Don't Open Your Gifts 'til Midnight Unless You Want To Be On My Naughty List...

Don't open your gifts 'til midnight unless you want to be on my Naughty List...

Merry Christmas, I wish you all a wonderful time with your loved ones 🎄

Well, I was planning on reading Dracula for Halloween/October too but it was a little more dense and longer, I had to work and then I had a trip for a week, so I didn't manage to finish it on time. Maybe I'll read it in-between other stuff this month, but I'm also preparing for final exams so I don't know haha

I didn't have time for pics either this week, I'll see what I come up with

Is this a comfortable POV for you?

Be careful, pay attention: not everything is at it seems.

Book Review: The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss

My Review in a Tweet:

I haven't been this enraptured, this mesmerized, this captivated by a book in years, and I don't say that lightly. It's great on every aspect you could think of, and then some other you couldn't even conjure. Can't believe I neglected it for so long. Highly recommended if you like fantasty of any kind.

My Full Review:

I had it sitting on my bookshelves for months before I decided to start reading this book. It felt menacing, despite it being the pocket edition. The sheer volume, the brickness of it felt like a challenge I hadn't the courage to face.

But once I did, I realized the real danger was being unable to let it go: I was prisoner of the author, being held by his marvelous ability to thread the story of Kvothe in seamless chapters, that natural the flow of the story felt, you couldn't even tell where he jumped from present to past and back.

The vivid images still dance in my mind hours after I finished reading the book. I rushed past the other reviews I had pending so I could write this one because I neded to talk about it. My copy of the book was a present from a friend so I texted her inmediately, but that didn't suffice, I had to write longer than all caps screaming to each other.

The rich world the author builds feels vast and mysterious, with a lot of hidden things lurking just beneaht the surface waiting for both the writer and the reader to discover them. I really hope (haven't looked it up yet) that there are books in the vein of the Silmarillion and Tom Bombadil where the myths and tales of this universe are further expanded.

The prose of Rothfuss is so elegant, filled with clever descriptions and unexpected analogies that not even the most fictitious elements of his story remain ungraspable to the reader.

The characters are so diverse and interesting: each and every one of them leaves a perdurable memory, no matter how brief and casual their impact and presence on the story is.

Kvothe is our main character, but he gets to be a narrator of his own story whenever we dive into his past, becoming a somewhat unreliable narrator. The whole book feels like that: we as readers submerging in the story narrated by Kvothe himself, gasping for air during the interlusions where the omniscient narrator takes the job back to move the story in the present time.

A wonderful work of worldbuilding, characterization and narration only hindered by the bittersweet taste of finishing the book eager for more. I hope to get my hands on the sequel soon, but I probably should let this world rest a little before diving in it again.

9/10.

My other 2023 Readings.

Book Review: Ultimate X-Men, Mark Millar, Adam and Andy Kubert.

My Review in a Tweet:

I like how corny Marvel comics are. Being so cuddled by the MCU, it felt refreshing to see many characters just existing there and moving the plot by acting rather than being, like they didn't need to justify their existence for a greater plot and could just inhabit the universe.

Full Review:

Being primarily an MCU enjoyer (I wouldn´t call myself a fan now), seeing the plot of the Sentinels as the first thing in this comic book was jarring, as I was expecting a more introductory story before anything like that. It is an early story anyway, as the X-Men as a group are barely getting started in Men of Tomorrow. Scott Summers/Cyclops serves as the founding leader of the team under the tutelage of Charles Xavier as a group of mutants who seek to discourage the U.S. Government from implementing the Sentinels program, protect other mutants and impede Magento from recruiting them to his side.

The hard-cover book includes a second story arc, Return to X-Weapon, where Wolverine takes center stage and fights to rescue his newfound team after nearly betraying them in the previous story.

I rescued that panel in particular because it was hilarious to me for some reason (Quicksilver complains to Scarlet Witch that Magneto said that his superspeed mutation was effeminate).

Both story arcs were neatly written, with not much time to spare on developing the mutants, but maybe it's commonplace on issues dedicated to a team rather than to an specific character. Magneto and Xavier, as well as Wraith, have their time to shine and expose their views. I was delighted to see Nightcrawler on this, so half an extra point for that.

Overall, an amicable reading, not too deep, fun for moments. The artstyle is a bit underwhelming and there aren't many interesting compositions, but besides that, enjoyable.

6.5/10.

My Other 2023 Readings.