Time for another round of Yvo’s Shorties! This time around two titles I had high hopes for, but sadly neither worked for me.

Title: The Muse
Author: Jessie Burton
Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery
First published: June 26th 2016 
Publisher: Ecco
Finished reading: November 2nd 2021 
Pages: 384

“Why are we so trapped by the hours, the minutes of every day? Why can’t we live the life that’s always out of reach?”


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I’m having the strong suspicion that it might just not have been the right time for me to read The Muse. Somehow, slower paced and mostly character driven stories don’t seem to work all that well for me at the moment, and that is exactly what we have here. The Muse is a dual timeline story, switching between 1936 southern Spain and 1967 London, and sadly neither timeline was able to truly keep my attention. Which is strange on its own, as I usually love stories with a Spanish setting (especially if it takes place during or around the time of the Spanish Civil War) and the more recent setting seemed to have all the right elements too with the art angle and mystery painting. The extremely slow pace in parts and the fact that nothing much seems to be happening most of the time probably had a lot to do with my lack of connection to this story, although I also feel that the fact that I was unable to connect to any characters was much to blame. Since The Muse focuses mainly on its characters and their development, it is extremely important to actually like or be at least intrigued by them, but I never did warm up to Odelle nor Olive. There was just something about them that didn’t work for me, and while I can’t put my finger exactly on the why I also can’t ignore how I felt about them. That said, I’ve been in a strange reading mood lately and this probably simply wasn’t the right book for me at the moment, so I might try reading it again at a later date to see if I’m able to enjoy it better then. The story itself does have a lot of potential, and I can see why fans of slower paced and character driven historical fiction would have a great time with this story.

Title: Ready Player Two
(Ready Player One #2)
Author: Ernest Cline
Genre: YA, Science Fiction, Dystopia
First published: November 24th 2020
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Finished reading: November 3rd 2021
Pages: 384
DNF at 30% (115 pages)

“Maybe every time an intelligent species grew advanced enough to invent a global computer network, they would then develop some form of social media, which would immediately fill these beings with such an intense hatred for one another that they ended up wiping themselves out within four or five decades.”


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Why do I keep doing this to myself?!?! Don’t get me wrong: I loved Ready Player One and thought it a well rounded stand-alone until suddenly the news of a sequel appeared. Was I worried it could possibly ruin what was an excellent story? Yes. But of course I was too curious to stop myself from adding it to my wishlist. Then the reviews started coming in, and as you probably know, most of them weren’t exactly rainbows and sunshine. I probably should have just let the sequel be there and then, but did I listen to my inner voice of reason?! Of course not. Instead, I end up starting Ready Player Two and not that long after I started to feel like throwing my kindle against the wall. Because whatever this sequel is, I’m not wasting any more of my time actually trying to finish it. What a way to destroy a perfectly solid stand-alone! I’m not going into details as there are too many rants out there already, but let’s do a quick recap… I liked Wade in the first book, but it seems like aliens (or more likely: a huge pile of money) have taken over his brain and he is absolutely despicable in the sequel. Whiny, annoying, basically stalking his ex as well as other people… And the list can go on. There was also a lot of info-dumping going on and not much else, and I couldn’t make myself care about the new quest and what would happen in the future. The focus on the issues in the dystopian future world were interesting, but again not enough for me to try and wade through the rest of the story. Oh yes, this sequel and me definitely didn’t get along and I wouldn’t recommend reading it if you want your positive memories of the first book to stay intact.

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