add and edit read dates in the book status modal. There have been some sneaky bugs, especially for international users, and we're working on a more reliable system to release this week or next. Rest assured that all your data is saved, and your read dates are still being logged when you update a book status on the site. This change simply hides the ability to edit those dates until we get a patch out. Thanks for your patience and understanding! Happy reading, Jennifer & Lucy
seema started reading...
The Girls I've Been
Tess Sharpe
seema wrote a review...
Wow. Just.. wow. This book was unlike any other I can recall reading, and the impression top of mind throughout it was how it so beautifully demonstrates the art of story telling. In fact, I'm considering finding the audiobook of it, because the story just begs to be told in an oral tradition. The book is written as a memoir of a woman who lived her whole life in either some degree of emotional or physical isolation, and the interspersion of her recollections with musings in the present was just done beautifully. To that point of plotline, the premise was so interesting yet went in a totally unexpected direction, and I'm really pleasantly surprised how satisfied I felt with the story despite the consistent denials of answers. I'm typically one who needs every detail to be explained and accounted for, but this book is so deeply rooted in the narrators own fascinating blend of lack of concrete knowledge with singleminded perseverance and confidence despite that unknowing, that it felt like it seemingly transfered onto me. I can understand why to some this book was disconcerting and frustrating, but I just found it completely enthralling and, honestly, very calm (likely due to the narrators tone). I know I'll be thinking on the more philosophical aspects of this book for a while to come, but I'll leave off with a few of my favorite quotes I encountered: - "[The other woman] couldn't understand why someone would want knowledge that would be of no use to them." - "Won't you go mad?" "I have no idea what you mean by madness." ... "You are the only one of us who belongs to this country." "No, this country belongs to me. I will be its sole owner and everything here will be mine." - "The reader and I thus mingled will constitute something living, that will not be me, because I will be dead, and will not be that person as they were before reading, because my story, added to their mind, will then become part of their thinking."
seema commented on a List
preparation for Katabasis!
4
seema wants to read...
Long Bright River
Liz Moore
seema commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
This place is so positive I feel too self-conscious to post anything negative about a book. Is that just me? Since the community is still growing it feels like a lot of spotlight on one negative opinion. I wouldn't mind posting a bad review on Goodreads but here I would feel bad 😅
Post from the I Who Have Never Known Men forum
seema commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
Hi everyone! So exciting to see so many new friends here in the community. With all the new signups, we want to give everyone a quick way to find similar users. One of the best and most rewarding things about Pagebound is the reader friendships we find here, so we hope this list of similar users sparks some bookish connections 💜 A link to the "Readers with similar taste" page is now on the Discover People page (or, click here). This has been a highly requested feature since day 1; we will work on making this more robust in the future (showing users with the highest overlap %) but for now, we'll show you users with similar My Taste books. Huge thanks to everyone who has shared us on socials and helped spread the word to friends! Happy reading, Jennifer & Lucy 💙💜
Post from the I Who Have Never Known Men forum