Solveg Balle

On the calculation of volume III

Margo Koss

- spoiler warning <3 read at your own risk

- the first half of this one felt a bit aimless... books 1 and 2 had a pretty clear list of themes and questions solvej wanted to point towards with her speculations, and i didn’t feel that way with this one. there’s a bit of circling around the idea of companionship (tara and thomas, henry and his son, olga and ralf), but that’s kind of it, and it wasn’t as effective as the themes from the first two books

- this is gonna sound obvious, but i’m increasingly bothered by how repetitive this is getting; i’m not talking about the story, or the repeating days, but the writing itself. solvej uses a handful of the same phrases once every 3-5 journal entries and they have all lost their impact to me. yes, time has ground to a halt. yes, you are listening to the sounds and thinking of the skies and losing the rhythm you had with your husband and thinking about how winter and spring and summer will never come back to you. these phrases had some value the first couple times they were repeated but now they are SO old

- the second half of this book is significantly better than the first half and the end of book 3 is the most active the series has ever been. all those discussions about what needs to change, the different values each character has on the world and how to improve things... it was all SO fun to read. i have high hopes for book 4! most of books 2 and 3 were a lot of back and forth, but now the engine is roaring and there’s a lot to be thinking about in this next one. for the first time since book 1, i’m surprisingly thrilled to find out what the next book will give me

smile??

- “perhaps we are music, after all?” (p.102)

- spoiler warning <3 read at your own risk

- the first half of this one felt a bit aimless... books 1 and 2 had a pretty clear list of themes and questions solvej wanted to point towards with her speculations, and i didn’t feel that way with this one. there’s a bit of circling around the idea of companionship (tara and thomas, henry and his son, olga and ralf), but that’s kind of it, and it wasn’t as effective as the themes from the first two books

- this is gonna sound obvious, but i’m increasingly bothered by how repetitive this is getting; i’m not talking about the story, or the repeating days, but the writing itself. solvej uses a handful of the same phrases once every 3-5 journal entries and they have all lost their impact to me. yes, time has ground to a halt. yes, you are listening to the sounds and thinking of the skies and losing the rhythm you had with your husband and thinking about how winter and spring and summer will never come back to you. these phrases had some value the first couple times they were repeated but now they are SO old

- the second half of this book is significantly better than the first half and the end of book 3 is the most active the series has ever been. all those discussions about what needs to change, the different values each character has on the world and how to improve things... it was all SO fun to read. i have high hopes for book 4! most of books 2 and 3 were a lot of back and forth, but now the engine is roaring and there’s a lot to be thinking about in this next one. for the first time since book 1, i’m surprisingly thrilled to find out what the next book will give me

These books somehow get better and increasingly interesting. 

On the calculation of volume III

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