Nothing But Reading Challenges discussion

This thread is open to discuss Nevermore by Rob Thurman



Synopsis
People die.

Everyone knows that. I knew it intimately as everyone in my life died thanks to my one seemingly harmless mistake. I'd brought down Heaven, lifted up Hell, and set the world on fire, all due to one slip of the memory.

I forgot the pizzas...

Caliban is a dead man. The Vigil, a group devoted to concealing the paranormal from humanity, has decided Cal has stepped out of the shadows once too often, and death is the only sentence. They plan to send a supernatural assassin into the past to take down the younger, less lethal Cal.

But things change when The Vigil makes one last attempt on Caliban's life in the present—and end up destroying everyone and everything he cares about.

Now, Cal has to save himself, warn those closest to him, and kill every Vigil bastard who stole his world. But if he fails, he and everyone in his life will be history…

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hey guys, think i am gonna start good omens tomorrow so might not do this one until sunday or monday even.

have we decided which series we want to read next after this? i was thinking that I's would be good for the floor is lava challenge but incryptid, iron druid, and i bring the fire are all I series lol. and i don't really want to commit to dresden right now. maybe we could try that during tower teams because i'm sure a lot of people will join it and i think we usually get points for BRs during that.

I’m good with starting Nevermore on Sunday or Monday. I kind of took a break from reading after Downfall so I was planning to try and finish off book four of the soul Eater series tomorrow and it will give me time to knock out the other two before tormenting myself with Nevermore.

I vote for either Iron Druid or I bring the Fire for our next buddy read. Scribd has the I bring the fire audiobooks and the iron druid audiobooks will be available on 8/16 through them so I’m open to either series

The audible for Hounded is only 5 dollars right now on audible

i can get both of them on audio so i guess we'll wait and see what cathy thinks

Sorry, I'm here!!

I know I'm going to regret this one...

Sure, if you get the audios for Iron Druid we can start with that one. Will be good to finally get that series off the list!

ok cool. are either of you doing the floor is lava? it starts on the 12th so is it okay if we push our start days back to mondays for the duration of that?

I'm good with that. I decided to sit out for that challenge because I need to focus on me for a little while (and not using all my free time on books).

yeah I skipped the challenge but I'm cool pushing back our start days to Mondays

ok cool. i was thinking about skipping it but since they lowered the page limit to 100 and my team decided we would limit the books we counted in order to keep ourselves in the 21-40 books range to lower stress that it wouldn't be too bad. i don't know if i'm just in a slump or what but wheel has been stressing me out this year

That's the way to do it! Low stress! I get too into the games too and stress myself out trying to read too much when it just takes over. I'm too competitive for my own good :P

haha yeah, i just make myself be chill for team challenges because ultimately you can't control what your other team members do

I don’t want to stress myself out at all about reading so I tend to only do solo challenges and ones where you have long time frames. I basically have so much going on in my life that finding time to read is hard. Its been a bit easier since I’ve been doing a mix of switching between reading and audio books but I still have time problems.

This summer was easier cause I was just doing my internship and working full time. But fall semesters about to start so I’ll be back to working, internship and school full time and my times going to disappear again. Luckily it’s like the end of school for me so I’ll be free come spring with just working. I won’t even know what to do with suddenly having free time again.

@claudia yeah that doesn't sound fun but at least you're almost done lol let us know if you need to slow down the buddy reads though

i started this morning, i think i'm a few chapters in and there is just no part of this book that i am buying at all

cal vs. cal (view spoiler)[like i do not buy that bb!cal would not recognize that current cal is just him but older. i mean yeah i looked slightly different at 26 than i did at 19 but ...not enough that people who knew me wouldn't recognize me much less me recognize myself. hell, people i haven't seen since middle / high school generally recognize me if i see them around town somewhere. i would buy it if he still looked more auphe but rafferty reset him again so ...should be looking pretty much the same, albeit with more scars (hide spoiler)]

also and i just realized this with this current reread (view spoiler)[cal does theoretically have the ability to gate through time anyway so it's kind of silly to have him use vigil tech in order to do it. i know he'd need a huge power boost but i think reading about him trying to figure out how to do it on his own would have been interesting. also it would make more sense i think if he would have not gone back so far in time. i mean he could have gone back a few months or a year when the vigil was already on their radar and be like 'hey robin you need to take care of this' and there would be a lot less trouble with screwing with the timeline [not that she seems to be very concerned with that anyway]. (hide spoiler)]

idk, i am just so picky with time travel narratives and right from the beginning it seems like she has put no thought into it whatsoever.

I listened through chapter 10 last night. I think I need to start with I’ve read better thought out and plotted time travel fix-it fan fiction than this. Also I’m not going to lie I spent the first few chapters like completely confused.

(view spoiler)[ So like I’m 10 chapters in and still not clear on what happened. Like I get they were having a party to plan a trip to the past already due to having information the Vigil was going to go back in time and kill Cal. Then the last 2 NY Vigil did a Kamikaze run at the 9th Circle but yeah your right this was just really unbelievable.

Like why Wouldn’t Cal just travel back a few hours with the time travel device he already had to just clear out the 9th Circle? This plotline makes no sense. Like seriously Cal just pop right back in after other you leaves and be like we got to go Vigil coming and gate everyone out. The last two do their kamikaze run but take out an empty bar And since Cal has already saved everyone they can just proceed to hunt down Lazarus the only remaining Vigil member.

I think it would have been a better story to hear about how Cal had to figure out time travel all on his won and go like on a quest to get what he needed to go back in time and save everyone. Not a book where he already had the method but is just stupid with how to use it.

Then don’t get me started on how he seems to just be wasting time in the past. Like what’s the point of throwing in fights with himself and monster fights. Now he’s gone off with Robin to drink and reminisce abandoning his younger self to be taken out by the time-traveling assassin?

And honestly Cal you’ve already fucked the timeline I really doubt that meeting Robin a year early is going to do anything worse than you popping up and being like yeah Niko and I become monster hunters and pushing all the crazy into their lives. Unless Cal can come up with a way to memory wipe Niko and Cal after he saves them the timelines fucked. Like future him being more monster scares in the human closet Cal too much he might be like let's get the eff out of NY before we get drawn into this.
(hide spoiler)]

Ugh I just can’t this plot makes no sense.

@Devann I know what you mean about not recognizing himself being only 8 years younger. I'm like in my 30's and I don't look different from when I was 18 except with weight. Like I've compared pictures. At like 28 I still looked like teenage me except again my hair color and style. I have literally run into people from middle school who recognize me on sight and are like you haven't changed much at all. I can see being skeptical and thinking it's like an evil clone or something impersonating me to try and gain trust but not flat out lack of recognition.

haha i was just about to come over here and tell you guys that you needed to start suffering with me ;) i'm not sure what chapter i'm on but i'm about halfway through.

AND I KNOW, IT MAKES NO SENSE! (view spoiler)[traveling back a few hours or even months i guess would make some amount of sense but like why go back 8 years???? i guess bc that's where the vigil assassin went but if you kill him in the present timeline then he won't go back so problem solved. and yeah the choices he makes in the past are just BIZARRE. i mean ...not only all the things that he's changing but yeah all the dicking around he's doing in general.

i just have no idea how she thought she was going to end this. like was she going to say that cal fixes everything and goes back to a future that is 100% the same somehow? was she going to reboot the whole series in an alternate timeline? was future cal going to die and then past cal and niko had to figure out how to stop that???? none are good options but like ...idek. (hide spoiler)]

i don't know if the fact that it's unfinished is more or less infuriating lol

i'm through chapter 11 now and i think one of the main problems with this book - and also the previous one to a certain extent - is that she has clearly run out of ideas of things to do in the current timeline. like if she just wanted to write a book that was all about their past lives then DO THAT instead of pretending to have a thin thread of plot and spend half your page space on flashbacks. honestly the past lives thing annoys me a bit but if she had just published a book where each chapter was a different past life i feel like it would have been better than this.

ok i finished today and good riddance lol

i think my 'three redeeming scenes in this book' are as follows:

the party at robin's (view spoiler)[loki is making a cameo appearance from her trickster series and although her version of him has always felt very off to me it is amusing to see him and cal snarking at each and the fact that him and niko planned how to stop ragnarok is just hilarious (hide spoiler)]

the robin hood flashback. my feels! enough said

a particular part of the cal and robin bonding time (view spoiler)[aka when robin gave him a massive amount of hickies and cal just fucking went with it and then later robin drugged him and cal told him he would sleep with him 'if he wasn't straight' like ...cal! you! are! not! straight! stop lying to yourself and sleep with robin ffs (hide spoiler)]

I finished yesterday but was just like so annoyed I couldn’t comment. I really didn’t comment yesterday because honestly, I don’t have much good to say. There were a few parts I really liked about the book. Like I did enjoy a few of the flashbacks scenes but honestly, I spent most of the book plotting how it could have been like written better or how the plot could have been improved.

I feel like Thurman was just like tired of the series or ran out of ideas on what to do next.

I think I can kind of see where she planned to go. Like the whole Loki scene made me thinks that maybe he would play a bigger role in helping them in book 2 but just the…. ugh I didn’t even know how to say it. Like the plot was so half-assed in this book that really you’re left questioning what the plot is. I’m not surprised the last book was like canceled if it was like more of the same.

I honestly don’t think another book would have saved this at ll. Like there was no way Future Cal was going to go back to his own time and have everything be same. The timeline was just already too different based on Cal introducing them earlier to paien world. The only thing I could see happening is Future Cal like dies or fades away and the whole series is rebooted and done from the beginning because things can’t play out the same anymore due to the changes future Cal made.

@Devann I’m with you on the scenes. The entire Will Scarlet flashback was one of the few parts I liked because of the feels and the angst. While I had a hard time with the scene that led up to the flashback it was nice to see Cal revert back to his old emo self with the whole “Oh my god you don’t trust me cause I’m Auphe” and “you think I’m a monster”. But Seriously Robin has a harder time accepting Auphe Cal this time around really?

I also laughed about the hickies and the whole if I wasn’t straight I’d sleep with you. I was like okay Cal just come out of the closet and accept you’re BI and would do Robin.

loki is a character in another one of her series - although he has always felt pretty OOC to me - so i think that was the only reason he was in this book, although i guess she could have been planning something more with him.

and i agree that another book would not have 'saved' it but it's just so frustrating that she spent the ENTIRE book playing game of flashbacks and then ends right in the middle of a battle like ???? she could have easily not had this be a two parter if it wasn't for rehashing past plot points.

and god, cal is just so bi and so in denial i'm just like please rob come back from whatever self imposed exile you are in to write a short story where cal sleeps with a dude because i think it will do wonders for his temperament lol

but yeaaaaah. i told you guys it was pretty awful. i wonder if cathy is still planning on reading it

@Devann I thought the Loki scene was odd because of how Robin had different memories of how Loki wound up on the guest list. Like that Loki called him up and requested the invite but Loki had a completely different version on it and then Robin went all odd trying to remember. It kind of made it seem like someone messed with them to forget something. I don’t know maybe I just imagined stuff.

On the Loki/Niko strategizing for Ragnarok and Niko helping Loki plan how to win was hilarious. I especially thought it was funny how Cal basically stated that Niko’s hobby is basically planning how to take over the world.

Yeah Cathy hasn’t commented so I think she may have decided to skip it after all. I think it may be the smarter choice on this one. Or if she started maybe she decided to not finish it.

When do you guys want to start the next series? Did we decide on one? Should we also go ahead and request the BR for the next October Daye book for like the day or day after it comes out?

oooh that is actually a good point about robin's weird memories about the event. maybe she was planning on bringing cal back to a future where everyone somehow half-remembered both versions of events? idek lol

i think we decided on iron druid and the 12th for the start date. i guess i should go request it so it's sure to get put up in time lol

Ok great I'll put a reminder in my calendar. School semester starts on August 26th but I think it should be okay with the ongoing BR but just have to give myself reminders. Honestly as long as it has an audio book I should be fine as I can listen to them during my internship.

just wanted to say that i did put in the request on the 5th and put in a reminder yesterday so hopefully the thread for iron druid will be up soon lol

apparently it was an old one so they rebooted it here. when are you guys planning on starting?

I'm starting tonight before I go to bed.

ok i will probably start tomorrow morning then, about to go to bed now lol

So sorry I completely flaked on you guys! I read the 1st page 3x and just couldn't bring myself to continue on... Plus it being the last week of Wheel I went a little crazy with reading other books.

But reading thru some of the comments, I'm glad I did!

haha yeah honestly you did not miss much. if you wanted to flip through and find the scene with loki and the robin hood flashback scenes then those are the only things really worth reading imo. these are good for me for challenges bc i've read them so many times i can easily listen to them at 2x speed, but i'm sure it's not a good thing to try to read for the first time then