This is giving a mixture or Fourth Wing (minus the dragons) and Avatar the Last Airbender. I am liking this book but it is taking me longer to read than other books.

"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral - immoral from the scientific point of view." "Why?" "Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else's music, am actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realise one's own nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked."

Out of all the horrors happening in Nickelodeon, I’m glad there was one good thing that happened and that is Jeanette finding a friendship with Miranda. Her mom warped her perspective of female friendships with misogynistic stereotypes; women are backstabby, jealous and competitive. But at the very least, there was one person Jeanette could trust and rely on.

Ain't no way in HELL you'd catch me trying to cross the parapet!

to me, tané feels like she’s in an entirely different book to the rest of the povs. obviously she’ll cross paths with the west eventually but i’m probably the least invested in her storyline at the moment.

very much liking the Avallon as a setting and the characters introduced so far. not much to say yet about the plot but the vibes are there. i can't lie though i feel like i'm waiting for disappoint to hit the more i read (curse myself for reading reviews) but for now, i'm having a good time.

Do you pick up the first book in a series already knowing you're committing to the whole thing? Or do you go into them mentally prepared to drop it after that first one if you think the series is not for you? Sometimes it's hard for me to pick up a book when I know its in a continuous series, because the idea of committing to something I'm not sure I'll enjoy is A Lot. I'm fine if it's the type of series where each book revolves around a different person and story, and the only series aspect is the shared universe/setting. It's the series where 100% it's a long ass story cut up into manageable arcs that I have a hard time mentally hyping myself up to do.

I was an avid watcher of iCarly, and not even once did I ever think Jeanette went through something like this. She’s so strong and amazing and she doesn’t deserve the pain she went through

This just popped into my mind as a fun way to drum up some conversation between folks and get some solid comment threads! Everyone can list some bookish thing they like or do or experience (only if it hasn't been listed already!!) to start a new thread, and the goal is to build the threads by going through the comments and finding other responses that you relate to and commentinh to that adding a little more detail on your take. And of course, upvote, so we can see whats most common! For example, if someone says "I collect bookmarks" someone else may say "I do too and always match them to my books" (inspired by a little convo I saw recently, if this was you please let me know and I'll happily shout you out directly -> possibly example credit to Atheshootingstar!)

how do you guys decide to classify a DNF book vs just a 1 star book? There's a part of me that doesnt like to clasfiy unfinished books as DNF. I often still give star ratings to books I DNF even if it was 50% or more. I just feel if I spent time on the book, id like some credit for it and thats what my 1 star is for. And if I DNFed it because it was "bad" to my taste. My actual DNF is usually for books that I started, but I'm not in the right head space to read it. Such an example is Notes On An Execution, which i had started but realized I was feeling a little overwhelmed by it and decided Id read it at another time. (Im writing this in an airport, so please ignore the ramblingness of this post lol)