The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang – DISCUSSION

I have a lot of feelings about this book even though I DNFed it at around 80%. This will contain spoilers, you have been warned.

Okay, first let’s talk about why I decided to DNF it. I wanted to finish it and maybe I will at some point when I feel mentally prepared. But the reason I DNFed it is because of the really, really horrific sacking of that city. I wanted to carry on reading because I know this is based on an actual fairly recent historical event and I always feel like I should know the stories of the suffering of my fellow humans. Not because I enjoy it, but because it’s the only thing I can do. To know, to get angry and to remember. But I honestly could not stomach it. I have a fairly strong stomach, I would say. I’ve read some pretty dark stuff, but this just got to a point where I just couldn’t. And I appreciate that the author was trying to portray the horrific things that happened but I had to stop. It was putting me in a really unhealthy place mentally. So that’s why I didn’t finish the book, if you have a stronger stomach than I, then maybe you can.

That aside, I still read most of the book, so I have formed some opinions. I really enjoyed the first half or so. I had a few issues, however. One of them – and I talked about this in my last wrap-up – is the way that Rin just destroyed her uterus because she got her period and it freaked her out. I don’t like kids, I don’t want any and my period has frequently made me feel like I want to rip my uterus out of my body and be done with it forever. However, the removal of one of one’s major organs, I felt, was dealt with rashly and it wasn’t really addressed. I would have expected to see at least some pondering on Rin’s part. There was one character who mentioned briefly that it’s the removal of her organs Rin’s talking about, but that’s it. I kind of understand that Rin was scared, didn’t really know or fully understand what was happening to her, having not been told about periods… but, firstly, I don’t think anyone would be so blase about something like that. And secondly, regardless of how scared or in pain she might have been, Rin was clever. It seems very out of character to me for her to not think about this at all. I found it weird. It’s something that I could overlook, but I found it weird enough that I had to mention it.

Another thing I find less easy to overlook is the drug abuse that goes on. The way the magic system works is through the consumption of mind altering substances. I find that very problematic. Because I feel like it almost encourages substance abuse. Yes, Rin grows up around opium addicts and is very against opium consumption. But then she turns around and uses other mind altering substances, including poppy seeds (which are the source of opium) for her magic. Not only that, but her mentor encourages her to cultivate her “magic” and feeds her drugs. Is it just me who finds this very problematic and not at all a good way to construct a magic system? Especially considering how much hype this series has surrounding it. Why is no one talking about this? Or am I just looking in the wrong places.

I still genuinely enjoyed the first part of the book despite my issues with it. I loved the bit at the school. Once the war started, I found it a bit more boring, oddly enough. Like, the new characters, the sikh (not sure I’m spelling that right, I audibooked this) seemed kind of dimensionless to me. I genuinely couldn’t tell you much about them besides that one was water, one was an ape guy, one had a rake and there was a girl who… had a twin? They just seem like token characters to me and it all focuses of Altin and Rin and I found that dynamic quite boring. I stopped reading shortly after that, so I can’t really comment any further. There are still things that I’m really curious about and I would like to finish this book and potentially carry on with the series, but I just don’t know when I’ll be in a sound enough state of mind to be able to read it without it being unhealthy for me. So I thought I’d talk about it, because I wanted to share my thoughts on it.

Getting rid of some books

Been a while since I’ve unhauled anything and it’s time, so this is going to be quite extensive. I will also be mentioning audiobooks that I’ve unhauled, since if I don’t enjoy an audiobook, I take advantage of Audible’s return thing. Some of these I may have mentioned that I am or have unhauled in previous posts, but I haven’t don’e an official unhaul and I think it’s nice to just have them all in one place.

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi | The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

Read both of these, was very disappointed. I’ve reviewed Children of Blood and Bone so you can read that if you want to know more of my thoughts, but yeah… no reason for me to keep these. Despite their lovely covers.

Onyx and Ivory by Mindee Arnett | Beyond a Darkened Shore by Jessica Leake | Grace & Fury by Tracey Banghart | To Best The Boys by Anne Weber| These Rebel Waves by Sara Raasch

These are all subscription box books that I’ve read and just don’t care about enough to keep. I have reviews of some of them, if you’re interested.

These are all subscription box books that I either have no interest in reading or have tried to read and DNFed.

Everless by Sara Holland| The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

I’ve read both of these and enjoyed them, but not enough to ever want to re-read them. I actually owned The Miniaturist both physically and as an audiobook, and unhauled both.

The Bat by Jo Nesbo | Origin by Dan Brown | Down River by John Hart|

These are all thrillers that I’m not interested in. I’ve tried reading The Bat, but ended up DNFing it.

Black Prism & Blood Mirror by Brent Weeks

I really wanted to like this series. Tried reading Black Prism twice and DNFed it twice. I even bought another book in the series when I saw it in a thrift shop (even though I’d already DNFed book 1 once). But it’s just not going to happen. Can’t stand the characters. I just can’t be in their heads. So they have to go.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky | Lock In by John Scalzi

Two audiobooks I hated. I’m so glad I didn’t but physical copies of these. At least I got to exchange them for something better.

Unseen Academicals by Terry Prachett | Grief is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter | A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin | Hitman Anders and the Meaning of it All by Jonas Jonasson | Kingdom of Copper by S. A. Chackraborty

These are all audiobooks that I enjoyed, but not enough to ever re-visit. Except for Kingdom of Copper. That I DNFed. Not so much because I disliked it, but because I just didn’t care enough to continue with it.

Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb – Book Review

Rating: 3.5/5

Genre: Fantasy

First published: 1996

Author: Robin Hobb

***THIS IS THE SECOND BOOK IN THE SERIES. THEREFORE, THE FOLLOWING SYNOPSIS AND REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST BOOK. YOU CAN CHECK OUT MY SPOILER FREE REVIEW FOR THE FIRST BOOK INSTEAD***

Synopsis: Fitz has survived his first hazardous mission as king’s assassin, but is left little more than a cripple. Battered and bitter, he vows to abandon his oath to King Shrewd, remaining in the distant mountains. But love and events of terrible urgency draw him back to the court at Buckkeep, and into the deadly intrigues of the royal family.

Renewing their vicious attacks on the coast, the Red-Ship Raiders leave burned-out villages and demented victims in their wake. The kingdom is also under assault from within, as treachery threatens the throne of the ailing king. In this time of great danger, the fate of the kingdom may rest in Fitz’s hands—and his role in its salvation may require the ultimate sacrifice.

Two years later, I finally continued with the series. My thoughts on this book are remarkably similar with my thoughts on the first one. It’s quite slow to begin with, although I think it wasn’t as slow as the first one. The first one took about half the book for anything to really happen, whereas with this one, once I got past the first third or so, things started picking up.

There was a lot of focus on Fitz’s romance with Molly, which I didn’t enjoy at all. I wish we’d had less of that (fingers crossed the third book has less of that going on). I didn’t care about the relationship at all. It was awkward and while the obsessing that took place is realistic, it’s also very annoying. Like, I find it annoying even when I’m the one doing the obsessing, I really don’t want to be in someone else’s head while they’re doing it. It didn’t help that I still don’t really care about the characters. I don’t dislike them or anything, I’m just detached. I’m not invested in their happiness and well-being, if that makes sense. I care a lot more about the story and the romance really didn’t move that forward in any way. So I personally didn’t like it, but I guess if you care about Fitz and Molly and you like angsty romances, this might be something you enjoy.

Again, this is very political. I think it’s not as political as the first one. There’s a bit more good old fashioned sword fights, but the political machinations are still the main focus. Which I enjoyed more than I did in the first book. Fitz started to think more for himself and make his own decisions, instead of blindly going along with other people’s manoeuvring. Which I definitely liked to see.

We also learnt a bit more about the magic, which was my favourite part. I wish there had been more of that going on and less romance. It was also sorely lacking in assassin stuff for a book that’s called Royal Assassin. That’s a persisting problem from the first book. I want more sneaking about and killing people, is that so much to ask? I also would have liked to get more about the external threat. As I said, it’s a very political story, so a lot of the threats and antagonists are internal politics, but there is also the external threat of the raiders, which is quite mysterious in a way and we don’t learn a lot more about it. We learn a little, but not as much as I would have liked.

All in all, as with the first book, I enjoyed it, but I didn’t love it. I will continue with the series. I have heard that the subsequent series are better and are worth pushing through this one. Hopefully it won’t take me another two years to get to book 3 though.

The Toll by Neal Shusterman – DISCUSSION

This has spoilers. You have been warned. I do also have a spoiler-free review of the series if you want to check that out instead. This is mainly a discussion for the final book, but I will also be talking about the series in general.

I didn’t like this book. I loved the first two, but I hated the ending. It’s so unsatisfying. The problem that we spent two books on, namely Goddard and the New Order Scythes is not solved. At all. Sending a bunch of people into space to possibly set up colonies and start over IS NOT A SOLUTION!!!!! I am so mad at that ending. It’s rubbish. It’s utter rubbish! I know that Goddard did die, but it still wasn’t a solution. It just happened because Rand was fed up. But the resolution of the plot was to send a bunch of people into space and hope. Which was a stupid solution.

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Especially with the whole fail-safe thing. Scythes were cancelled, basically. So the Thunderhead could have intervened. He could have like supplanted the New Order Scythes. Or it could have let one of its copies that didn’t have the stupid no-intervention rule to supplant them. Or something. I don’t know, literally anything would have been more satisfying than what we got. They could have dealt with Goddard and THEN tried colonising space. That would have been fine. And if the colonies were successful, they could cancel the fail-safe too and then it would have been even more utopian. I don’t understand why do it this way. It’s stupid and totally unsatisfying and it ruined such a great series.

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Also the fail-safe was so anti-climactic. We spent so much time building up to it and then it all resolved in like one chapter. We barely got to see any repercussions for it. Everything was just left open ended and I hate it. I don’t always mind open ends, but this one sucked. And it didn’t make sense. If it had made sense, I think I’d have been okay with it, but it just didn’t. There were so many better solutions to all the problems. And I just find it hard to believe that the Thunderhead, who supposedly was never wrong, figured that this was the only viable option.

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I also didn’t like where most of the characters ended up and how their stories developed. Wasn’t a fan of Greyson’s story arc in the final book. He could have been so much more interesting based on the first 2 books. The whole Toll thing was just… meh in my opinion. I didn’t hate it… but I just found myself uninterested whenever his chapters were on. I didn’t think he really evolved in this book and he was annoying at times when interacting with the Thunderhead. To be fair, the Thunderhead was being infuriating as well.

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I think Scythe Rand was done a huge disservice. There was so much potential for character development with her. I loved the parts about her and Tiger and I think way, way more could have been done with her, but she was just kind of relegated to the sidelines. At least she kills Goddard I guess, but more could have been done.

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I would have been… okay with how Citra and Rowan ended up. If it had been under any other circumstances. But considering how much I hated the space thing, I was not happy with how their story developed either.

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I didn’t really care much about the two new characters. The captain and the former nimbus agent. I forget both their names. I didn’t really like the captain, I found him/her annoying on several levels, but at the same time, I could very easily ignore that because I just didn’t care about him/her. I have no opinion whatsoever on the nimbus agent. I think she was bland, to say the least.

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I think the only character I was okay with how they ended up was Faraday. I think that all things considered, he’s the only one who got a somewhat satisfying ending.

So yeah, I’m very mad at this book. I have strong feelings, which just goes to show how much I cared. It’s such a great story and I’m really mad that it got such a crap ending. It deserved better.

Arc of a Scythe by Neal Shusterman – Series Review

Series rating: 3.75 stars

Genre: YA, utopian, sci-fi

Author: Neal Shusterman

Synopsis: A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery. Humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.

I have mixed feelings about this series, as you can see from the rating. I loved the first two books, but I did not really like the finale. I talk about it more in my spoilery discussion, but basically the ending didn’t make sense to me and I didn’t like it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

This series has one of the most interesting utopias I’ve ever read. To be fair, I’ve not read that many, but this is very well written and cool. I think it does a very good job of imagining what society might look like if there was no death or disease and I really liked how it touches on… does life really have any meaning when you’re not needed and how our sense of meaning is tied to work. I think that’s really interesting and I think overall the series does a very good job of presenting these questions for the reader to consider and answer.

I also liked the characters. I didn’t necessarily like where they ended up and how stuff progressed, but I did like the characters themselves. Though they did frustrate me at times. As for the plot, like I said I really enjoyed the first two books and I even enjoyed a good chunk of the third book, but the ending… no. Just no. I didn’t like what happened and I didn’t like the way it happened. It’s hard for me to talk about it without spoilers, so check out my discussion for more details.

I would still recommend this series, I think it’s definitely worth reading and everyone might not have the issue with the ending that I did. And even if you do, I would still say it’s worth reading for the rest of it. But just be prepared for a potentially unsatisfying ending. I know this review is very short, but most of my thoughts on the series are spoilery, so I can’t really talk about them here.

November 2019 & Tome Topple Wrap Up

I had another pretty amazing reading month, although just as last month, the majority of the books I read were audiobooks (I sadly don’t have much time for actual reading 😦 ). Still I managed to read 11 books (plus a novella), DNF one and get partway through three others. So overall, pretty pleased with the amount of reading I’ve done.

As some of you may know, Tome Topple also happened in November and I participated in it this time around. You can check out my TBR for it here. I’m going to do this wrap up a bit differently. I’ve decided that from now on, I will also include DNFs and books I’m only partway through in my wrap up. It’s going to be a bit longer than usual, but I think this way more accurately captures my reading month.

Tome Topple books

For tome topple, I had 6 books on my TBR, 3 audio and 3 physical books. I was not expecting to read all of them by any means, but I wanted to have options.

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

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This was the first book on my physical TBR for the readathon and I started with it. I did not finish it, I got 150 pages in and I put it down. I’m not officially DNFing this, I still want to read it, but it was just not what I was in the mood to read at all. So I’m putting it to the side until I am in the mood to read it. My impressions from what I read so far were mostly positive, although as with The Night Circus, there’s just something about Erin Morgenstern’s writing that doesn’t quite click for me. I still think it’s beautiful, but I find it hard to read. I also think I like The Night Circus better. This is less magical. At least so far. My prediction is that this will be a 3.75-4 star read for me.

The Black Prism by Brent Weeks

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This was the second book on my physical TBR for the readathon and I DNFed it. I’d started reading it a while ago and put it down because I didn’t like the characters. Any of them. I decided to give it another go because the world and the story seem cool, but I just don’t like any of the characters. I find them all annoying to the point that I can’t be in their heads. They all piss me off. I can’t tell you why exactly, they just all have thins… thing in common. I don’t know what it is, but basically you can tell they’re all written by the same person, because they have that je ne sais quoi in common and that’s what annoys me in all of them. I don’t know if I’m explaining that in a way that makes sense, but the gist of it is I don’t like the characters and I’m not going to commit to a series of 700 page books of being in their heads. I got about 180 pages in.

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson

This was the third book on the physical TBR and I didn’t finish it. It’s huge, but it’s what I’m currently reading. I’m not sure how far I got during the actual readathon because I forgot to write it down, but I am currently on page 240 of it. I’m loving it as always. I do think there’s slightly too much Shallan and not enough Kaladin in it so far, but I’m sure I’ll get plenty of Kal in the remaining 1000 or so pages.

I also read the novella, Edgedancer before reading this. It’s not included in the Tome Topple TBR because it doesn’t fit the criteria for the readathon, but I’m mentioning it here because it’s the same series basically. I absolutely loved the novella, Lift is one of my favourite characters in the series and I can’t wait to see more of her. She’s so funny, she makes me laugh and she’s really interesting. I want to know more about her. I gave the novella 5/5 stars.

A Feast for Crows by G. R. R. Martin

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Moving on to the audiobook section of my TBR, I first listened to this one. I don’t have much to say about it that you haven’t already heard. I love this series and I’m enjoying the re-read. I’m noticing things I hadn’t before and also remembering a lot of things I’d forgotten. It’s a good time and I really, REALLY hope we’ll get book 6 in this lifetime. 5/5 stars

The Toll by Neal Schusterman

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Then I listened to this, which was one of my most anticipated books of the year. I was disappointed by the finale. I have mixed feelings about it. I didn’t give it a rating because I genuinely don’t know how to rate it. I didn’t like the ending. At all. It blindsided me in a way and normally I like that, but I think in this case, I found it to be stupid. I’m not going to go into it too much here, but I’ll probably have a discussion post about it. But I found it very unsatisfying.

That is it for the Tome Topple. Overall, I think I did okay, but could have been better. I wish I’d enjoyed more of the books I’d read, but can’t love everything. Moving on to the rest of the books I read this month.

Non-tome topple books

Winternight books 2 & 3 by Katherine Arden

After reading the first book at the end of October, I quickly binged the rest of the series and it’s now one of my favourite series. I put it off for so long and I ended up loving it so much (story of my life). I read it at the perfect time as well, it’s perfect for winter and now I’m trying to get my friend to read it too so I can gush to her about it. I was tempted to immediately start reading it again when I finished, but I resisted. 5/5 stars for the whole series. I hope Katherine Arden writes more fairy-tale books. Her and Naomi Novik just please write more fairy-tales.

The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien

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I also completed my re-read of this series in November as well. It made me cry. I love this series so much, it’s such a huge part of my childhood and and just who I am as a person and it is so special to me. I don’t have words. Of course I gave it 5/5 stars.

Narnia books 1-6 by C. S. Lewis

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After finishing LOTR, I had the urge to also re-visit the Narnia books and I honestly think I’m enjoying them more now as an adult than I did as a kid. I listened to the first 6 books in rapid succession and I’m kind of sad that there are only 7 of them.

Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb

Finally continued with the Farseer books. As with the first one. I liked it, but I don’t care about the characters (except for the animals). I don’t dislike them, I’m just indifferent and detached from them. So I’m not loving the books as much as I could. I still find the story interesting, particularly once you get past the one third mark in each book, it’s actually quite gripping. I will continue with the series and hopefully, I will eventually come to care about the characters, if not in this series, then in consequent ones. I gave it 3.5/5 stars.

Books I have started

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang

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This is my current audiobook. I’m maybe 30% into it. I’m enjoying it thus far, but… I don’t think It’s going to be a favourite. It might surprise me, I don’t know. But so far I’m not loving it as much as everyone who’s been raving about it. I like a lot of aspects of it, but I also have issues with a few things like the blatant drug abuse that goes on and at least so far, it seems like it’s almost… encouraged? It’s really weird and btw, if drug abuse and addiction is a trigger for you, definitely stay away from the series. And then there’s this scene (minor spoiler ahead) where Rin destroys her uterus and like fair enough, that’s her decision to make, but it was done so quickly. Like, there was no pondering or consideration for it. One of the characters does briefly address the fact that it’s literally removing one of your major organs… to get rid of your period? And yeah, she was young and didn’t quite understand what that means and she was scared because she hadn’t known about periods. But still, I feel that should have received more page time than it did. (spoiler ends)

That concludes my wrap up. Sorry, I know it was a long one, but I had a lot going on this month!

Books I’ve DNFed

I used to never officially DNF books, I’d just put them down and say I’d pick them up later. As such, they haven’t really been included in my wrap-ups. But I’ve been DNFing books more of late (though I still struggle to do it). So I’m just going to talk about the books that I have DNFed and my reasons for doing so.

The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

I really enjoyed the first book in this series, but not so much this second one. This was quite a few years ago, it’s one of the few books that I DNFed back then. I’ve been thinking of re-reading the series and giving them another chance, but I’m not sure, we’ll see.

Nicolae by Tim Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins

This is a series that I thought had an interesting premise, but I just found the writing really annoying and the characters dis-likeable. I read the first two books in the series, but gave up halfway through the third one. This is another one that I DNFed quite some years ago.

The Inca’s Legacy by Karl May

I really loved Karl May’s Winnetou books. I read them multiple times and it was one of my favourite series growing up. So I really wanted to like this. But I could not get into it. I tried at least 3 times and never got further than maybe 30 pages in.

Closer by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams

Another series I really loved as a kid. For some reason though I just didn’t finish this. It got to a point in the story that dragged a bit and I didn’t own the book, I was lending it from my cousin, so I ended up giving it back cause I was taking too long to read it and I just never picked this series up again. I probably would have finished at least this book if I had owned it, but alas, that ship has sailed because there’s no way I’m re-reading this series just so I can finish this book.

Inferno by Dante Aligheri

I tried. I really wanted to enjoy this. But I just don’t really like stories told in verse. Maybe if I can find a version in prose, I’ll consider reading it, but who knows.

The Game by Terry Schott

I don’t remember much about this other than that it was terrible. I managed to get through maybe 80% of it, but man was this a mess of a book. I know it’s about a VR game, like so many other books. But it’s just so bad.

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Really liked The Raven Boys, but this one was just bad and boring and… basically twilight but with werewolves rather than vampires.

Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier

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I wanted to like this. The premise was really cool and I still think it’s a great concept, but the story itself and the characters were just not great. The MC (I forget her name… was it Gewn?) was so annoying. There was insta-love. It just wasn’t for me.

Dodger by Terry Pratchett

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I have huge respect for Terry Pratchett and I have enjoyed some of this other books, but this one wasn’t for me. It’s not by any means a bad book, but it’s just one I don’t have the patience for.

The Bat by Jo Nesbo

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This was recommended to me by one of my friends and I wanted to like it, but I found it boring and not at all thrilling. Cop thrillers have to be really good for me to enjoy them. I can watch 10 seasons of Criminal Minds, no problem, but usually police procedural books have some tropes I just despise.

State of Sorrow by Melinda Salisbury

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I even unhauled this. I didn’t like Melinda Salisbury’s other book either, The Sin Eater’s Daughter. She always has these really cool premises, but the books themselves are so bland and the characters I just find insufferable. It’s a really pretty book, but I couldn’t get past the 50 page mark.

The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding by Alexandra Bracken

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I wish I’d liked this more than I did. I got about halfway through it, but it just failed to keep me interested. I could have finished it, it wasn’t bad, I didn’t hate it. but I also just didn’t really care, so I decided to just DNF it. This is also one that I will be unhauling soon.

The Kingdom of Copper by S. A. Chackraborty

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I read the first book and it was a pleasant surprise for me. I really enjoyed it. This one, I just lost interest. Kind of like with Prosper Redding, It couldn’t hold my attention and I just stopped caring. It was too slow to get to the point, I think. There were a lot of things going on that I didn’t care about. And I didn’t really care about the characters. And since I’ve resolved to DNF books I’m not enjoying, I’m DNFing it.

Viper by Bex Hogan

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I did a read a chapter challenge a while back and this was part of it. I had decided to keep this and give it a chance, but when I tried and read a few more chapters, I just wasn’t feeling it, so this will be unhauled soon as well.

Tome Topple 2019 TBR

I’ve decided to participate in Tome Topple this time around because I don have some chunky books to get through. I do realise it’s a tad late to announce a TBR since the readathon started today but whatever, sue me. In case you don’t know, Tome Topple is a readathon created buy Sam @ Thoughts on Tomes with the aim of reading large books. You can check out her announcement video for the deets.

I’m going to split this into two sections: audiobooks and physical books. Because I usually listen to audiobooks at work, so I get through 3-4 hours of audiobook most days, this TBR is going to seem super ambitious (and it is). Anyway, let’s get into it.

Audiobooks

A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin

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What better time to continue my re-read of this series. I started this today at work (which is fine cause the readathon started at midnight). I don’t know exactly how many pages this book has in a physical format, but it’s definitely over 500. I am current;y about 5 hours in, so I’m definitely going to finish this for this readathon.

The Toll by Neal Schusterman

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I’m super excited to get to this, I loved the first two books more than I expected to. and that last one ended on such a cliffhanger. I need to know what happens. This one is 631 pages long in paperback, so well within the parameters for this readathon.

A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin

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If I manage to get through the first two and still have time, I will start the final ASOIAF book and hope that book 6 will be released soon. This is probably not going to happen, but who knows. Even if I do manage to start it, I think the audiobook is 40 hours long or something, so there’s no way I will finish it for this readathon, but hoping to at least start it.