#end-of-year book ask

[wrathofthestag]

For the book asks, I would love to know your top five books of the year! (Number 3)

Since I finally finished grad school in May, I was able to get back into reading for fun. I had a goal of 35 books this year, and currently, I'm at 30. We'll see!

My top five books (in no particular order) for the year are:

A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G Summers - The story of a successful food writer who also eats men. This appealed to the Fannibal in me.

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner - I'm a little late to the party with this one, but I finally read it. Michelle Zauner writes about being a first gen child, mother/daughter relationships, and identity after her mother's death.

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin - This was nerve-wracking for me, but I enjoyed it. It's about a sex therapist's transcriptionist who falls in love with a client while listening to her sessions. They begin a relationship, chaos ensues.

I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This by Nadja Spiegelman - Another memoir, and again about mothers and daughters. This one follows four generations of mothers and daughters.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins - It took me forever to get through this one because I really didn't want to be on Snow's side ever. It was really good though, and yeah, you end up totally not on his side as nature intended.

#end-of-year book ask #books!

[rose-bookblood]

17!

Send me a number from the end-of-year book ask.

17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

It didn't exactly surprise me that it was good, but When the Stars Alight by @aninkwellofnectar surprised me in how much I enjoyed it. I came in with some reservations, because there are elements in the book that on paper I don't care for at all, but I ended up loving it! It's for sure one of my top reads this year!

Thanks for the ask!

#end-of-year book ask game #end-of-year book ask #ask game

[pia-writes-things]

2, 9 and 22 for the book ask thing? 🥰

2. Did you reread anything? What?

I did! This year was actually quite a big re-read year <3 I reread La Passe-Miroir, book 2, 3 and 4 (book 1 was at the end of 2022) by Christelle Dabos ; His Dark Materials, the whole first trilogy, by Philip Pullman and The priory of the orange tree by @sshannonauthor. They were all so good, and I enjoyed my re-read so so much 🥰🥰

9. Did you get into any new genres?

Ummmm, not really, unless you count latin-american literature as a genre. In that case, yes, I completely fell into latin-american literature and I love it, a LOT. I also tried to read more contemporary novels, and I like them, but it's still not a genre I like all that much, compared to fantasy or science-fiction.

22. What’s the longest book you read?

Hang on a second, I need to check some word counts ^^ Yeah, so, it's absolutely not a surprise but I had a doubt : A Day of Fallen Night by @sshannonauthor. It was the perfect length, perfectly paced and one of this year's instant favourites of mine. If you like high-fantasy, feminist and queer books, I highly recommend it!!

Thank you so much for the ask Nim! I had a blast answering <3

#ask #nimouette #(i love your new handle btw <3) #pia's oversharing #end-of-year book ask

[eddisfargo]

1, 3, 4?

Oh yay thank you!!

#1: How many books did you read this year? According to my Storygraph, which I'm pretty sure is updated, I have read 53 books this year! Of course, the year is not over yet! I did hit my original goal of 50, although I later changed it to 60, which I will not be hitting haha. I'm currently in the middle of 10, but 0 chance I'll be finishing them all in December.

#3: What were your top five books of the year? In no particular order, because it was hard enough to get them down to 5 at all:

Waybound (Cradle #12/12, by Will Wight)

Painted Devils (Little Thieves #2/3, by Margaret Owen)

Son of a Liche (The Dark Profit Saga #2/3, by J. Zachary Pike)

The Hero of Ages (Mistborn #3/3, by Brandon Sanderson)

Network Effect (Murderbot #5/7, by Martha Wells)

#4: Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

Oh, GREAT question! I think literally everything I put above was a series I'd started in a previous year. Which makes sense because it usually takes me more than 1 book in a universe to get really invested. So this seems like a great time to include:

Jonathan Stroud, because I did start the Bartimaeus trilogy with Amulet of Samarkand, and I'm definitely planning to continue.

I also really enjoyed Beautiful, by Juliet Marillier, to the point where I'd like to read more of her stuff.

Ditto Jennifer Donnelly after Stepsister!

Thanks so much for asking, @knife-dad! This was fun!

#Yay an ask! #end-of-year book ask

[leer-reading-lire]

4, 16 and 20 please for the end of year asks 😀

4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year? *I loved Lucy Maud Montgomery's books: Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea. As well as Marc Levy's novel: Elle & Lui. *I really liked Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games (though I haven't read Mockingjay yet, I hope to finish it before the end of the year). I was surprised by the topics she covered. *Other new (to me) authors that I liked were Beth O'Leary, Edith Wharton and Bibiana Camacho.

16. What is the most over-hyped book you read this year? The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle. I mean it is Sherlock Holmes and all, but I hope that the other stories where he appears in are better.

20. What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations? Book Lovers by Emily Henry. It didn't surpass Beach Read, nevertheless, it was excellent.

Thanks for the ask! 😊

#end-of-year book ask #answered

[thetrial]

@rostii your ask vanished when i tried saving it as a draft but if i recall correctly it was 2, 12 (and 13 which i answered here and don’t have much more to say about). in any case <333

2. Did you reread anything? What?

i wrote a bit about things i reread here and here. a third type of reread is books i read for the first time this year, and loved so much i read again -- those were invisible cities (italo calvino) and the left hand of darkness (usrula k le guin). i also reread this is how you lose the time war (amal el-mohtar & max gladstone) several times in service of. how do i say this without admitting to breaking the law. message me.

12. Any books that disappointed you?

SUCH a good question, probably my favourite. very distinct from worst books i’ve read. yes. i’ll start by two books i hoped to like more: the last days of new paris (china miéville), which had an intriguing premise but ultimately the audiobook narration ruined it for me, and pure colour (sheila heti) which was. an experience. can’t say if i liked it or not, definitely one of the most books i’ve read

but the biggest disapointment was what moves the dead by t kingfisher. my behated. i was reading it during a gothic horror heroine moment in my life too it should have been perfect! and i was so mad every paragraph. i’ll just copy what i wrote to my friend when i was reading it under a read more for length

“i'm reading what moves the dead by t kingfisher, which is an edgar alan poe retelling. should've been a warning sign, i'm not very fond of retellings and i don't like edgar alan poe. now a central theme in the novel is decay (<3) which goes hand in hand with mycology (<3). and i do applaud the author, she went out of her way to include all kinds of cool and true mushroom facts, even if i find them sometimes disconnected from the flow of the plot (okay i know that already.). whatever gets people into mycology. the problem with grounding your world in reality through mycological facts is that i as a mycologist am not going to suspend my disbelief. mind-controlling fungus that reanimates corpses aside (because those do exist, on an insect scale). 'i'll need a magnifying glass to tell if those hyphae are septate or aseptate' you'll need a microscope to even see the hyphae and moreover that's not very relevant unless you're trying to identify the fungus (and even then i would first look at the clamps > basidiomycetes have clamps and ascos don't) which wasn't what they were trying to do, they were trying to determine if those are human hairs and not. and again hyphae are microscopic!! one cell wide!! source trust me second source i have spent hours upon hours preparing actual hundreds of fungal slides and studying them under a microscope third source seriously trust me. secondly even if those are hyphae, pretending for a moment this makes sense, such a growth morph is highly uncommon to borderline impossible for saprotrophic fungi? like obviously nothing is impossible but what benefit does growing as pseudohairs offer to this mushroom. how is this a a selected-for trait. it doesn't increase the contact area with the substrate it does not offer a greater chance of securing new prey it's a useless feature that should've offered a significant reward to have evolved at all.

and granted this is not a problem for almost anyone in the world. but to invest this much in the mycological worldbuilding, establishing it as identical to what we know (and maybe that's not on purpose and it's on me for knowing all those facts and coming to the conclusion this is an historical setting and not a fantastical one) and then mess up such trivial details while have the entire plot hinge on them? amateur move

earlier this year i read mexican gothic by silvia moreno garcia which had a similar premise and themes and i enjoyed very much. sometimes it pays not to overshare about mushrooms (advice i'm yet to internalise)”

bottom of the line read mexican gothic. for a fun surprise.

also under the confidentiality of read more. i was expecting more of babel (rf kuang), which was one of my most anticipated books of the year and i felt very lukewarmly about. but there is nothing seriously wrong with it we just didn’t click

#like you said we mostly talk about books but i love to talk about all kinds of things! like for example bookbinding #end-of-year book ask #thank you for asking and mwah

[marbled-polecat]

I'm curious about 3 and 4 of the book ask.

Thanks @indira-korr for the ask!

3. What were your top five books of the year?

Hmmm, this is a tough one. I've read just over 100 this year. I listen to most of them on my drive everyday so I get through them pretty quickly. Let's see . . .

-I read the entire Dr. Greata Helsing series by Vivian Shaw. Not usually my go-to subject matter (monsters), but an excellent and dramatic story.

-Mickey7 by Edward Ashton might be my favorite of the year? I have fallen down a space opera hole and I'm living happily at the bottom of it. This isn't exactly a space opera, but like, eh, close enough!

-The Golden Enclave by Naomi Novik is the last in her Scholomance series and was a great ending!

-I've also busted through the first 2 volumes of Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe and yeeees, love me some twists on mythology!!!

-Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell was another good one. Excellent world building and suuuch a slow burn, but so good! XD Sequel, pleeease!

There are so many books I did not get to this year! I could also add about a million other books, but it says only five, so I'll be 'good'. XD

4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

Soooo many!

Vivian Shaw, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Edward Ashton, aaand S. A. Cosby.

#ask reply #end-of-year book ask #seriously i will barf book recommendations at anyone that wants them! #XD

[lukaina]

1, 12 & 16!

How many books did you read this year? I read 79 novels/poetry collections/essays/comics, and I hope to finish one more before the year is done. I also had to read 3 novels (surprisingly decent) for one client and 14 for another (a mixed bag but overall pretty weak), but not counting those.

Any books that disappointed you? After waiting for so long, I didn't vibe enough with "Sweet Days of Discipline" (Fleur Jaeggy) nor "Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory" (Raphael Bob-Waksberg). I regret not enjoying more "The Unspoken Name" (A. K. Larkwood), since I found the characters very interesting and loved the Tombs of Atuan similarities, but I am afraid the pacing was not great. And I had a visceral dislike for Keiko Takemiya's "Terra-e" that probably will put me off reading anything else by her.

Most over-hyped book. It must be a tie between "Babel" and "Beautiful World, Where Are You" (very tiktokish of me).

#end-of-year book ask

[dayurno]

this is somewhat of a vent post & something i said i would not do again but has been plaguing me enough that i think getting it out might feel better. so. has anydoggy else been. Baffled and upset by nora sakavic’s refusal to speak on how terribly aftg has treated its characters of color? with the author of the series coming back with a new book and starting up on her online activity again, and questions of what she’d change about aftg bubbling up, it’s particularly glaring to me that we are all playing this very long game of pretend where we ignore how badly the non-white cast has been treated & her lack of thoughts on it

and i understand not wanting to bring up nicky and thea because people pick on her for it. i’m not trying to discredit nora sakavic’s terrible history of getting harrassed online by aftg fans. but i think it is very cynical, and it is very juvenile, and most of all very cruel, that she gets to ignore the very real ways the books have set up these characters to be hated. i think it’s obvious why the characters who get the most hate are the only canonical characters of color, and i think we do not get to treat this like a deliberate decision on the fandom’s part when the books have put these same characters in degrading and embarrassing and terrible positions in the first place. aftg is not a story about nice characters with clean pasts, but there is a very specific nastiness to the only characters of color being a brown man who sexually harasses and later assaults the main character, a black woman whose only scene is her lashing out at her love interest after being ignored for the first two books, and the japanese villain who gets maybe two lines of complexity before he goes back to being a terrible person. the white cast, in comparison, while not at all free from flaws, are never shown to commit mindless evil; all of their actions are ultimately justified. the book goes out of its way to give them concession after concession. we know exactly who to side with, because aftg tells us who these people are. does nicky’s assault ever get addressed in the books? does riko’s reasoning to be the way that he is ever gets more than briefly aluded to? is thea reserved even a shred of humanity or grace in her one scene?

anyway. it’s been years of talking about this and the fandom has been constantly hostile to criticism in this regard, and more recently any criticism at all, and it’s Grating to be on the other side of this discussion. it’s exhausting to know that in ten years we do not get even an acknowledgment besides the author saying she will not answer questions about nicky and thea anymore. it’s upsetting and it’s ugly and i wish no one had to talk about this again, but we do because what i thought was common sense has been washed away by a sudden influx of no-nuance adoration for the trilogy. basically i hope we all explode

two hours later edit: you're allowed to reblog this! sorry about the confusion

#this has been so upsetting to notice but 🥹whatever #there is a different kind of bitterness to thinking about how ten years have passed #and we are getting new content that changes and maybe even rectifies many of the ways we see and interact w aftg #and none of it not a bit of it addresses the racism #how it’s been ten years and the only thing we really get to show it is a book about a ship between two white men the fandom came up with #after seeing them be Suggested to interact in canon #i understand not wanting to hurt nora sakavics feelings by asking her about this #but imagine how tired we are. Imagine how tired we are #do you know how bad it feels to read through nicky’s worst moments in aftg #and know that he was written this way because he looks like me? #do you understand how exhausting it all is. can you imagine? #the fandom has been so quick to undo the criticism fans of colors have been making since day one #and for what. for what! my doves. for what? #have we come out of it any greater? have we done anything but lie to ourselves? #and anyway this is not some mindless pessimism #this is not me telling you that aftg is bad and you cant love it; cant have it mean anything to you #this is me saying that when we acknowledge these things it makes us better readers and better people #nora sakavic if you are reading this from whatever hellhole america you find yourself in #grabs you by the shoulders. This is not the end #this is not something to sit back and feel bad about #you have opened the floodgates of hell with tsc. kick the door in and release a revised version of aftg #there is a real material way for you to make this better. it is possible and it will not kill you #i would read a revised aftg. my mutuals would. many many many many fans would #making mistakes is not just a human right its a human inevitability #but we do not have to let ourselves get defined by them. We can do hard things #lets go of nora sakavics shoulders. anyway. where were we #aftg #txt #tsc

[francy-sketches]

👀

2 very different depictions of aemond getting de-eyed lol. 2nd one is book version that's why the eye is different ☝

(end of year wips)

#melrosing-main #asks #end of year wips #i should draw my book aemond design more. and make him more anime #trying 2 go in vague chronological order this time hopefully its easier

[mxtxfanatic]

I don't want to put this in the tags, since people are just having fun, but I figure you probably won't mind hearing my anon-complaints. I'm getting super annoyed by the recent influx of Jiang Chang related SVSSS crossover posts (and fics to a lesser extent).

Seeing JC interact with the PIDW world could be incredibly interesting, but the posts I keep spotting are all about the woobiefied fanon version of JC. JC and YQY are not all that much alike (JC isn't remotely loyal to WWX), and I don't think he'd get along well with LQG. The JC and SJ dynamic actually does seem like it would be fun to read, but with how toxic they both are it would be 'fun' more in the 'watching a car crash in slow motion' sort of way, rather then anything wholesome.

Anyway, mini-rant over!

Fanon: Everyone in svsss would just love Jiang Cheng!

Canon: Shen Qingqiu would take one look at Jiang Cheng and just assume that the natural state of PIDW requires a canon fodder villain to be killed. Assuming he was some previously no-named lackey, after the second time Jiang Cheng attacks Luo Binghe, Shen Qingqiu wouldn’t try to save him, anymore. Nobody else would have even cared to try.

Anyways, I know exactly what posts you’re talking about and exactly which blog keeps making them. Unfortunately for me, tumblr is trying this new thing out called “if the blog you blocked is a jc stan, the block doesn’t count,” so fuck people “having fun” in the tags. If I can’t have fun with canon on my own dash, no one is allowed to have fun with fanon on it, either 😤

#svsss asks #mdzs asks #anon #for legal purposes that last sentence was a joke #this isn’t the first time fanon jc-centric crossovers have happened #when jc stans get to feeling like the mdzs fandom is ‘too toxic’ #for discussing canon jc #they start fantasizing about jc ‘escaping’ mdzs #to live out his undeserved happiness in other books #as if those characters would like him any better #please they don’t even like their OWN antagonists! #nobody’s gonna have time to baby some manchild #that they have no personal connection to to begin with #jc is dying in svsss because he raises every character flag #that that should be his ending in a typical book of that style #sqh ain’t developing him and neither is sqq! #if he survived ‘narrative destiny’ then lbh is def killing him #the first time he snaps at sqq for *anything* #but what am i even saying: no way in hell #jc gets accepted to cang qiong mountain sect anyways #he’s huan hua if he’s in any sect #so lbh is def killing him during sqq’s 5-year death nap

[rose-bookblood]

25!

Send me a number from the end-of-year book ask.

25. What reading goals do you have for next year?

I tend not to set reading goals, because I strongly reject the competitiveness that has emerged on platforms like TikTok and is trying to turn reading into another branch of capitalistic hustle culture.

That said, I want to read the books I own before buying more, since I have like 40 sitting on my bookshelves (not counting ebooks), so I guess you could call that a goal. I found a fun idea on Instagram to make an advent calendar by writing the titles of books you own on little pieces of paper, putting them in a bowl and pulling one out each day to make your 2024 TBR. I don't even celebrate Christmas and don't usually make TBRs, but it has that thrill of surprise.

Thanks for the ask, Beckett!

#end-of-year book ask game #end-of-year book ask #ask game

[pia-writes-things]

For the book asks ❤️

Did you reread anything? What?

What was your favourite new release of the year?

Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

Did you reread anything? What?

I already answered there !

What was your favourite new release of the year?

Hands down A Day of Fallen Night by @sshannonauthor! It was so good, so queer, so feminist, so very-well paced, so angsty and yet also so comforting 🥰 I wish everybook could be that well written with characters that complex and profound <3 I think it was actually the only new release I read this year, but I just HAD to read it as soon as I can! Otherwise, I'm very much a "read books years after they were first published" type of gal 😅😅

Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

Violeta by Isabel Allende! Not because I thought it would be lame, Isabel Allende being one of the most famous latin author, but more because I didn't think I would enjoy it as much as I did. Donde cantan las ballenas by Sara Jaramillo Klinkert also falls into the "enjoyed it way more than I thought" category, as well as Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao and La casa de los espíritus by Isabel Allende. Oh, and of course, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen! Again, not because I didn't think it would be good, but I always had trouble reading classics so I was afraid I wouldn't enjoy it, but instead, it made me vibrate on frequencies I didn't know existed!

Thank you so much for the ask! I rambled a lot, apologies in advance, but again, books!! I love talking and exchanging about books!!

end-of-year book ask

#ask #thasminlove #end-of-year book ask #pia's oversharing

[pixiecactus]

i'm a firm believer that if there wasn't a war of the five kings and the starks never went south, later in life arya would had to wed a northern lord, unlike sansa, arya always has loved the north and never really cared about the south, so from the way i see it, sansa would insist to be married to a southern house and i believe that catelyn would want that for her since in agot we have her thinking about how "sansa would shine in the south" and i believe for arya, ned would look more for a northern house, because he knows better than most that arya has the wolfblood that both, his brother and sister used to have and yeah i know dorne is the furthest south from the north you can get, but at the same time i like the idea of edricxarya in this au, that's where i would like for arya and ned dayne to meet at a tourney, where arya was forced to assist, and i can see a lyanna-arya parallel happening like in the books when lyanna rescued howland and arya rescued mycah, only this time with a dornish squire, i think edric would be absolutely enchanted by the brave tiny girl that rescued him and at the other side arya would like that edric doesn't seem to dislike that her, being a lady of a great house, takes waterdancing lessons and knows how to use her thin little sword and that's how their friendship starts and of course arya is a realist at heart, she would know that sooner than later she would have to get married to form a political alliance and there's not escaping from it and i think she would prefer to marry an old friend than a complete stranger, and that's how i see the stark-dayne alliance being formed, by arya's own decision

#brought to you by my friend asking me why i still ship gendrya after 10 years #and somehow that ended up with me spamming her with most of the acok-asos books and i'm finally at arya and ned's chapter ft jealous!gendry #and they (nedrya) were really cute together #and i'm in my angsty gendrya hours #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #house stark #house dayne #arya stark #edric dayne #ned dayne #nedrya #arya x edric #edric x arya

[leer-reading-lire]

3

3. What were your top five books of the year?

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Elle & Lui by Marc Levy

Demonia by Bernardo Esquinca

Le mystère Henri Pick by David Foenkinos

Thanks for the ask! :)

#end-of-year book ask #answered

[thetrial]

2, 3 & 17 :-)

thank you <33333

2. Did you reread anything? What?

this year i consciously tried to not reread as much, since it dawned on me the number of hours i have is limited and the number of books i want to read isn't, and i felt like i succeeded, but looking on my books this year it doesn't appear that way.. apparently i read the fellowship of the ring three times in 2022 + the rest of the trilogy but only once (january-march hiking audiobooks and also to sleep to). i also revisited some books i liked in high-school which did not hold up as well as i hoped, the flavia de luce novel (by alan bradley, the first two) because i'm no longer a chemistry major & the way of kings (brandon sanderson) because. well. christian fantasy authors get so bold because tolkien is a christian fantasy author. you're not tolkien though. on the flipside i reread espèces d'espaces (georges perec), the living mountain (nan shepherd) and the secret history (donna tartt) which were sublime.

3. What were your top five books of the year?

again, so many books and so many new favourites. the ones that stuck out to me most in no particular order

- the brothers karamazov by fjodor dostojevski - house of leaves by mark z danielewski - drive your plow over the bones of the dead by olga tokarczuk - the sparrow by mary doria russel - the bluest eye by toni morisson

17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

the brothers karamazov!! i picked it up for obvious reasons (patricide) and it exeeded my expectations. on the one hand it feels obvious, it has generally been agreed by many many people over the last 150ish years to be a fantastic book. but i kind of thought it would be more, boring or dry? and in the beginning i was impatient to get to the main event (that only happens ~550 pages in) but you forget about it and get swept in the unspooling of the story, the minute dramas of this tiny russian village and its inhabitants. and then BAM it takes you by surprise. i feel like it's such a universally recommendable book that has value in it for everyone (even if you have a healthy relationship with your father. if you don't though!) but i can't really go around telling people to read a thousand pages of a slow-moving russian drama about god & fathers without sounding unbearably pretentious, which it isn't, the bar for pretentiousness is just belowground. but in spirit i am breaking into everyone's house and making them read 600 page russian novels at gunpoint. and then exchange character mixtapes with me. i am doing it incredible injustice everyone read the brothers karamazov

#thank you kostek <3 #end-of-year book ask