#also just because I read these books doesn't necessarily mean that I would recommend all of them to just anyone

[annemariewrites]

List of all the books I’ve read

just wanted to keep a list of what I’ve read throughout my life (that I can remember)

Fiction:

“The Outsiders,” SE Hinton

“The Weirdo,” Theodore Taylor

“The Devil’s Arithmetic,” Jane Yolen

“Julie of the Wolves series,” Jean Craighead George

“Soft Rain,” Cornelia Cornelissen

“Island of the Blue Dolphins,” Scott O’Dell

“The Twilight series,” Stephanie Mayer

“To Kill a Mockingbird,” Harper Lee

“Gamer Girl,” Mari Mancusi

“Redwall / Mossflower / Mattimeo / Mariel of Redwall,” Brian Jacques

“1984,” and  “Animal Farm,” George Orwell

“Killing Mr. Griffin,” Lois Duncan

“Huckleberry Finn,” Mark Twain

“Rainbow’s End,” Irene Hannon

“Cold Mountain,” Charles Frazier

“Between Shades of Gray,” Ruta Sepetys

“Great Short Works of Edgar Allan Poe,” Edgar Allen Poe

“Lord of the Flies,” William Golding

“The Great Gatsby,” F Scott Fitzgerald

“The Harry Potter series,” JK Rowling

“The Fault in Our Stars,” “Looking for Alaska,” and “Paper Towns,” John Green

“Thirteen Reasons Why,” Jay Asher

“The Hunger Games series,” Suzanne Collins

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” Stephen Chbosky

“Fifty Shades of Grey,” EL James

“Speak,” and “Wintergirls,” Laurie Halse Anderson

“The Handmaid’s Tale,” Margaret Atwood

“Mama Day,” Gloria Naylor

“Jane Eyre,” Charlotte Bronte

“Wide Sargasso Sea,” Jean Rhys

“The Haunting of Hill House,” Shirley Jackson

“The Chosen,” Chaim Potok

“Leaves of Grass,” Walt Whitman

“Till We Have Faces,” CS Lewis

“One Foot in Eden,” Ron Rash

“Jim the Boy,” Tony Earley

“The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox,” Maggie O’Farrell

“A Land More Kind Than Home,” Wiley Cash

“A Parchment of Leaves,” Silas House

“Beowulf,” Seamus Heaney

“The Silence of the Lambs / Red Dragon / Hannibal / Hannibal Rinsing,” Thomas Harris

“Cry the Beloved Country,” Alan Paton

“Moby Dick,” Herman Melville

“The Hobbit / The Lord of the Rings trilogy / The Silmarillion,” JRR Tolkien

“Beren and Luthien,” JRR Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien

“Children of Blood and Bone / Children of Virtue and Vengeance,” Tomi Adeyemi

“Soundless,” Richelle Mead

“The Girl with the Louding Voice,” Abi Dare

“A Song of Ice and Fire series / Fire and Blood,” GRR Martin

“A Separate Peace,” John Knowles

“The Bluest Eye,” and “Beloved,” Toni Morrison

“Brave New World,” Aldous Huxley

“The Giver / Gathering Blue / Messenger / Son,” Lois Lowry

“The Ivory Carver trilogy,” Sue Harrison

“The Grapes of Wrath,” and “Of Mice and Men,” John Steinbeck

“The God of Small Things,” Arundhati Roy

“Fahrenheit 451,” Ray Bradbury

“The Night Circus,” Erin Morgenstern

“Sunflower Dog,” Kevin Winchester

“The Catcher in the Rye,” JD Salinger

“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” Sherman Alexie

“The Good Girl,” Mary Kubica 

“The Last Unicorn,” Peter S Beagle

“Slaughterhouse Five,” Kurt Vonnegut Jr

“The Joy Luck Club,” Amy Tan

“The Sworn Virgin,” Kristopher Dukes

“The Color Purple,” Alice Walker

“Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Zora Neale Hurston

“The Light Between Oceans,” ML Stedman

“Yellowface,” RF Kuang

“A Flicker in the Dark,” Stacy Willingham

“One Piece Novel: Ace’s Story,” Sho Hinata

Non-fiction:

“Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl,” Anne Frank

“Night,” Elie Wiesel

“Invisible Sisters,” Jessica Handler

“I Am Malala,” Malala Yousafzai

“The Interesting Narrative,” Olaudah Equiano

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” Rebecca Skloot

“Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” Harriet Jacobs

“The Princess Diarist,” Carrie Fisher

“Adulting: How to Become a Grown Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps,” Kelly Williams Brown

“How to Win Friends and Influence People,” Dale Carnegie

“Carrie Fisher: a Life on the Edge,” Sheila Weller

“Make ‘Em Laugh,” Debbie Reynolds and Dorian Hannaway

“How to be an Anti-Racist,” Ibram X Kendi

“Maus,” Art Spiegelman

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou

“Wise Gals: the Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage,” Nathalia Holt

“Persepolis,” and “Persepolis II,” Marjane Satrapi

“How to Write a Novel,” Manuel Komroff

“The Nazi Genocide of the Roma,” Anton Weiss-Wendt

“Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz,” Lucette Matalon Lagnado and Sheila Cohn Dekel

#books #some of these I read for school assignments and some I read of my own volition #some I read when I was a young teenager many years ago and some I read just this past month #somewhat in order of which I read them #some of these I have read more than once #for the record I work at a library which is how I'm able to access so many books #support your local library #also just because I read these books doesn't necessarily mean that I would recommend all of them to just anyone #don't come at me for reading 'problematic' books please #I was an english major in college and didn't get to choose a lot of what I read #but even the ones I was forced to read I'm glad that I read them #I don't really regret reading any of these; even the one's that I didn't like #I will add to the list whenever I finish a book #annemariereads

[queerprayers]

do you have any tips for protestant christians who want to practice advent in a more ritualistic way?

Happy Advent, beloved! I love this question!

Hopefully this isn't too obvious but just in case: Advent wreaths were originally a Lutheran tradition and they're my favorite holiday ritual! I'm in the minority in that my church's Advent color is blue, but many people's are purple and pink. The Wikipedia page lists some different traditions—some people give a meaning to each candle. Generally people will have five and light one for each week of Advent and then one for Christmas. Advent is cut short this year (Advent 4 and Christmas Eve are the same day) but it's still never too late to start participating in a season! One day of mindful Advent is more precious than weeks of half-hearted Advent.

I have blue and gold candle holders, but many places sell Advent-specific candles and holders, or you can just get four or five candles (real or fake) from around the house and arrange them! I haven't gotten around to it yet this year but I like gathering evergreen branches from outside and arranging them in more of a proper wreath, but a fake wreath would work too, or just candles on a cloth or table.

I also saw this 20-minute Advent candle set, where you can light a candle each day and let it burn down while praying/meditating/writing. You could set a timer and do something similar with any type of candle. Candles are a staple of winter holidays for a reason—light and warmth, obviously, and there's something about having a natural source of those things existing in your house when so much of the rest of your life may be artificial. I thank God my house has heating, but I also seek out the ways this earth provides what we need, if we only know where to look.

Some form of counting down to Christmas is a main theme of Advent traditions, and I don't think this is a bad thing at all, although I do see my Advent wreath as more of a fulfillment than a countdown. I always encourage people to take at least a moment for just Advent. We could look at Lent as a countdown to Easter, but we might miss the journey. And after all, Holy Week and Easter is the culmination of our calendar, not Christmas. We are still in the beginning.

My family doesn't usually put up a Christmas tree until around the 23rd, and I don't listen to Christmas carols until Christmas Eve. I don't refuse to participate in secular/cultural Christmas events/traditions before then, but Christmas as religious practice is twelve days for us, starting the 25th. I have time to make room, to prepare. I'm listening to Advent music now, to ground myself in time. I don't say this because I think everyone should necessarily do this (by all means, find room for joy wherever you can), but because an Advent value that I find meaning in is patience. Christmas exists, joy exists, salvation exists—but what happens in the time before those things? What happens if we're not there yet, if we perhaps have to wait our whole lives? We do not know the future, but there are things we can see, and even more things we can trust in. How can we practice hoping for it all?

This year I'm reading Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas (the last gift my grandfather gave me), and it's marking my days in a similar way candles do—connecting me with the world, setting aside time, bringing me back to why I exist the way that I do. There are countless devotional/topical books out there—as well as Watch for the Light, I would recommend Preparing for Christmas by Richard Rohr and Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation by Luci Shaw (which can double as a Lenten/Easter book as well). I'm also looking forward to reading in future years Celtic Advent by David Cole and WinterSong by Madeleine L'Engle & Luci Shaw.

If you don't usually attend worship services, Advent is a lovely time to start—it's the new year, after all! My city has a caroling night downtown, and you could look for similar events in your community. You could also start new worship traditions—my uncle hosts a Christmas carol singing circle every year, and his apartment is squished full of happy people, some Christian and some not, singing until the neighbors complain.

Speaking of the new year, that's what this is for many of us, and one way we can acknowledge that is by thinking about the past year and/or the year to come. What was last Advent like for you? Where are you now? Why are you seeking out more ritual this year? Are there future seasons in the church year that you want to further observe? What joy and grief and community do you see on the road ahead of you? What can you not even begin to imagine? Advent can be a beginning for all of it, if you let it. And Advent is the ultimate time to contemplate the past and the future—as we remember Jesus coming two thousand years ago, as we experience him every day, and as we look to a second coming that none of us understand but can occasionally stand to ponder.

There are the little things, too—writing Christmas cards is very ritualistic for me, as well as making gifts, and preparing for Christmas in a material way, especially if it's for others, can be a lovely ritual! Volunteering, preparing a home, creating, writing, taking a walk--anything, really, can be a ritual if we do it purposely. We don't always have to add something to our life—we can live something we already live in a new way.

And then there's the other kind of practice: emptying. We talk about this most when we encounter Lent, but I think there's a place for it here, too (and always). I don't mean abandon our responsibilities/hobbies/relationships, but most of us have too much. It is a blessing to have, but it can also be a blessing to let go. Many of us overwork ourselves during December, at work, at school, financially, socially, around the house. I've learned to look at busy-ness as a gift, but I also work to not fill up my life until there's no room for the season. There are people who fast during Advent, but there are other ways to make space in our lives to fill up with God, and Advent encourages us to spend time in that space. God is coming, a thief in the night, a late guest, an overlooked baby. Do you have room? Do you still have the attention span and energy? Will you even notice?

Christmas is many things to many people, and preparing for it is similarly diverse. I'm carrying a lot of grief with me this year, from both family and world tragedy. I know a lot of people who feel pressured to be happy during the holidays, and that breaks my heart—and it also makes me wonder how much having a ritualistic Advent since I was a kid has helped me avoid that. Happiness was never a value my family held—it was beautiful, but not inherently holy. Emotions come and go. Love exists infinitely, and patience and hope can be practiced and lived out regardless.

There are so many traditions, especially in the US, that leave people hungering for ritual and material practice—I've found a lot of physicality in Lutheranism, similar to my Catholic family, but I know there are those who have never really had that. When we seek ritual, it's often because there's something (or many things) in our practice either growing up or currently that we don't have and seek—whether that's the sensory experiences of incense and stained glass, the daily habits of rosary or novena, the liturgical practice of seasons and services, choral and hymn-singing, contemporary music, contemplation, academia, casualness, relatability, mystery, social justice, huge gatherings, tiny meetings, or any of the other Christian experiences that usually traditions don't or can't have all at once. When we seek ritual, we seek what we don't have, but often find what we already have as well. So many things are rituals that we take for granted because we've always had them or gotten used them. Seek new rituals, and seek what is already in your life that you can decide to do. Take your traditions, and find the traditions you didn't receive but hunger for, and make a life. You have time—Advent happens every year, and as far as we know and can hope, we will have many more Advents.

Ultimately, ritual is doing it all on purpose. It's finding rhythm. So much of our lives are accidental, and this can be beautiful and holy, but you have come seeking the things we invite. And yet even things that happen to us can become purposeful, as Mary teaches us: "Let it be with me according to your word." Whether she had a choice is sometimes discussed, but to me often the more relevant question is how she dealt with what came her way. Ritual is taking what we are given and doing it on purpose, and Advent gives us a long tradition, passed down through generations, of active waiting. We have no choice but to wait for the future, but today we will do it with our eyes open. Act as if the world is going to turn upside down—and you will notice it is, all the time.

In Watch for the Light, Henri Nouwen writes, "A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us. Impatient people are always expecting the real thing to happen somewhere else and therefore want to go elsewhere. The moment is empty. But patient people dare to stay where they are. Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there. Waiting, then, is not passive. It involves nurturing the moment, as a mother nurtures the child that is growing in her."

Whatever rituals you invite in or find that you already have, however you nurture the moments that make up this season, I pray they make room in your heart for what God can bring. As Rilke tells us (in teaching how to approach art, but what else are the mysteries of this season?), "Everything is gestation and then bringing forth. To let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own intelligence, and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity."

<3 Johanna

#asks #if you can give lutherans nothing else. you gotta hand it to us for advent wreaths. we kinda went off with those

[onwhatcaptain]

hi i didn’t know what Star Trek was until i came across your fic it’s so. Real. poor McCoy bruh nobody’s gonna know what he went through …I guess it’s not entirely gone, but still. He didn’t get the three socks metaphor.

YOU TRICKED ME. canon divergent LIEEE LIEEEE

The way you omit time travel as a tag is craaazyy (I love time travel) AND AND THE SUNMARY BEING

“About men who love each other” LIKE NOT TWO MEN but all THREE

I do have one question though. If McCoy said “tell him you missed him” and set up the holo night, then in the first timeline had McCoy already gone back at that point and failed?

Hi! So I saw your comment on AO3 (please forgive me if it takes a moment to reply, I have an enormous backlog of comments to get around to after I took a break when the fic ended!) and I knew I absolutely had to ask you these burning questions: how did you find my fic if you didn't know what Star Trek was? What inspired you to read it?

I am beyond thrilled that you enjoyed the story and so touched that you read it all the way through without having seen Star Trek, but I absolutely have to ask what the story behind this is if you're willing to share with me!

It's definitely still canon divergent in a sort of way! At least in my figurative and literal book if you know the episode that inspired this novel, it would definitely be considered divergent:) I wanted to keep things as spoiler-free as possible to retain the surprise and emotional weight of the story, so I made the decision early on to not tag where the plot or ending was going, which definitely threw a lot of people off! Sorry for the trickery!

I ADORE that you pointed out the summary. I was actually shocked when I was reading this ask, because it was absolutely intentional and a huge part of the foreshadowing, but you're the only reader to my knowledge that has consciously noticed that choice, and you haven't even seen Star Trek!! Amazing!! I have such a big smile on my face right now!

More below because I realize this is getting long already!

As for poor McCoy, it is truly tragic nobody will know what he went through. In Star Trek, a lot of fans (rightfully) emphasize the love between Kirk and Spock, which I feel is only kept alive because of McCoy's quiet love for them both in the background as he takes care of them. In a way, it's a tribute to love that goes unnoticed, unseen.

With regards to your question, it's a great question! And I don't have a perfect answer for it, because it's entirely paradoxical. The first half of the story can only happen if the second half happens, because Kirk and Spock would not act on their feelings without the existence of the holo night and McCoy's intervention. But in the original timeline, they still die even though McCoy's actions in the latter half of the novel seem to exist. It's totally circular. It's expounded on somewhat in Forever and a Day, where McCoy tries to make sense of the same question and concludes that even if he does succeed, they will still die.

McCoy tries not to think about the horrifying implications. The knowledge that no matter what he did, he could not undo their deaths. To live, they would always need to die.

This doesn't necessarily mean that McCoy has gone back before, but it raise some serious questions about metaphysics and leaves a lot unanswered, because the two events now cause each other, and they also contradict each other. I actually took a stab at explaining the metaphysics in way greater detail in the fic originally, but my beta reader (correctly) told me this would confuse readers. So because it's confusing, I later just wave my sci-fi authorial wand to try and convince you to go along with it! :)

"And I like how the paradox makes no sense.” “I reckon it’s not meant to. They never do."

I do have to say, I recommend giving Star Trek a watch if you were interested! I think it's an amazing show. Again, thank you so much for taking the time to read a whole novel about a show you had no idea about!!

#thank you for this ask!!! #asks #star trek #star trek tos #spirk #kirk x spock

[theeeveetamer]

Okay but if each Blue Lion had one Allomantic power and one Feruchemical power, what would they be?

(no this is not me trying to bully you into continuing the series wdym 😇

Hello everyone here's the part of the night where I am forced to reveal that I occasionally read books (mostly when bullied these days) and Hapi here decided to bully me into reading Mistborn. So if you're wondering where I was from about late December to early January, I was reading three 700 page books before my semester started and my will to enjoy words written on officially published pages evaporated

Good series (only read Era 1 because I physically could not fit Era 2 into that timeframe but you know) would recommend. 8/10 cool world excellent buildup lovable characters, needs more gay and women and women gays

So uh anyways, Blue Lions? Blue Lions. Been a while since I talked about 3H anyway! I'll probably just pick the metal to associate with them instead of dividing it up between allomantic and feruchemical powers

Dimitri: Definitely a Pewter boy. It just fits with his canonical strength thing he's got going on

Dedue: Copper boy. Lowkey and not necessarily seen as super important to the team, but arguably the most important person on the team. Also, storing memory could be a wealth of angst if you wanted!

Sylvain: Sylvain is kind of hard for me. He doesn't really scream one particular metal like most of the rest of them. I suppose bronze is the one that sticks out the most? (I know they don't all have to have different ones but I think it's more fun if they do).

Felix: Zinc boy, to honor his uncanny ability to piss people off :) Just look at him.

Ashe: He's a tin boy. IMO having the sharpened senses makes sense with his backstory of living on the streets.

Ingrid: I guess I'll give her steel, mostly because you can store speed with it and that just calls to me with Ingrid for some reason.

Annette: Which means Annette can have iron, mostly because I think it'd be funny to watch her accidentally send things flying around.

Mercedes: Brass girl. She just seems like the best candidate for emotional soothing, and there's something kinda cute about her being able to store warmth

#I traded forcing her to watch ATLA #The real one not the Netflix one #I'm not a sadist #Fire Emblem #fe3h #blue lions #mistborn #dunno if that fandom uses more tags im not usually on bookblr

[benkyoutobentou]

（再）自己紹介 | Langblr Reintroduction!

皆さん　こんにちは！I recently hit a follower milestone and figured that it was time to reintroduce myself, as it's been quite a while, and I don't really have much information about me easily accessible on my blog. Additionally, I'd like to actually write stuff down about how this blog is organized. じゃあ、始めましょう！

Hi, my name is Nobody (they/them), my native language is English, and I like studying languages! Languages have interested me ever since I was a child, but I feel like I never knew how to properly learn a language until I started studying Japanese in 2020. Now, I also study Mandarin Chinese and German! Japanese is my main target language, and I would some day like to make Japanese my primary language. Yes, that means I'm interested in moving to Japan long-term.

Immersion is my favorite way to study, but as of right now, most of my immersion has been done in Japanese. Please tell me what you're reading or watching, or ask me what I'm reading or watching! I especially love talking about books and manga and would be more than willing to share recommendations!

Outside of language learning, my hobbies include horseback riding, gardening, and reading (in English). I also have a degree in music performance, but I don't really consider that to be a hobby since it's something I'm actively pursuing as a career.

As for my blog, I keep it mostly Japanese focused, mainly because I made this blog when I was only studying Japanese, but my other languages do show up once in a while, and much of the content I post/reblog isn't tied to a single language. Here are the tags I frequently use to organize my blog and what they all mean:

#benkyou posting - these are my own posts! These are usually tagged with at least one of the other tags, as this tag just denotes that I was the one who made it, not necessarily the content that it contains.

#languages - these are posts that are typically tied to a specific language or the specific study of languages. Resources for learning languages will also show up here.

#tips - these posts are general studying tips and may not be specifically about language learning, but are applicable to the study of languages.

#study - these posts are aesthetic posts of peoples' notes and study spaces.

#inspo - these posts are inspirational posts, for when you might have a bit of trouble getting into the study mood.

#art - this is just for Japanese art! Usually, it'll be traditional arts and I must admit that I'm a sucker for woodblock prints. If I reblog any sort of Japanese fashion (think more kimonos), it'll also show up here.

#culture - these are posts about the cultural aspects of Japan, such as explanations of festivals and the such.

#aesthetic - these are just beautiful photos of Japan, mostly temples. Again, these are just photos I like, and I really like shrines and castles (once someone called me a "temple weeb" and I'm still laughing about it).

#memes - this tag is for anything fun! Memes aren't the only thing that go in here- things such as polls and silly text posts will also show up here.

Things that I don't post or reblog include vocabulary lists and grammar explanations. I have nothing against them, I just don't particularly use them on tumblr and therefore find no reason to put them on my own blog. I've made a few vocabulary lists in the past, but have found that it's just not for me! Remember that language learning is a deeply personal journey and what works for you might not work for me and vice verse. Just because these things aren't particularly what I look for out of langblr content doesn't mean that they're not important to other people, but I would like to be clear about what shows up (and doesn't!) on my blog.

So welcome to my blog! I hope you choose to stick around a while! And for those who don't know Japanese, my blog name means "studying and lunch boxes."

#benkyou posting #language learning #studyblr #langblr #intro post #polyglot #japanese #studying #studyinspo #study blog

[mermaidsirennikita]

Hey I just read your answer about bad writing in dark romance ! Do you have some well-written dark romance to recommend to us ?

Yes!

I'll add a caveat: like I said lol, I'm really not into torture porn dark romances, so Haunting Adeline-type books aren't my thing. But I feel like they've become considered dark romances? Whereas my understanding is more along the lines of how the Fated Mates episode explained it. It's not just the hero or heroine's morality--it's also the world in which they live, the comfort of sitting in amorality, etc.

Soooo I'd recommend--

King's Captive by Amber Bardan. I really need to read more of Amber, tbh. This one begins with the heroine at her birthday party, at which point the hero has killed practically everyone there, her father included. He then sweeps her off to his private island, and we have a years-long time jump. It's got a very eerie atmosphere. Super intense and verrry sexy (he notably gives her a mixtape that she masturbates to and stands on the other side of the door KNOWING she's masturbating lmao). Insane twist, very violent, a lot of weirdly sensual descriptions of how he cooks steak?

Kresley Cole's Gamemaker series I'd recommend in general. The first two books are very Russian mafia-angled (especially the first) and the third is like... affiliated, but it's not mafia. The heroes are intensely possessive, the heroines actually fight back, etc. I've compared The Master to Kresley's PNR Lothaire, which... I'd argue that several IAD books overlap with dark romance, lmao (Dreams of a Dark Warrior, Lothaire, and MacRieve come to mind). But because The Master doesn't have the vampiric element, instead you have a guy keeping a woman captive because he thinks she's trying to baby trap him, chastity belt included.

Mila Finelli's Kings of Italy series. Italian mafia. The third book especially is on the darker side to me, as it probably has the highest amount of dubcon. The heroes are all murderers, there's a good bit of torture, defiant heroines (and an m/m assassin/target romance).

Run, Posy Run by Cate C. Wells. Italian-American mafia. The hero is in this situationship with the heroine that honestly isn't even good for her at all lmao, and is sent a video of her cheating on him. She assumes he's going to murder her and goes on the run... and then he finds out that the video was doctored. I mean, it's a softer touch, but still pretty dark.

Anne Stuart wrote dark historical romances--A Rose at Midnight is honestly one of the darkest books I've read. Intensely horrific Reign of Terror content. A really, really horrible (in a good way) hero. Tons of trauma. TW TW TW TW for like, murder, dubcon, noncon, near-suicide, violence on and off the page... It's dark.

Then of course... Sierra Simone. Some people categorize New Camelot as dark; I'd say it's very VERY high stakes, but I wouldn't necessarily call anyone involved horrible enough in the main trio to be dark. It has a lot of dark points, but I don't know if it's dark romance.

However, her Ivy Leavold series and her Molly O'Flaherty books skirt towards dark historicals, and I would say that Thornchapel is definitely dark, on the Gothic side. It's basically like... a pseudo-magical (light magic) series that feels a lot like Donna Tartt's The Secret History, but with orgies, and rituals, and that One Taboo That Romance Very Rarely Crosses. (Yes. THAT one.) Nobody's truly evil, but a lot of people are very fucked up, and it has some scenes that are downright Midsommar-y.

I would also say that while Salt Kiss didn't feel like a dark romance to me, Honey Cut definitely put us in that space lmao. She ramped up in a BIIIIIG way. Like. That book had one of the darkest consensual sex scenes I've ever read (and I LOOOOOOOOOOOOVED it). Just some really twisted relationships and high stakes. Which again. LOVE. Everyone read Sierra Simone!

#romance novel blogging #romance novels #book recs

[veliseraptor]

April Reading Recap

so apparently I read a fuckton in April. I put that on the week off for Passover and also a number of very fast reads last month. here goes

The Spite House by Johnny Compton. Might be the best horror book I'd read in a while, and I did not see the twist coming for a long while. Good and very spooky on the whole, but the "creepy kids as ghosts" thing took some of the luster off it. Still, some good and original ideas here and I'll be watching for more books by this author.

The Nine Eyes of Lucien by Madeleine Roux. Not very good writing and a good third of the book was rehashing the events of the end of Campaign 2, which I just watched. It was fine, I guess? But I didn't find it added much.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. I've had this one on my list for literal years - it's a retelling of the Biblical story of Dinah, Jacob's one daughter. I kind of wish I'd read it sooner, when (a) I was less burned out on retellings/reinterpretations of familiar stories, and (b) when I would've been less bothered by the flavor of gender essentialism of the text and could have appreciated other things about it without getting stuck in feeling iffy about that. I am trying to work out why it bothers me so much that Diamant chose to change the reading of the text from (an implied) rape to a consensual love affair, and I'm not quite sure I can explain that.

It's an interesting book and I'm glad I read it but I don't think I'd recommend it without disclaimers; I think in some ways it's more interesting as an artifact of the cultural movement it comes out of than anything else. Would analyze in a class about Jewish feminist responses to stories in Tanakh (or Talmud, tbh).

Six Myths of Our Time: Little Angels, Little Monsters, Beautiful Beasts and More by Marina Warner. Fascinating collection of short essays originally given as lectures on the BBC, apparently - the one essay about the way the West conceptualizes the simultaneous purity/monstrosity of children was particularly interesting to me. Interesting piece of work I picked up totally by happenstance because it was short and looked interesting and it lived up to both qualities.

Gallows Hill by Darcy Coates. Good spooky horror recommended by @cigaretteburnslikefairylights and actually legit scared me in places, which doesn't happen all that often to me anymore when I'm reading horror. (I'm still a weenie watching it.) I actually...liked this one start to resolution and am going to be looking up more of Darcy Coates' writing, because if it's not, you know, doing something super ~innovative~ it is good spooky reading and that's really what I've been craving.

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded by Simon Winchester. Reading this book was a weird experience. I went into it just thinking "ooh, book about an interesting natural disaster, I love volcanoes" and came out of it going "whoa, surprise Islamophobia," checked the publication date, and learned it was 2003, whereupon I was miserably unsurprised. I don't know why the author felt like he needed to make colonial apologetics and blame the post-eruption upheaval on Islamic fundamentalists manipulating the natives into uprising against their Dutch masters but apparently he did. (I'm exaggerating. But not that much.)

The geology stuff was interesting. Mr. Winchester should've stuck with that and the reportage of the eruption itself and left politics out of it.

Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays on Translation ed. by Kavita Bhanot & Jeremy Tiang. This might be my favorite book I read in April, honestly. It's a really good collection of essays about the concept of decolonizing translation, and what that means, and whether it's possible, and the uneasy and uncomfortable relationship between translation and imperialism. I didn't agree with all the essays in here, and they didn't necessarily all agree with each other, but all of them at least had something interesting to say. I would recommend this one to people who can find it - it's by a small press - who are interested in translation or who frequently read in translation. The writers have a lot to say that I think is worth thinking about.

She Is a Haunting by Trang Thahn Tran. I think I just need to give up reading YA books with the realization they're generally not for me, though this one almost had me. It's something about the...I know there's a range of styles, I can't generalize style across the genre, but there is a texture to YA writing that doesn't quite work for me.

I love the concept - diaspora horror, colonialist horror, some really fucked up body horror stuff that got surprisingly gruesome - and would love to read a slightly different book about it, but alas, that book wasn't this one.

American Midnight: Democracy's Forgotten Crisis, 1917-1921 by Adam Hochschild. Another contender for favorite book I read this month though I think this one loses out to Violent Phenomena and possibly Gallows Hill, though comparing horror fiction to historical nonfiction feels kind of unfair. Anyway, I knew some of what this book was digging into - the Sedition Act and the intensely violent repression that was going on in the United States during World War I - but I learned a lot more here.

The depressing thing about reading this, though, was watching (so to speak) the brutal crushing of a once fairly robust American Socialist Party such that it never recovered. Not to mention the grinding down of the labor movement, which I think was at its most powerful during this period of time and hasn't been as strong since.

Just looking at that and wondering what might've been if Woodrow Wilson wasn't such a fucking dick.

Elektra by Jennifer Saint. I feel so funny about this book. I read another mythology retelling even though I swore not to because a Tumblr user I respect mentioned it being good; my experience was that it wasn't bad and it didn't actively bother me like some other retellings I could name, but I don't know that I'd actually call it good. Mostly I'd say I wasn't annoyed, just uninspired.

Of the three narrators, Elektra was definitely the best, and I really did like the construction of her relationship with Clytemnestra, which really felt like the meat of the book. (Perhaps, considering the House of Atreus, that's a bad turn of phrase to use.) The Cassandra sections felt like a distraction, mostly a way to keep the reader up with what was going on across the sea and provide some action in between the familial drama. Ultimately I just felt like those sections took away from the Elektra/Clytemnestra dynamic, leaving insufficient meat.

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach. I went through a period of time where I was reading all of Mary Roach's books, and was kind of obsessed with them, so this was sort of returning to an old and familiar friend. I found I wasn't quite as enamored with this one as I remembered being of some of her others (I think I remember Stiff being my favorite), but it was an interesting look at the intersections between human and animal - which is really more what this is about than law, per se. It's about what we do when animals cause problems for humans, from monkeys to bears, and the questions that are raised about the best way to handle those issues.

Nero: Matricide, Music, and Murder in Imperial Rome by Anthony Everitt & Roddy Ashworth. I'm so confused by this book. From the insistence on referring to Nero as "princeps" throughout the book, to the random dropping of French in places it really didn't need to be, to the frankly credulous approach to the sources, particularly when it comes to sex, even when the author mentioned how sex is often a proxy for politics in Roman historical writing, the weird sideways digression into "did Rome have gay marriage?", the weird "maybe she got what she deserved" aside about Messalina's death...

I learned a fair amount, I can say that, I'm not as knowledgeable about this period's Julio-Claudians. Frankly I think Agrippina (the Younger) was the real star of this book, despite Anthony Everitt's heroic efforts to make Nero the protagonist. Buddy, I see your point, but you're pushing a little too hard here.

Anyway. Weird reading experience, I'm tempted to recommend it just so someone else can either validate it or go "what are you talking about, this was a perfectly normal history book."

---

woof long post, but hey it was a lot of books. currently reading A Fever in the Heartland for more American racism in the early 20th century. I have a stack of library books that are waiting for me and I think the next one is probably going to be The Social Lives of Animals, which will either be really enjoyable or annoy the hell out of me, possibly both.

#reading recaps #sometimes i read things #long post for ts

[morfinwen]

Fortnight of Books (in one post)

I'm so happy i read enough books last year to do this for once! Here's hoping for a repeat this year. Next year. Whenever.

Overall - best books read in 2023? Tress of the Emerald Sea

Best series you discovered in 2023? The fun thing about "best" is that it doesn't necessarily mean "good". And while i hold out slightly more hope that future Margery Allingham mysteries will be more captivating than The Crime at Black Dudley, i have to admit that there was something about Ngaio Marsh's utterly underwhelming mysteries that kept me reading. So congrats to her for her single victory.

Best reread of the year? Watership Down. Granted it was only one of two re-reads this year, but it's usually the best anyway.

Most surprising (in a good way) book of this year? A few books were minorly surprising. Certain elements of The Sunlit Man were … not unexpected exactly, but took things in interesting directions. I was not expecting to find a book that took place in Wisconsin and was by a nosleep author (Dead Eleven). And Overture to Death and Surfeit of Lampreys were surprisingly enjoyable for having been written by Ngaio Marsh!

Most disappointing book/Book you wish you enjoyed more than you did? I was hoping that The Crime at Black Dudley would show Allingham to be a better author than Marsh. It did not.

Book you recommended most to others in 2023? I don't do book recommendations, but i very nearly suggested Tress of the Emerald Sea to a friend on FB asking for suggestions, and the only reason i didn't is because someone else already had. I believe i also recommended Shardik in a discord group, which i did not re-read in 2023 but definitely should at some point.

Alt question: A book you did not finish in 2023? I really need to finish The Lost Metal. It's not that i was disliking it or finding it boring or anything, i just had trouble maintaining momentum for reading it. Unfortunately, a very common problem.

Alt question: A book you bought in 2023? The Kingdom of Heaven by tumblr mutual Evelyn M. Lewis (i haven't read it yet i'm so sorry i promise i will get to it!!)

Author you read the most in 2023? Ngaio Marsh. She did not deserve it.

Most thrilling, unputdownable book of 2023? "Thrilling" is … not the right word, to put it mildly, but there was something gripping about Dead Eleven nonetheless. At the very least, there was something that made me stay up way longer than i should have fine-tuning my review of it. Someday i will understand what it is that makes certain books good but not gripping/gripping but not good, and how to recognize it, etc.

Book that was most outside your comfort zone/new genre exploration? Dead Eleven again, for being a book i just picked up at the library without having heard of the author before or having any idea of it beyond what the dust jacket/first chapters indicated.

Favorite cover of the year award goes to: All of Sanderson's Secret Project books had beautiful covers, but i'll probably give the prize to Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. It's currently my phone background!

Most beautifully-written book you read in 2023? Hmm … I wasn't quite as impressed with Stiefvater's prose in my re-read of All the Crooked Saints as i was the first time, but i think she still gets the credit. I love Sanderson, but his prose is more utilitarian than pretty.

Most memorable character: Does Hoid count? His role in Tress and the Emerald Sea was his best appearance yet (second place going to his role in "Yumi and the Nightmare Painter", where he was a coatrack for most of it).

Most annoying character: Lily Beckett from Dead Eleven. I had some sympathy for her at the start, but … ugh. None of the characters in that book were very good, but she was easily the worst.

Favorite couple: Charlie and Tress from Tress and the Emerald Sea.

Worst character death: Obviously a spoiler, but, Yumi's (temporary) death in Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. Props to Sanderson that i actually thought she was gone for good for a moment.

Favorite non-romance relationship: Nomad and Aux from The Sunlit Man.

Alt: A book you enjoyed well-enough but wasn’t a stand-out? Giving Death in Ecstasy a shout-out for being the first Ngaio Marsh book i almost kinda enjoyed, sorta.

The book I read but have already forgotten: Turns out i read The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages last January, and completely forgot about it. Oops.

Book with a scene that left you reeling: Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. If you've read it, you know the one. Not quite on the level of the basement in Warbreaker, but pretty darn close.

Alt question: A book that made you laugh? Surfeit of Lampreys, believe it or not. Though the title still sucks.

Book you read in 2023 and are most likely to reread in 2024? Tress and the Emerald Sea.

Alt question: A book you struggled with but completed? The Crime at Black Dudley. I think the fact that it's ostensibly a murder mystery, but switched less than halfway in to a "escape the criminals" plot, then back to the murder, was not in its favor.

Series you gave up on in 2023: I think i'm done with Ngaio Marsh.

Favorite passage/quote of 2023: Maybe i should have taken notes. Since i didn't, i browsed the quotes page for the best books i read, and came up with the following selections: “Do you have darkness inside you?” “Yes,” Tony said. “And do you want to be rid of it?” This is a harder question to answer than one might think at first blush. Almost no one would think it’s correct to answer this question with a no, but the truth is that we men and women often hate to be rid of the familiar, and sometimes our darkness is the thing we know the best. ~ All the Crooked Saints All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed. ~ Watership Down Memories are fossils, the bones left by dead versions of ourselves. More potently, our minds are a hungry audience, craving only the peaks and valleys of experience. The bland erodes, leaving behind the distinctive bits to be remembered again and again. Painful or passionate, surreal or sublime, we cherish those little rocks of peak experience, polishing them with the ever-smoothing touch of recycled proxy living. ~ Tress of the Emerald Sea

Book which had the overall greatest impact on you this year: Perhaps Dead Eleven - i already mentioned how it kept me up late writing a review. A mostly negative review, but still.

A book you didn’t read this year that will be your #1 priority in 2024? I've got a long list of books that i checked out from the library (or wanted to) that i never got around to last year, hoping this one works out better. I suppose the priority goes to The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, which i started last year but haven't finished yet.

New book you are most anticipating for 2024? I don't really anticipate books, and i'm out of relevant alternative questions.

I had an amazing 20 books on my "read" list this year -- not sure if it beats 2019 or whenever my other reading spree was, but it blows most other years out of the water, and i'm hopeful for 2024.

#fortnight of books #fortnight of books 2023 #books #morfinwen rambles

[quetzalpapalotl]

I wish to love and appreciate idw optimus more too. But I also don’t want to read through the entirety of IDW 1.0. Can you please recommend me any specific issues/parts?

Hi!! I see that you have already reblogged my IDW1 Optimus-focused reading guide, so I assume that you read that and still felt like it was too much. I'd do anything to spread the OP love, so I will try! But before that, please forgive me for rambling a bit.

That guide is not the entirety of IDW1, I tried to cut as much as possible, and I want to reiterate that I consider Barber's Optimus the definitive take on IDW1 Optimus. To the point that I like all other stuff with him only in because I read them through Barber's characterization which serves to give them depth in retrospective. And it does this because Barber's writes Optimus with the intention of consolidating all the other writer's takes on him (which were uh... a mess). It's a very contextual reading, a conversation, there's more to get from it if you know the background. So I would ask you to reconsider giving it a try, skip the crossovers if you want. I'll redo the reading guide with links to download/read online if you want.

That being said, I understand that sounds like "read these bad comics in the hopes you will like this one other comic" and the point is to have fun, not to do homework. So in that case I'll say to just read exrid/Optimus Prime and the JRo stuff (but we'll come back to teh later)

See, the exrid/OP is a whole story, so recommeding individual issues doesn't make much sense to me, it would be like recommending one episode of an anime or one chapter of a book, it would entirely lack context and lost much of it's meaning, especially because Optimus is a main character whose actions cannot be taken out from the rest of the plot. My favorite moments require build up, like when Optimus annexes the Earth to the council of worlds, that doesn't hit the same if you didn't read all the previous issues where Optimus was trying to remove all Cybertronian influence from Earth and the series of events that led to him changing his mind and think such a fucking move was a good idea.

And I've talked about this before, but while Mtmt/LL has its biggest strenght in character dynamics and out-of-screen build up, exRID/OP has it in thematic consistensy and narrative cohesion. All parts of it and there to make a point that feeds the whole, character's perspectives feed each other and the biggest pay-off comes at the very end. Also, Optimus Prime is a story about him as a character as much as it is about him as a symbol, so seeing the effects he has on other people is important.

I suppose you could read exRID starting from post Dark Cybertron as it basically becomes a different story and the first part doesn't feature Optimus (except in issues 6, 10, 19) I would not recommend this as there are still a lot of links between the two and you would miss a chunk of Arcee's story (who is the one other character on which the whole thing falls upon). But you could. Don't skip Combiner Wars tho.

Other than that here are some hightlights:

The Death of Optimus Prime: This is the one that works best as a single issue, as it is a one-shot. It sets up phase 2 so definitively read it.

JRo's stuff: That is Chaos Theory, Mtmte #9-11, Mtmte #36 and Spotlight: Orion Pax. Now, JRo's OP is certainly the one that is more likeable, but I don't necessarily think that it's good. JRo kinda wants to have Optimus be more morally grey but always reels back and portrays him as the ultimate good seemingly without considering the implications of a lot of the stuff he does. But still, Chaos Theory is the backbone of phase 2, they are fun reads and it introduces a lot of backstory and aspects of his personality that will be important.

Punishment: As this is a mini series, it's good to read on its own. It's still set in the broader context of exRID, but at least it's a complete story and a compelling one! Lots of Optimus brooding, but not in an annoying way.

Optimus Prime #1-6: Okay, so if you don't want to read all of exrid/OP or are testing the waters before commiting to it. This arc deals with Optimus trying to get people to accept Earth as part of the Council of Worlds and risking war for it, contrasted with events of his past. This may be the easiest arc to read on its own, but I also think it does a great job of building Optimus character. It's also a great example of the narrative not shying away from Optimus doing bad things, stupid things and having anger issues (and also the cop thing), while also retaining the core of his character as someone who genuinely wants to do good and getting into his head to make sense of his actions (not justify them). This is something that I feel only Barber gets right. Also Zeta Prime is there and he's the most important character that barely shows up.

Autocracy: Ok, ok, listen... this may or may not be the most disliked series in IDW1 and while I think it has a worse reputation than it deserves, I still wouldn't call it good. While its more honest abotu what being a cop entails than Chaos Theory and is willing to have OP be unsavory, that aspect doesn't really go anywhere and it fails to make OP an enganging character whose actions make sense. But it still has the backstory of how Orion became Optimus and a friend likes it, so hey, maybe you will too. Also the aforementioned flashbacks of OP 1-6 feel to me that they are written in direct response to Autocracy and try to explain how that is the same character than the one in Chaos Theory. I'm actually working on meta about that (anon, if you're reading this, I haven't forgotten). So for all that Barber is trying to recontextualize and reconciliate all the other takes on Optimus, this is the most obvious one and Autocracy is not that long. So it may be worth checking out.

Sorry for rambling again, I hope you find this useful!! Feel free to ask for links or any other questions!

#quetzal rambles tf

[mightbewriting]

hi so i want to ask how i would go about improving my craft. more specifically, how do you do that, and do you have any advice?

i've accepted that my writing now isn't going to be perfect by any means, but i've also found myself wondering how i'd go about improving my craft to that point where i'm satisfied with it? or is it always going to feel like you have more to improve and more to change and more, more, more even when you've come a long way? like idk it's so hard to measure the endpoint (is there even an endpoint/end goal?) because even when i can see that i've improved in certain ways, there are also times i cringe at myself so much, which actually leads to fluctuating motivation too.

hi anon!

so sorry for taking a bit to get to this! i think the place i want to start with is no, there is no end point. at least, not one i've ever found. and truly, i think the most helpful point of growth with writing is in finding a way to accept that nothing you write will ever feel 100% perfected to you. even the things that readers might give you glowing feedback on and say there's nothing they would change, even if you can't necessarily figure out what it is that's wrong or that you would change, in my experience, there's always going to be a lingering sense of "but i could do this better, i know i could." the trick is in letting that be okay and, if i may be grotesquely trite, accepting that writing is the kind of activity that's pretty exclusively about the journey, not the destination. i'm not convinced there is a destination.

with regards to how i've gone about improving my craft, i'm a big proponent of craft books and reading a wide variety of them (which is boring, tedious advice, i know, but it's what i've done). i think it's easy to want to take craft advice as prescriptive, but processes are so unique to the way each of us thinks and how our brains work that i employ more of magpie technique. i want to pick and choose from a bunch of different sources to build my own little treasure trove of what works for me.

in addition to that, my trick for a very, very long time was disciplined practice. writing is one of those things you have to do to improve. i had a lot of success with daily word count minimums because, at least for me, having to get a certain number of words on the page no matter what they were or what project they were for, really helped me push past perfectionist tendencies. there just isn't time to obsess over 100 words when i have 1500 more to write and don't want to spend every second of my life doing it. if you're struggling to let something be a little bit imperfect, i highly recommend giving daily word counts a try for at least a month to build the habit and see how it feels. it doesn't work for everyone, but it worked for me. and if community helps, i highly recommend nanowrimo (national novel writing month) as a way to make a little event out of those daily word counts (i've done nano many times in my life and even wrote at nano pace for an entire year. and while that was...a lot, it also did a lot for my ability to write first drafts without shame). additionally, word sprints (timed, focused writing as fast as you can) with friends are a great way to help get words in with a support system cheering you on.

the last thing i'll throw out there, if it's helpful at all, a lot of the time my "endpoint" with a project is when i can't stand working on it anymore, not when i feel like it's perfect. because at a certain point, i'm not the project's best advocate anymore; i'm too close to it. and calling it done is usually the best thing for both me and the story.

i hope this is at least a little bit helpful anon! good luck with your writing! i promise you deserve way more credit than you're giving yourself right now!

#anonymous asks

[smalltownfae]

This is a post asking for contemporary romance books recommendations.

So, seems like I am in a weird contemporary romance kick – which is a genre I never cared about before in books. I always enjoyed it ocasionally in movies or korean dramas. Love that for me tbh because I am exploring something new. The problem is that I am so terribly picky and I can't tell beforehand what will and will not work for me in this...

All I can tell is that I like the character dynamics of the ones that I enjoyed and that I seem to love opposites attract and that doesn't necessarily mean grumpy/sunshine (which seems to be a popular trope). Seems like the books also need to be queer in some way, but I did enjoy Book Lovers even though that was an heterosexual one. Usually funny books work the best for me in this genre and I have been noticing that the ones I find funny are by authors from the UK (not surprised at all about this tbh), but I also think I would enjoy something dramatic. I mean, Glitterland had an mc dealing with mental health and got quite heart hitting at times. Seems that I also like series that focus on a different person in a friend group or something. For example, a character is introduced in the first book and they are just a friend of the main character or a sibling or whatever and then they get their own story in the next book in the series.

This is all to ask what are the standouts in this genre? The ones that you love, especially if you are also picky about contemporary romance and like when it makes you laugh or cry (preferably both).

I have been adding books to try on my tbr, but I still don't exactly know where to start.

Books I really liked so far:

Glitterland by Alexis Hall: I had some little problems with this book, but overall I found it dramatic and very funny. I liked to see a main character in romance that was quite unlikeable too and stated that his behaviour could not be excused because of his mental health. I found it pretty unique. I enjoyed Boyfriend Material, but not nearly as much and since that series seems to go on with the same main characters getting married and then having a baby or something I don't think I will continue because those are not the things I like to read about. I do want to read more books by the author though and I plan to continue the Spires series soon.

Heartbreak Boys by Simon James Green: apparently I like YA if it's funny and it doesn't happen in a school setting. This also had some bits I didn't like that came out as a bit preachy, but it made me laugh out loud and the premise is so petty and messy it could only be good (to me).

First and First by Santino Hassel: Fine. I am putting my hands in the fire with this one. I know about the mess surrounding this author now, but I didn't when I started this series (my fault for not researching names I guess). There are two specific scenes I hate in this book, but I would be lying if I said I didn't like it a lot overall. It is messy, a bit kinky and has a lot of smut that makes sense for the plot because it is about a guy learning to let go and not be embarassed about sex. I can't help liking both main characters and their dynamic, but I bet most people would hate it. It also looks quite not set in reality because some of the stuff here is wild and everyone is like "yeah, this could happen" 😂 This also made me like the word "baby" to refer to a love interest just like Robin Hobb made me like the word "beloved". Authors, please, let me be a hater. Still hate the "babe/babes" version even though I tolerated it both in this series and in Glitterland.

Book Lovers by Emily Henry: This was good. Read it last year and I can't remember having any issue with any scenes tbh which makes it weird when I say it's the one I enjoyed the least out of these and yet I would still rank it the highest... I will probably try more books by this author.

Did not like: Red, White and Royal Blue and Get a Life Chloe Brown was good except for the sex scenes. (Unsure if I should try any more Tahlia Hibbert because apparently I dislike the word tit as much as I dislike the word shaft. If it's used once or twice in a book I can bear it but not often)

Authors to try: Cat Sebastian (read 1 book that was ok and I am currently reading the sequel but they are historical romance which surprisingly is not what is working for me at the moment); Ashley Herring Blake and Alison Cochrun.

#contemporary romance books #book recs #booklr

[nyx-b-log]

phew it's been a busy week! in between life stuff, prepping for an exam on sunday and finishing all these books, i feel like i've been in go mode all week!

i started and finished the house in the cerulean sea by tj klune, about a inspector for state-run orphanages for magical children who gets sent on an assignment to an orphanage with the antichrist and learns what found family means. t only took me a few days to read, it's incredibly easy to sit with and just read for long periods of time, which i think i needed after some dense sci-fi. it's a bit heavy handed in its message in places (the word groupthink was also used at one point), but if you can look past that this is a perfectly pleasant way to spend an afternoon or two. not mind-blowing, but it brought a smile to my face.

worth mentioning is the accusations that the (white) author was using (specifically canadian) residential schools for his own gain. honestly, without knowing that going into it, i'm pretty sure i would never have made the connection (though that might be on me) and i'd bought the book before i found out about this. there's a (positive) discussion of it in this reddit thread (which i'm not linking because i necessarily agree with op, simply that it's comprehensive) and (a negative) one in this one and it's worth looking into on your own before deciding to read the book.

i also finished left-handed booksellers of london which was fine? i enjoyed it enough that i'm interested in reading book two, but i *despise* susan as a character asdfghjkl she spends the entire book going 'what? what?' and doesn't really grow from this. she had so much potential (a shaven headed punk girl in the 80s!) but fell very flat for me. cos of that the romance between her and merlin also felt like an afterthought. the world is great tho, and every time a new character or thing came up i was always interested to see what it was. as a YA book, it was enjoyable. the audiobook performance was occasionally annoying (which maybe contributed to my dislike of susan), but on the whole it's pretty good. she does accents well.

for manga, i read watashi no tadashii oniichan vol 1 again, the manga about a woman looking for her older brother and falling in love with the cute insomniac she works with, but properly this time. still loved it, the building of relationships and reveals is great and i'm really looking forward to finishing the series.

i also read ao haru ride vol 1, which is a classic but i've never actually picked it up before now. it's about a girl who falls in love with a boy in middle school, but then there's a misunderstanding and he moves away, only for them to reunite in high school. it explores their new relationship and how they've changed as people in the intervening years. i *loved* this, i devoured it in one sitting and am very, very sad i don't have the rest of the series. the writing is fantastic, the characters are already amazing, would recommend if you're into character-driven stories and/or romance and haven't picked it up yet.

in terms of stuff i've started, i'm about a third of the way through the traitor baru cormorant and oh my god??? this is amazing???? it's a political fantasy about a girl whose island nation gets colonised by the neighbouring empire and how she's planning to dismantle it from the inside. it's such an angry book, but in the best possible way. deals pretty heavily with colonialism and homophobia (especially in the beginning), with references to sexual assault, so bear that in mind before picking it up, but the writing is exquisite, and it's so cleverly written. also accounting, lots of accounting.

for audiobook i was planning to listen to a guide to imperial china but it wasn't available, so i went with skulduggery pleasant playing with fire (book 2 in the series) which is a nice comforting read. a character will turn up and i'll get hit with a blast of nostalgia, like oh it's you! and i'm enjoying it just like i did the first one.

that's it for me, i'll check in again next week! have a good week everybody!

#bookblr #books #reading #manga #the house in the cerulean sea #the left handed booksellers of london #watashi no tadashii oniichan #ao haru ride #the traitor baru cormorant #skulduggery pleasant #playing with fire #was a good week overall #also i've written this on friday #but queued it for saturday as per #scheduled

[nalyra-dreaming]

https://www.tumblr.com/downstairsbar/707757426731057152/do-you-think-in-the-show-louis-actually-feels

this user has very good and thorough posts on race and patriarchy in the amc iwtv

tbh, I don't necessarily want you to argue for/against just a different perspective

pls don't block me (i usually don't engage but i enjoy reading all your commentary about the books) and this is meant in good faith. you can tell me it's rude if you find it so.

i think your analysis is very thoughtful and thorough especially wrt the books. i do think your analysis (especially where the show is concerned) could use a bit of engaging with patriarchy and race (which are two things the show is very insistent about)

anne wasn't good with race but her commentary on patriarchy in the books is very clear esp wrt to gender and sexuality

Thank you for your input! I have to say I find them very hard to read, there's almost no structure to their posts, but it is good if you like them and their content?! (No shade! Seriously.)

To be honest most of my commentary is based on asks, so a lot of what you criticize here might be a reflection of the direction these take.

I am very loathe labeling Louis as a woman tbh. Anne gave him feminine traits, and he is perceived as soft, and the most human, but he is also one of the most predatory of them. And he is not called arsonist for funsies. And as a gay man he is no woman. And I stand by the point that you cannot reduce them to top/bottom either.

Jacob took those feminine aspects and enhanced them even more (on purpose), and the show makes some very poignant observations about marriage, status, gender-conformity and the patriarchy, especially after Claudia's turning, because that is when it spirals into it, imho. Here is a post that I reblogged on this a while back. The meta level of it all is its own commentary (the books that Louis reads, the imagery they use), I can recommend the various meta posts in regards to this!

Season 1 is from Louis' point of view. As someone coming from the books I am very aware of how some of it will change. And of course that informs my own take on it all. The meta commentary of the show will stay of course... but Louis' POV will change. And the meta commentary will change with it. Now, of course they addressed these things on purpose. But what will they address when they get to a war-ravaged Europe? Or the theater (actually that meta level on the meta level I seriously cannot wait for)...

To be honest, I don't quite get what that anon ask wants to discuss there either. On one hand the question addresses the "thing" in the first few episodes, and then "his mental and emotional space with Claudia" as his last refuge, which... doesn't fit. We have three episodes without Claudia, four with. And you cannot analyze the behavior without defining the "thing" Lestat does either. What is that thing. The cheating? The way Lestat cannot see the way Louis cannot escape his own status because of his race? How vampirism cannot be the freedom he was promised?

And... I really cannot see where Louis' attempt as "claiming the marriage contract" would be seen as histrionics. What do they mean by that? The laughter before the "of course"? That has very different reasons, and interpreting that this way shows in turn a basic lack of understanding the characters imho. I mean Sam and Jacob have talked about that. At length. *shrugs*

I am happy to give you my views, but please give me a proper question, and not one that contradicts itself?^^ That is not meant mean in any way (and no, I would never block you for this, no worries, I've said it before, it's about the "tone" :)), but if you want my opinion you will need to accept that I do come from the books... which means I know why Lestat did some things.

Louis... doesn't. (So his POV cannot reflect that.)

Not yet.

#Anonymous #asks #amc iwtv #iwtv #amc interview with the vampire #interview with the vampire amc #iwtv amc #iwtv 2022 #interview with the vampire #iwtv meta #vc meta #interview with the vampire meta #lestat de lioncourt #louis de pointe du lac #loustat #ask nalyra

[northernreads]

book review

4 Stars ****

This book was good, taking on a whole lot of different topics and managing to balance them all rather well.

Our protagonist, Eliza, is not exactly likeable, and she definitely has some disagreeable characteristics. I'd say she isn't the typical YA protagonist any more. She actually resembles the protagonist of ye olde YA titles in that she is a huge Pick-Me Girl (aka a "I'm Not Like Other Girls girl). She is also often cold, kind of mean and prickly. While she has a lot of growing to do (a process that she begins to under go through the story) her personality isn't irredeemable, and as the story progresses, she really rather grew on me. The author also tells us readers within the first page or so (in a meta sort of way) that this is exactly the kind of character we are going to get when Eliza talks about a book she is reading: "I flop onto my bed with a book, an Eileen Chang novel I found by chance at the library. I like it because the main character is a Chinese girl who's smart but a bit prickly, which is a combination the world could really use more of." And boy does Quach deliver on that.

Characters do not have to be likeable, and they don't need to be anymore likeable by the end of the story either. That's not a real rule. And yet, despite that truth, Eliza, does undergo character growth and begins to unlearn some of her less positive attributes and opinions. The thing is, this character growth is not heavy handed or spelled out explicitly for the reader. Through the events of the book and the other characters that Eliza interacts with she does begin to unlearn some of her 'not-like-other-girls' beliefs.

This story juggles many feminist topics throughout, managing to introduce them to readers and then also show how complicated they can be when applied to real life. It felt like Quach was spinning dozens of different plates and successfully managed to keep each of them spinning throughout. I have read through several reviews and I know that other people disagree with me here, but I think that's because Quach is not necessarily explicit in her messaging. She doesn't spell out each lesson or takeaway. Instead lots of things are introduced and then unpacked and also complicated. All the facets of being a girl and a woman as well as how they have to navigate their womanhood are examined through numerous characters. And further how each girl in the book also begins to figure out how feminism fits in with their everyday life in even when sometimes working with the patriarchy can lead to desired results. Much of the feminist topics Quach lays out in this book aren't wrapped up neatly and that is because readers are meant to take those topics with them and continue to unpack them in their own lives.

The only thing I didn't like is actually the blurb of the book because it's kind of misleading. The opening tagline of the blurb says: "Emergency Contact meets Moxie in this cheeky and searing novel that unpacks just how complicated new love can get…when you fall for your enemy". And I think the whole blurb paints this as more of a romance book when it's really not. There is technically a romance plot in the story but it never struck me as being part of the story to make me feel swoony or anything. To me, at least, the romance is a tool that Quach uses to further examine some feminist topics such as slut shaming. And nothing more than that. If you go into this book expecting a cute romance, I suspect that you will definitely be disappointed.

I highly recommend this book for it's thorough and open-ended exploration of practical feminist topics and it's fascinating protagonist. I also think it would be an excellent book club pick as there is so much to discuss and unpack.

#not here to be liked #michaelle quach #ya books #book review #booklr #bookreview #booktok #mine #hollys

[depizan]

I hate clicking on/picking up an interesting looking book, only to find out it's a fucking romance. The weird thing is, I don't necessarily hate romances. I will, occasionally, pick up actual romances that are recommended to me, and I have an unholy and completely irrational fondness for gothic romances. But when a book appears to be sci-fi (well, space adventure/sci-fi-lite) or fantasy, but noooope, it's all about how the interesting sounding female main character is goopy over some dude, it pisses me off.

I've tried to get a handle on this before, because it makes absolutely no sense that I will accept romance as a way to get atmospheric old chalets/manors/castles, families with bits of their past that no one talks about, people sneaking about at night (probably by candlelight), and climactic showdowns in thunderstorms in unsafe parts of castles or on top of cliffs...and yet every fiber of my being revolts against accepting romance as a way to get my space adventure or fantasy adventure fix.

Is it because I know non-romance-focused versions of those exist? (Unlike the gothic romances.) Because I came to those genres from stories with male leads, and thereby no equally huge romance plots? So I resent that a female lead inherently means some giant stupid romance plot in an otherwise fun sounding story of intergalactic adventure or fantasy shenanigans?

Is it just that I still don't trust female led sci-fi after all those yeeted-after-the-first-chapter-due-to-rape books I tried from the Science Fiction Bookclub when I was a teen. I mean, if there has to be something wrong with the books, I'd rather it was a romantic plot tumor than rape, but jesus fucking christ, I just want to read adventure stories with leads that don't have to spend most of the book schmooping over some fucking dude. (And, like, 90% of the time if you just removed the romance part, whatever else might be going on between the main character and the romantic interest is perfectly interesting.)

(I am also at least 50% less annoyed if the lead is schmooping over another woman. And, weirdly, I am not anywhere near as put off by romance in fanfic. I don't search for parings, but I don't object to them.)

Admittedly, part of it is probably that the gothic romances are more like those ordinary person sucked into adventure stories that were so popular in the '80s across genres and genders (American Dreamer, Romancing the Stone, Adventures in Babysitting, Innerspace, The Last Starfighter...). The main character is an ordinary person swept up in some kind of creepy shenanigans, and usually kind of come into their own in the process (rather like in the movies above). While the books that flip my rage switch feature characters who are already doing their thing being somehow reduced to romance partner.

...

It's the underlying sexism, isn't it. It really is just the modern, less bad version of the "welp, gotta rape the main character and put her in her place" shit from the books I never finished as a teen. Can't have women as actual full on people doing people things. They're only good as romance prizes, even when they're supposed to be the main character.

Haaaaate.

(And, yes, I know that is the absolute worst interpretation possible. But it is so fucking rare for a story to actually treat a female protagonist the way it would a male protagonist. Which is probably also why fanfic doesn't annoy me...)

#Mac vs fiction #Mac vs romance #Mac has spicy opinions

[continuations]

The Low Energy Trap

I recently read Joseph Tainter's outstanding book "The Collapse of Complex Civilizations," which I recommend. It should be required reading for all politicians. Tainter's theory is one of diminishing returns to bureaucracy, which we are clearly experiencing across many societies today. He also proposes one historic escape mechanism from such a collapse: a big energy unlock. We had a shot at that in the 1960s when we started building nuclear power plants, but then starting in the 1980s we instead chose to focus on energy efficiency. That has us now caught in a low energy trap.

It is extraordinary to see energy prices spiking in many parts of the world at the same time. Yes, there is the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And we are experiencing a big heat wave as part of the accelerating climate crisis. But these are ultimately just excuses. We should have built an energy system with so much capacity that these events would just be blips that barely go noticed. Instead we are facing brownouts and blackouts and prices at ruinous levels for individuals and companies.

Degrowth advocates would have you believe that the answer is less. Less consumption. Less production. Less energy. I suppose that all of that is fine if you want to go backwards. If you advocate for that you should be required to spell out what human carrying capacity you believe is sustainable under degrowth, because it certainly isn't 8 billion people. If a degrowth advocate came out and said point blank that under their proposals it would be only say 2 billion people, at least that would be intellectually honest and I would respect that as a coherent point of view.

Personally though I believe in going forward instead. As I have pointed out in The World After Capital, that doesn't necessarily mean an ever growing population, as we are well on our way to peak population. But to avoid killing off billions along the way through societal collapse we need a lot more energy and we need it fast.

What does having a lot more energy let us do? For starters we can avoid the worst of the climate crisis by aggressively shifting to electrification of transportation, heating and cooling, production and so forth. We can also deal with water shortages through desalination. We can produce food in climate controlled environments. And we can fortify and upgrade our infrastructure to deal with more extreme weather. When we are done we will have extra energy for all sorts of amazing activities, like building great housing for everyone.

Now pessimists and defeatists will say: it is too late, we missed our chance and there's nothing we can do at this point. And of course if we continue to operate at present course and speed they would be right. But this is not a physical or labor resource issue. This is entirely a question of political will. Because if we make a hard shift now we could build our way out within a decade. Extraordinary things become possible when we activate human attention and resources at scale, as we saw firsthand during the World War II production effort.

I wonder who will be the first politician to run on a wartime platform. For once not war against another country, but war against the low energy trap and the collapse of civilization that it leads to. I realize that we have abused the war metaphor with the war on drugs and other ill advised policies. But in this context it is called for because the level of mobilization required to escape the low energy trap will have to match that of World War II, which was roughly 50% of all economic activity.

With that level of resource deployment we could build massive energy capacity quickly (and would ideally do so globally). We should aggressively build out wind and solar further, but at the same time make massive investments in geothermal and nuclear power plants. Let's get out of the low energy trap!

#energy #climate crisis #world after capital