tullycat | April 2025 Wrap-up

Better late than never.

Books

Sunrise on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins
- This book takes places during Haymitch's Hunger Games, where there are 48 tributes instead of the usual 24. The highlight of this book is really the nostalgia factor because otherwise it really did not add anything to the Hunger Games lore. He was privy to too much information from the victors that were mentoring him (and Suzanne delivered this info in the most clunky way), a lot of the stuff with Snow didn't make sense (I don't think poisoning works like that but ok), and I expected something about his games to be different than what Katniss watched during her review, but no, it was pretty much the same. It was still fun to see characters we knew again but it doesn't really need to exist.
Piranesi, Susanna Clarke
- A man navigates his way through the House, cataloging the halls and statues and people within. Sooooooo I had seen so many people love this book and then I just liked it, I didn't love it, which was disappointing for me. I think I've realized I don't like receiving information in epistolary format, and all of the major reveals and twists of this book are given to us by the man reading his journals. I liked the ending and I liked the main character and how open he was to each new moment/fact.
Jade City, Fonda Lee
- Set in fantasy-China, certain races of people are able to wield magic via jade stones. We follow one family as they go to war against the other clan in the city. This book is billed as fantasy, but the magic abilities didn't seem that innovative or necessary to include. The jade really just enhanced their natural abilities. Anden is in school to learn how to use jade so that should've been an opportunity to explain the magic system, but we honestly saw very little of him in school. I think Lee wanted to write a mafia/martial arts book and added the fantasy to help it sell. The characters in this book felt insular to me. Shae arrives in the city after years away so she has no friends and no romantic interest and her only interactions are with her brothers. Hilo is another main character who apparently has a great relationship with all his underlings that they'll all die for him and he's heartbroken when they die, but we rarely see him interact with any of them. And even though he has the one romance in the book, we really don't see his fiance very often. I know many fantasy readers will disagree with me on this, but I actually thought it did need a blossoming romance to flesh out the characters. This book was somewhat frustrating because enough of it was good that the mediocre parts felt more glaring. I do have the second book from the library to try out though...I would like to see what happens to Anden.
Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, Sarah Wynn-Williams
- Written by the Facebook employee responsible for charting Facebook's international relations, this book is her expose about the inner workings of Facebook. I looked up some reviews after finishing and saw that most of the content in here was already public knowledge, but I didn't know a lot of it so it felt fresh to me. And also horrifying to read about the 2016 election and Myanmar...Feels super great to know that no one is reining in Facebook! Personally, I don't think anyone in this book looks good - halfway through the book Sarah pretty much knows that Facebook is evil but stays because she needs the healthcare. I really think that a top employee at Facebook could've gotten a job elsewhere without too much trouble, so I'm guessing the real reason was that she wanted the ~1 million equity she had been promised and wouldn't get if she quit.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Suzanne Collins
- After reading Sunrise on the Reaping, I decided to read this book. This takes place during the 10th Games, with (future President) Snow as a mentor for a District 12 tribute. This one has a worse rating on Goodreads, but personally I thought this one added more to the Hunger Games lore than SotR. SotR is just getting the ratings boost for being about Haymitch, IMO.
Shoot Your Shot, Lexi LaFleur Brown
- A hockey romance between a bi, struggling artist and a hockey player who gets a second shot at a contract after meeting our female lead. I read this because it was written by the wife of a retired NHL player who is bi herself so I was hoping it would be good. It ended up being boring but not terrible for a debut novel?? The main conflict is like....Lucy is afraid of commitment and overhears another WAG saying Jayden is a player so they can't be together. Except actually they can, of course. There's a scene where Lucy is realizing how out of place she is among all the other blonde, rich WAGs and I personally would've preferred to read /that/ novel, but not sure Lexi would ever write something like that considering she is a WAG and friends with WAGs. She has enough knowledge of the inner workings of hockey that if she decided to write a WLW book about female hockey players I would probably read it up (also MLM but that one feels less likely idk).

Music

Artists
- The Boyz (214)
- Ten (194)
- Just B (125)
- Day6 (115)
- Kai (103)
Albums
- Unexpected, The Boyz (206)
- Stunner, Ten (136)
- Just Odd, Just B (99)
- Fe304: Forward, NMIXX (89)
- Wait on Me, Kai (67)
Tracks
- Ain't Salty, The Boyz (41)
- Stunner, Ten (30)
- Papillon, NMIXX (28)
- Miss Demeanor, The Boyz (26)
- Chest, Just B; VVV, The Boyz (25)
- Bullet, Doom x3, KiD, Just B (tied at 24)
- High Horse, NMIXX; Waves, Ten; Rock and Roll, The Boyz (tied at 22)

Somewhere Pop is calling me Kai liker.....Well maybe I am!!

Watched

Seventeen concert movie and Sinners. Really loved the music in Sinners and have been reassuring people it's not as scary as the rating makes it seem so they'll watch it. I will rewatch it when it comes out on streaming so I can have subtitles...I def missed some dialogue.

Concerts

Hwasa
- Got a free ticket and said why not. Her discography + Mamamoo's has more misses than hits for me I think, but she felt very sincere as she performed.
Just B
- Tickets were super cheap (like 20 total) so I said why not. The big draw for me was seeing Bain's solo, but I did know going in that I liked a handful of their songs as well. They had really good energy live - they all used hand mics so you always knew who was singing and that they were singing (if you are near the back of a theatre sized venue I personally cannot see their mouths moving so my brain is like 'this isn't live music' even if they are singing). My concert was before Bain came out, so after watching his solo I was like he is either completely secure in his heterosexuality or he's legit gay. He sang all of Born this Way and never walked any of it back, so while coming out at the LA show was surprising because of the industry he's in, it also wasn't surprising because his solo stage was very honest. The rest of the solos were kind of duds for me, but considering I liked their actual songs, it was fine. Near the end they said 'On this tour we realized you guys like Daddy's Girl' which made my discord feel Seen.
Day6
- Live music is so fun, Day6 are great. Young K's voice is so good it makes me mad, Sungjin makes the funniest faces when he's not singing, Dowoon is cute, Wonpil had a funny moment when he said LA instead of NY and Young K had to immediately do damage control to defend him. They acted like Welcome to the Show would be their last song (which was also the song that played before they came out on stage), so after they finished that they said let's start over and played Best Part, the opening song, again. (Sometimes after seeing a show, one particular song gets stuck in my brain and this time it was Best Part.) My only disappointment was that the albums from the end of 2019-2023 were almost completely skipped. I knew it would happen but I still mourn the tours we didn't get from that era.

Fic

2531 for the month. This wip is slow going.
brb (bringing more boyfriends) - mostly Yunho/Wooyoung/Mingi, but also all 99z, Ateez
hear your eyes, your lips - Jacob/Jaehyun, The Boyz

Recipes

These were all good and I'd make them again. No further thoughts because I'm tired of writing this wrap up.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

KAI LIKER

I'm guessing the real reason was that she wanted the ~1 million equity she had been promised and wouldn't get if she quit
Plausible and also ick....

agreed about ballad/tbosas being better overall than sotr. I liked the writing a million times better in ballad, sotr felt either rushed or like it was supposed to span two books and suzanne didn't wanna do that again - which is funny because I thought the same thing of ballad when I first read it, but in retrospect the pacing was worlds better. I even liked the lore drop in sotr though but yeah, it was basically just The Haymitch Book lol :')

It's a lot of money to give up, but with how abusive she made the job sound and how off the rails FB was getting, you'd think she would jump at any opportunity....

I think I had more fun reading sotr, but yeah when i look at both of them next to each other, ballad wins haha. I think she wrote Snow much more skillfully than anything in sunrise. But like, I'm not mad that she wrote sunrise 😂 get your money Suzanne!

April 2025 Wrap-up

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