Reading 1001 discussion

1. How did you experience the book? Were you engaged immediately, or did it take you a while to "get into it"? How did you feel reading it—amused, sad, disturbed, confused, bored...?

Talk about a decline... (Bad) things happened very quickly throughout that book; I felt there were more deaths than a whole season of Game of Thrones. Still, this last tome saw the return of "supernatural" characters/themes, and it was not a bad thing. This being said, I kept the same interest I had experienced throughout the first four books.

I found this less interesting than the last book which was my favourite in the whole series, cant think of another word.

This moved much more quickly for me, but, as I've said elsewhere, after three books of foreshadowing, I expected a truly calamitous disaster to strike the family.

I found this engaging due to the fast pace and the higher volume of action in comparison to some of the other books in the series. Despite this, I did expect a bit more given how the other books led me to believe that there would be a dramatic conclusion.

I found the ending really satisfying. Bao-Yu's retreat from the world was a big surprise to me, as were all the deaths happening so quickly. I had rather dreaded a lot of philosophising as the Stone was returned to the heavens and reunited with The Crimson Flower, but I actually liked the way the supernatural was woven into the story.