u/Three_Froggy_Problem

So far in 2026 I’ve read 26 books, and I’ve yet to give up on any of them. In fact, I’ve had a remarkable hit rate and have at least liked everything I’ve read. That is, until Cloudthief, which I really may end up giving up on.

I was drawn to this book by the premise, the title (which is admittedly cool), and the cover. The elevator pitch is that this is a heist story where the target is a data center. And yet, halfway through the book, literally nothing has happened. I’m not kidding when I say that 90% of the story so far is just the main characters driving around and talking about how they might attempt to pull off the heist; the rest of it is them having sex, which comes across as pretty gross considering the novel takes the form of a letter by the protagonist to their child. I don’t know if this aspect is intentionally meant to be upsetting, but it’s pretty much impossible for me not to see the main character as a weirdo and a creep when he keeps telling his daughter about what it’s like to fuck her mom.

I could tolerate all this if the characters were interesting, but they’re not. Our main character is basically a cipher, with no real personality or history. He basically just goes along with whatever his girlfriend tells him to do. He occasionally acknowledges his own passivity, but nonetheless he basically just exists to do whatever is necessary to move the plot along.

The female main character (and it’s a testament to these characters’ dullness that I can recall neither of their names) is equally enigmatic. This quality forms a large part of the book’s central conflict, as the narrator doesn’t really trust her. The reasons for this are obvious, but what’s not obvious is what actually draws him to her, because at no point does she come across as interesting, and she’s certainly not warm or kind. There’s nothing to latch onto here, nothing to make me root for either of these people or give the slightest shit about their relationship to each other.

Maybe things really heat up in the second half, but I don’t think I can keep going. I feel like I’m forcing myself to move through this book, and the pace is glacial. This thing is like 270 pages, but I swear I found Moby-Dick to be a breezier and more propulsive read.

I’ll start this by saying that I’m familiar with Jane Schoenbrun’s work, so I didn’t come into this film expecting a pure slasher, or even necessarily a horror film at all in the traditional sense. My problems with the film have nothing to do with any disparity between my expectations and what the film really is. My problems are with the film’s themes and with its overall execution.

Let’s get this out of the way right off the top: I wouldn’t call Camp Miasma a horror movie. It’s a lesbian romance about horror movies, but it is not, itself, a horror film. There’s no tension, no danger, and actually very little in the way of external conflict. All of the slasher film elements exist solely within the film-within-a-film that the characters watch, and also within a sort of fantasy in the film’s final act. All of it is played for laughs and none of it is interesting; there’s no “Jason beating a person in a sleeping bag against a tree” here; everyone is either stabbed or decapitated, and the violence is depicted via some truly poor CGI blood and guts, so none of it has any real impact.

I mentioned before that I have problems with the film’s themes, and to sum up what I mean by that, I’ll say that I think this is a film that really glorifies the idea of finding one’s identity within the media that one consumes. The main character, Kris, is obsessed with slasher films, to the point that her obsession bleeds into her sexual desires; she wants to be the Final Girl, being chased through the woods by a killer while wearing a skimpy outfit. She wants to be a victim.

There’s a more interesting idea buried within this premise that the movie doesn’t really explore, about how the formation of queer identities is often filtered through problematic media depictions of queerness. But the core idea at the heart of Camp Miasma seems a lot simpler, more narcissistic, and more juvenile: the media we consume creates us, lets us build a fantasy about who we really are, and the pressures of reality—relationships, work, self-maintenance—get in the way of that fantasy. It seems like Schoenbrun just wants to watch trashy slasher movies, eat mountains and mountains of candy and fried chicken, and have all their sexual needs met by an experienced older lover. But this sort of reality can’t really exist because all these hollow NPCs who constitute the rest of the world, who—gasp!—like to exercise and try to do their jobs, keep inundating us with actual responsibilities. Wouldn’t it be better if they all got fucking murdered? Then we could go to the convenience store with our dutiful orgasm sherpa and fill our cart with gummy candy before heading back to her remote cabin to get off again and again.

Feel free to disagree with me about my interpretation of the film’s themes. I’m not claiming to have the definitive reading here. But even if I liked what the movie was doing thematically, there’s another issue that I think is harder to ignore, and that’s just that the movie isn’t all that well made.

Schoenbrun is certainly entitled to make whatever sort of movie they want, and maybe they really weren’t interested in making an actual horror film. But given their obvious affection for the slasher genre, I’m honestly shocked that the slasher elements in this film are so poorly done. As I mentioned earlier, there’s nothing in the way of creative kills here, but what I find more frustrating is how the movie can’t even adhere to its own stylistic choices. So much work is put into creating this fictional Camp Miasma universe, into showing us these clips of the films that really do look like they came out of the early 80s, but then when we get the big central moment—an extended slasher sequence from the first in-universe Camp Miasma film where the killer murders everyone—we shift from this believable 80s style of filming to a very modern-looking, long-take scene filled with the sorts of CGI gore effects that would simply not exist in a film from the 80s. It doesn’t work as an homage to classic slasher films, it doesn’t work as a horror or action sequence in its own right, and it doesn’t work as comedy. It just kind of happens, and I get the impression that we’re supposed to be really impressed by it.

I really appreciate it if you’ve read this far. I’m curious if anyone agrees with my opinions here or if anyone has strong disagreements. I’m certainly open to hearing them.

How is this book not insanely popular? I only discovered it recently when I saw Maggie O’Farrell name it as an inspiration for her new novel, Land. Prior to that, I’d never heard of Star of the Sea, despite the fact that it came out in 2002.

This is a historical fiction novel about a famine ship traveling from Ireland to New York in 1847. It follows several characters on the ship whose lives are intertwined. Their stories unfold in a non-linear fashion, as we continually move back and forth between their present—on the ship—and their pasts in Ireland and England. The ways in which their stories intersect continued to surprise me throughout.

I can’t say enough about how beautifully written this book is, how rich it is with interesting stories and wonderful little details that are so believable you might almost forget it’s fiction.

I truly fell in love with the characters; their lives are filled with tragedy and beauty and hardship and longing, and they’re as complex and multifaceted as you’d expect people in such situations to be. They can be bitter and cruel, but also empathetic and kind. In other words, they’re people. Real, breathing people who can’t be easily defined by either their best or their worst qualities. You’ll be rooting for them in one moment and raging at them the next, but always you’ll buy into them and why they do the things they do.

I truly can’t recommend this book enough to any lover of literary fiction, and especially to fans of historical fiction. I found it by chance, borrowed it from the library on a whim, and came away from it feeling like I was given a gift. And it’s one I feel compelled to share with others.

For anyone who’s played a lot of the endgame, I’m curious if you’ve got answers to some questions.

1. Character level maxes out at 50 but mission levels go up to 80. How do you deal with this? Is it just a matter of upgrading your weapon and optimizing your loadout?

2. What’s the best way to get five-star weapons? So far I’ve only acquired like four of them and none of them are really my preferred weapon type.

Setting aside all my cynicism and disappointment, and acknowledging the fact that they still aren’t good *enough*, this Bolts team is better now than it was a year ago, and I think that’s important to recognize.

Maybe we’re still on a downward slope and this is just our dead cat bounce before falling off completely, or maybe this is a positive sign for the next few years. I dunno, but I wanted to bring it up.