Reading goals

I officially haven’t completed my “before Snezhnaya” reading challenge, but 80% is not bad! I’m actually proud of myself, given that the challenge was unrealistic to begin with.

Finishing my three books before Snezhnaya is definitely not happening, but I did finish two, so I’m quite happy with how it went. I’ll probably try to make some progress on the third book tomorrow, but I won’t be able to finish it, even if I added Wednesday morning (or maybe??)…

I finished chapter 3, this one took place in London in 2007.
Unfortunately, now I’m pretty sure this book is just not for me, and I doubt I will really enjoy reading what’s left (I’m not even halfway through!). This chapter was very engrossing, with twists and action, but the genre and tone are just not for me. Too many coincidences, characters are also just too strong, Yuen-man was just a good police officer in chapter 1 but now she’s become some kind of elite agent with connections and access to information that doesn’t feel credible. Police procedures are also not realistic.
What bothers me the most though, is that each chapter is tackling a huge case with close relations to real major events of the city in which the story takes place, but a chapter feels much too short for the scale of its plot. The case is hardly set that it directly comes to its resolution.
It’s also hard to feel connected to the characters. Their actions are closely influenced by the political landscape or conflicts that currently shake their country, but again, this would need a novel of its own to explore, but the chapters make it feel like explanations are thrown onto the reader a bit artificially instead of letting us understand the characters’ motives bit by bit through the story.

I really prefer realistic procedures, not super hero who gain access to information because they’re elite computer experts and had foreseen everything before anyone else.
I think that if the book was not part of the Readmoo challenge, I would have considered DNFing it.

Now I’m really realising that my “before Snezhnaya” reading challenge was not realistic… And the problem is that I didn’t like 千禧黑夜‘s second chapter all that much, and so I lost a bit of motivation for this book.
Both Korean and Japanese novels read very easily though, so I can more or less stay on track with those two.

Track 5 ends on a cliffhanger, I’m tempted to continue, but I’m starting having a headache, so I’ll probably keep the end for tomorrow or this weekend.

Started chapter 2, I like the story!
I’m so tired and unmotivated today though, probably lack of sleep and heat…

Finished chapter 1! I like the setting and characters. It’s just the beginning, but it looks like the book is going to be a great mystery!

Started it!
It’s been a while since I read medical fiction! Medical terms aren’t really a problem so far, and the book reads easily. Very intriguing beginning too…

Read the first two chapters of part 2, and it’s as good as part 1!

Finished the second chapter!
This one was so different than the first chapter. It was more an action thriller whereas the first one felt more like a police procedural. Many parts of the second chapter didn’t feel very realistic to me. I liked it less than the first part, but I’m curious to see where it’s going to be and whether all chapters will have a different tone or different sub-genre.

I had a new goal idea this morning: finish my current book in each language before Snezhnaya release. I still haven’t started the Japanese one, and the current book in Chinese is quite long, but at least I know it won’t be a problem for Korean given how engrossing 믹스테이프 is.

For this kind of reading goal, I need to set a progress plan:
There are exactly 7 days remaining before the patch.
千禧黑夜: 79% > 11/12% per day
믹스테이프: 46% > 6/7 % per day
禁忌の子: 100% > 14/15% per day

It looks a bit unrealistic… I think that 千禧黑夜 is the longest, but it’s hard to compare length... 믹스테이프 is very easy to read and it’s a page-turner anyway so this one won’t be a problem. As for 禁忌の子, it’s a medical mystery, so it might end up being the most difficult of the three. It’s not very long though.