Annoyed at myself

[nwhiker]

I keep track of books that I read on goodreads. This is especially helpful when it comes to series, since I often forget where I am in a series, especially one that is finished and that I'm catching up on.

Over the past few years, I'd been reading and re-reading The Wheel of Time series. I'd read the first five books years ago, and then bogged down. The male-female relationships were just too awful, the portrayal of women drove me nuts, the inability of any of the character to fucking think was annoying. Anyhow. Dropped it, with the intent of picking it back up when the series was done.

Here is what I wrote about my re-read in 2018:

Oh man. It was the 90s and I didn't have kids yet, so pre-1997 and I was well behind the current release of when I was reading, so I suspect probably 95/96: I started Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I remember tearing through the first books... Well, the first 3. About half way through book 4, some of the plot points just started to bug me. And then came book 5. And I found it... awful.I bogged down, the book was due at the library -actual! hard cover! book!- so I returned it, and didn't bother getting it again.

A few months ago, the series having been completed despite Jordan's death, thanks to Brandon Sanderson, I figured I'd try again. I really had liked the first books... Anyhow, I did. Starting from the beginning, because while I remember that I'd liked the books, and that I'd bogged down, I was pretty fuzzy on some of the details of the plots and it just made sense to start over.

And so I tore through books 1 through 4, with a lot of eye rolling annoyance at what had bugged me the previous time. And I'm in the middle of book 5 and... I'm bogging down.

It's pretty the same OMG, I can't believe this shit! Just stop it and get on with the story.

Anyhow, it's frustrating. I think and I hope I'll get through this time, at least through book 5, because I'm listening on audiobook, and the readers are excellent.

Well, I kept slogging on and finally, after what appears to have been book 8, Winter's Heart, I took a break.

But.

I guess I never logged it into goodreads, so when I decided to get back to Jordan and finish the damn series already... I checked on goodreads, saw that the last book I'd read was The Path of Daggers, I borrowed Winter's Heart and started listening.

It felt very familiar, but Jordan, ime, often does: things told from different perspectives etc. I kept listening and kept on feeling like this was repeat.

It took about 1/3 of the book to be 100% sure, but yeah, I'd already read it. Grr. That said, I continued listening. The books are full of enough plots, sub-plots, side-plots and characters that I can use the re-read to figure out what is going on, and then move into Crossroads of Twilight.

But grr.