koshpeli's reviews
268 reviews

A really fun read. a romantasy that does not pretend to be anything else. The fantasy part is laid out in  just enough detail to give the characters context and move the plot along. At the beginning, we’re giving enough detail to wonder if the Mail love interest is good or bad and we are not  given the full story until the end, just in time for a satisfying, moral, romantic, and plot climax (pun intended). The fight scenes are incredibly short, the sex scenes are longish and detailed, the descriptions of the male love interest’s body and sexy vibes are probably much longer. 

Note that I only read this book because I thought it might be the origin of the famous quote about not messing with dragons because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup. This is not where that phrase came from but I’m really glad I read this short read in a genre. I normally don’t read. 

I read the first book a few years ago and loved it. I thought it gave some fascinating insight into the Iranian Revolution and Marjane was a very quirky and insightful girl. 

However, the rest of the story, after she moves to Austria, is uneven. There are fascinating episodes in her life but she also leaves a lot of gaps in her  life and some parts it just feels like you are listening to someone tell their life story without any clear point or overarching themes.  Every now and then, characters speak in philosophical argument, but it never goes any where. Part of the point, I suppose, is that Marjane is a complex person and her philosophy changes quite a bit but I had thought there might be a bit more consistency particularly as the nuts about theory don’t as much to the book. For example, in Vienna she reads a Russian intellectual and much later in the book his name comes back up but it’s never clear in-between what role his words played in her life or what was even unique about his philosophy. 

That being said, I love the first part and even in the rest, I laughed and cried. She’s a powerful writer when she’s on. 

Baldwin can craft a sentence and make a scene dynamic. 

The book is told by the main character as he talks about his life surrounding two tragic events and their aftermath. The book skips through time and so the driving force is the book is to find out what exactly happened and why. But in some ways, it’s a portrait of a character and how he views the world. He would fit well into a mountain goats song, but because it’s book length, there’s more detail and depth to the character. 

The main character developed and runs a roleplaying game played by mail and set in a dystopian future where a nuclear accident turns the US into a wasteland populated by militias, mutants, and other characters. Players send in moves and they get sent the results of their moves, each choice branching them out to new possibilities and closing the door on old ones. While players can write anything they want, the main character has to distill that move into one of a limited number of predetermined choices. It is stated many times that the goal of the game, to find and infiltrate the last safe place in the US is unreachable. Essentially this is a metaphor for the character’s life (or a reflection of how he sees the world). The book has a nihilistic feel and I didn’t love the conclusion, but learning about the game, some of the players, and some of the details of his life, mainly his fantasy life, his view of the world, were very interesting and kept me  me reading.