Welcome! Nice to "meet" you. And yes, the queer representation in WoT is, for the most part...not great. HOWEVER...I think what often gets overlooked is his Ace representation. While more than likely unintentional, and there are arguments to be made about what he is saying about women giving up sex/children for power, I think it is worth bringing up the Ace rep in the conversation about Queer rep in the WoT.

Thanks! I should have clarified that I am looking forward to KoD, but I'm not because it's the last one of Jordan's and I'm going to have all kinds of sad feels about that.

But see, I don't consider the switch to Sanderson as something hopeful to look forward to... Anyway, finally finished Crossroads. Fairly certain this is the last book I read, but I thought I remembered Perrin actually rescuing Faile? Obviously I'm misremembering. Will see if what I remember plays out when I tackle KoD, but I swear I never read that far the first time. I don't have the excitement to read the next books, though. Which makes me sad.

In the middle of Crossroads of Twilight... I am struggling with Perrin's POV. I'll try to read, but then a few paragraphs or a page later, I put it down. I've heard good things about Knife of Dreams, but I am not looking forward to Brandon Sanderson, and I'm feeling very discouraged.

Spanking Semirhage

Finished WH and DEFINITELY an improvement over TPoD. I di think my strategy of alternating books is helping me not get burned out, so as much as I want to jump in, I am going to sneak a memoir, a book of poetry, and another vampire book in. There are still sections of no conflict, though, which is annoying. I'm also surprised at how little I remember from this one (Alivia? Elayne's fake assasination attempt? Far Madding?), but I know I am approaching the end of what little I do remember, so I must have only read through Crossroads, my first attempt twentyish years ago. Anyway, the ceremony to make Elayne and Aviendha first sisters, Mat realizing who Tuon is and calling her his wife, and the battle to cleanse Saidin all still hit just as hard. I guess that's why I remembered it lol

Started Winter's Heart. Even though the prologue is exceedingly long, things are flowing better so far. Everything seems to be picking up almost exactly where we left those plot points, which is nice for many reasons. So far, the only part where the pace seems to hit a wall is in Perrin's POV.

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Just finished The Path of Daggers. Okay, so my younger self did remember correctly: there's a lot of random POVs, and it's confusing. They slow down the pace, too, and sometimes it feels...unnecessary. Like, there was one battle that had four different perspectives, three of which I did not care about. It's killing the mystery of everything to me, and it's also hard to keep reading because I just don't care about these people. And the vast majority of these side characters never pop up again, so why should I invest in them? I know this because of the previous books and their side characters who just go poof. The sheer number of exclamation marks is killing me, too.

Happy Birthday Thom!

Thoughts on ACoS... Enjoyed lots of this, but getting pretty tired of Rand being like "I'm the Dragon Reborn, so do what I say". Love Lan being all "Are you talking about my WIFE?" with intimidation level 1000 to Mat, who does the sensible thing and immediately backtracks and cowers. And, of course, the best ending in the series by far. What surprises me is how long I took to get through this one. Yes, I've been busy, yes, I enjoyed it, but also...yes, the pace has slowed, and now I am about to start books 8-11. I have feels, just not sure what all of them are.

Book club and poetry fun time! My fav poets are Larry Levis and Jewelle Gomez (fav writer ever).

Thanks lol I am taking a quick poetry and book club break but hopefully at the end of next week I can start A Crown of Swords.

Nice to meet you! I'm Starla, a Novice at the White Tower. I just finished Lord of Chaos, but at one point, like 20 years ago, I read through Crossroads of Twilight. I'm also a mom to two boys, so, you know, free time is optional lol. Look forward to seeing you around!

Finished LoC! Ended this one really disliking Elayne. She's pissed at Rand that instead of him sitting on the Andor and Cairhein throne that he conquered, he is going to give them to her? Not that she can be bothered to assume that responsibility, of course. She's doing other things. I get it, she's enjoying being Aes Sedai and living life for herself, but Mother Night, Morgase raised her to be a better ruler than that. Nyneave continues to be my favorite character, and I love her as the FMC. You can argue with Egwene or whoever, but Nyneave's POV is the only female POV in EotW. Anyway, that's another tangent. It's so telling when she and Theodrin are talking, and Theodrin asks her what her 'trick' is, and Nyneave is just like, healing people, while Theodrin goes, "I made boys kiss me". I love Nyneave for many reasons, but she's also the only one with power who legitimately is not interested in using it for her own benefit. I love that she's portrayed as a prickly 'B' because it's a good dichotomy to the fact that while the rest of the Aes Sedai are 'nicer', she's the only one who would Heal anyone just because they were injured. There are reasons Rand forever trusts her even when he can't trust any other Aes Sedai. The box...T.T T.T T.T I procrastinated reading this one a lot because I didn't want to read about Rand in the box again. Luckily, it took up less page time than I remembered, but still... I did have a giant question mark, though. After the Salidar Aes Sedai scare Rand to Cairhein, he's there for ten days...doing what? That is plenty of time to meet with the Sea Folk. I remember being so confused as to why they were upset with him, but now I get it. Not only does he ghost them, but he also completely ignores them. It seems like one of those forced plot points that Rand insults the Sea Folk, because I don't see it actually happening like that. I do like that I can voice my possibly unpopular opinions about things in this series. In other fandoms, if you suggest criticism, you are 'bad', unintelligent, or not a true fan. I think part of the appeal of WoT is that it isn't perfect, and we love it anyway.