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[birds-read]

Reading wrap-up May 2025

Am I just back on tumblr to post this? Yes, I am, I guess

Mini reviews under the cut

Repressed Memories by Renee Frederickson: 4/5

Very informative on repressed memories, though some of it is a bit outdated and I think some bits like the family model are very oversimplified and cast one person in one role instead of acknowledging how complex and flexible having such an abusive family system is and that it's not just clear-cut victim, denier, perpetrator. It has some helpful exercises and advice on how to actually work with repressed memories, though, and I appreciated that

I wouldn't necessarily recommend going after repressed memories deliberately and the exercises for me are just useful for when things come up and I very much disagree with her that needing to find repressed memories is needed to heal and felt very taken aback about how she describes basically hounding some of her patients on continuing the memory work and goes "Have you worked on recovering any repressed memories? What happened to that?" and yeah, it was in the context of them experiencing denial, I think, and it was people who I suppose wanted to recover those memories. But I think the current understanding is that digging up and talking about trauma memories doesn't necessarily help trauma survivors, so I'm taking everything in this book with a grain of salt and am just modifying what feels helpful with what comes up organically for me

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio: 4.5/5

A group of theater students ends up being caught in a net of lies and psychological terror after one of them dies violently. One of them is convicted of the murder eventually and the story starts with him being released from prison and telling the story of how it all went down to the detective who was on their case and is retiring now

The psychological suspense and tension between the characters carried this one. It was pretty obvious soon why the seventh friend had died and who was involved. But the psychological side of it and the Shakespeare references made it well worth it. The exploration of what it does to them to pretend they don't know what happened and that they are blameless was so intriguing. They all kind of develop ptsd too. And the line between fictional characters they play on stage and themselves gets muddled too. It's pretty intense and keeps up a good suspense

Your Heart is the Sea by Nikita Gill: 4.25/5

Some of these poems like The Painful Truth, The Fall, Water and A War Named You touched me deeply. Others felt like pretty generic self-help advice. But the ones that did hit, hit home hard, so I still really enjoyed this one

Rocannon's World by Ursula K. Le Guin: 3/5

It was okay. The characters were mostly one dimensional and the plot pretty straightforward. Some aspects of the worldbuilding were quite interesting, though. I have to admit that I don't see what the big deal about Le Guin is supposed to be because aside from the one short story I read this month, I didn't find anything remarkable about her writing style or her stories yet

The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan: 4/5

Wholesome journal style entries about the birds Amy Tan saw in her backyard. It's very lighthearted and I enjoyed it very much as a bird-lover

Minus 1 point for Amy Tan randomly hating on some species of birds, though. Like why did she have such a beef with all kinds of jays and other corvids? In my opinion, you can't call yourself a bird-lover if you hate on them

Your Soul is a River by Nikita Gill: 3.25/5

I might have rushed reading this one and that's why some poems seemed to be very similar to each other. I also found some of them to sound like generic self-help advice, which made this poetry collection somewhat mediocre for me

Planet of Exile by Ursula K. Le Guin: 3.75/5

I found the plot of this one more engaging than in Rocannon's World. I also liked some themes that came up in this one but wished they had been explored more, like the relations between the two different species and the prejudices they had towards each other

Still find her writing style pretty bland, though, and some of this was so obviously written in the 60s with the outdated gender roles and all that I really have trouble seeing why she's considered such a huge writer till today

City of Illusions by Ursula K. Le Guin: 3.75/5

It's hard to put into words how I feel about this book. The beginning was very good and drew me in with the mystery of who Falk is. Then during his journey there were quite a few moments that felt uncomfortable for me, mostly involving the Basnasska and Estrel. Like the whole Basnasska thing struck me as pretty racist towards indigenous people, but maybe I'm wrong since I'm no expert. Also so much sexism and unnecessary sexual violence. So I mostly didn't enjoy the journey part of this book. The last third in Es Toch was again very interesting and intriguing and I enjoyed the mystery of what was going on and the duality of Falk/Ramarren a lot. All in all, mixed feelings about this one and I still don't understand why Le Guin was presented to me as this kind of amazing writer

These Are the Words by Nikita Gill: 3.75/5

I took my time with this and I found quite a few topics in this collection to be very touching and I think a younger me would have really loved this and found so much meaning in it, which is why I'm rating it a bit higher than I feel most poems in it that felt simplistic deserve. For younger me.

Model Home by Rivers Solomon: 5/5

This blew my mind. Rivers Solomon does such a good job weaving this story together. The language is so beautiful and memorable. The depiction of trauma and dysfunctional families feels so spot-on, the horror of the house and what happened there so palpable

I really loved how Ezri, Eve and Emanuelle are all these complex and flawed characters who were shaped by their shared trauma in distinct ways. I liked the contrast with Ezri's daughter and showing how one parent's trauma also affects the next generation. I liked the amazing depiction of dissociative symptoms and the repression and recontextualization of traumatic memories so that you don't have to face what actually happened because it's too bad. I liked how the realization of what really happened hit Ezri slowly even though I could already tell at this point. Just a very very good thriller/horror on trauma, family systems and racism

The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery: 3.75/5

I loved the book when it was actually about octopuses. Sy Montgomery clearly loves them a lot and it's great to see. I also learned quite a few interesting facts about them. Sadly, the book sometimes takes long detours into talking about the personal lives of people the author met at the aquarium, other animals or spiritual beliefs that don't always feel relevant to the topic. I was a bit bored by these passages and the fact that this book was more a memoir about her personal meetings with different octopuses than a scientific book with octopus facts. I had to hurry through the last parts of the audiobook for that reason, but overall this was still enjoyable

Where Hope Comes From by Nikita Gill: 4/5

I liked most of the poems in this collection. The beginning touched me a little more than the later half, I think, though it was a bit unsettling to revisit the feeling of the early pandemic. Nikita Gill did a good job of capturing it, though. I found some of the poems that were meant to be more hopeful in the last parts of the book to be a bit cheesy and simplistic. But enough other poems felt meaningful and touching, that I can give this 4 stars

Dream Drawings by N. Scott Momaday: 4/5

A mix between poetry and prose. I found the few "poetry" poems to be very beautiful and with a nice flow to them. The prose poems were also really interesting, sometimes touching and beautiful. There really was a dream-like atmosphere to all of these

Into the Water by Paula Hawkins: 2.5/5

Nelle dies in a river where a few months prior her daughter's best friend also drowned. Her daughter is left behind, taken care of by her aunt who is terrified of that place where she used to vacation every summer. A lot of women have drowned there, including the police chief's mother. Trying to find out why Nelle died unravels all these other deaths too. It sounds like a good enough premise, but oof, it didn't convince me at all

Multiple POVs can work nicely but here they just take the tension out of the story by spoiling plot points pages before the big reveal is meant to hit. It made the last part of the book kind of boring. Up until then there had been some nice tension at least

Even though I have to say it was hard to get into this book properly because I didn't care about any of the characters. Again, a drawback of having so many POVs. Most of them also weren't likable at all and while I like my characters flawed, they need to have something that draws me to them and these characters here just didn't.

I also really wasn't a big fan of how the adult-minor-relationship was portrayed because the inappropriateness and abuse of power again get glossed over eventually. I also didn't like that I had to keep reading Patrick's misogynist rants from his POV.

At least the novel was easily readable and had a nice flow so I could get through it quite quickly and didn't have to abandon it, but this was a rather disappointing read

Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency by Chen Chen: 4/5

Chen Chen writes in a very witty, emotional and touching way about his queer and Asian identity, his relationship with his family and political topics. I liked it a lot, especially the poems that were partially in Chinese too

My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen: 4/5

Roos is forced by her mother to participate in séances. She can see one spirit, Ruth, but that's about it. They fake pretending to be everyone's dead loved ones together. Until the wealthy widow Agnes Knoop arrives and takes Roos with her to her estate and then a lot of mysteries around the house and the Knoop family start to unravel until someone ends up dead

I enjoyed the sapphic gothic horror and I also enjoyed when the book started to pick up pace more and more and sucked me in eventually. Unfortunately, I never really got a feeling for any of the characters besides Roos and they stayed rather bland to me, especially Ruth and Peter. The last two chapters also felt very anticlimactic to me and pulled me out of the tension and suspense that had been created rather abruptly. It felt a bit unsatisfying

Nonetheless I enjoyed reading this and had a hard time putting it down. I liked the concept of the spirits and found it intriguing. I liked the doctor reports sprinkled in throughout the book and found them a nice detail. I also somehow really liked Agnes and Roos together, even though I had mixed feelings on their relationship and it didn't always seem convincing to me in that intensity. I wish we had spent more time on fleshing Agnes out a little more. But overall I found their relationship quite interesting enough to keep me interested in the book

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin: 5/5

Very thought-provoking short story and I loved the way it was set up and the way it makes you think about the world. The edition I read also had some additional thoughts of the author on it and I liked seeing where she got the idea for Omelas from and how open to interpretation it is according to her. I like when authors don't say "that's the one definite way you have to take this, here are some ways readers have understood it in the past". This is also the only thing from Le Guin where I actually kind of understood what people see in her writing regarding social topics

The Other People by C.J. Tudor: 4/5

Gabe is stuck in traffic and suddenly sees his daughter Izzy in the car in front of him before it speeds off and he never sees her again. He spents the next three years searching for her on the highway. Meanwhile Fran and her daughter Alice are on the run because they know what actually happened to Gabe's daughter. Also Katie who works at a service station at the highway and still is dealing with the effects of her father's murder years ago gets drawn into the mystery as well

Some of the mysteries in this book that are a main focus are very obvious from the start. But I found that the mystery of what exactly had happened to Gabe's family and how it was all connected to other characters in the book was still very interesting and it was exciting to watch it unfold and slowly be put together even though nothing really was that unexpected that it shocked me. Still, it was a neat thriller and I enjoyed the concept of The Other People. There were some moments that veered into the supernatural that I didn't really know what to do with but other than that the story made perfect sense

In the Presence of Absence by Mahmoud Darwish: 4.75/5

Beautiful and lyrical. Darwish is excellent with words and I enjoyed every one of it. I feel like I could revisit this a few times and still discover new details and meanings in it. Absolutely beautiful

[birds-read]

Reading wrap-up April 2025

Less books this month but that's mostly because I didn't read as much poetry as I used to in the first three months of the year and also basically listened to zero audiobooks except for that little blip where I started The Soul of an Octopus

Mini reviews under the readmore

What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo: 5/5

Loved, loved, loved this one. It's probably the most well-written and relatable memoir on complex trauma and more importantly recovery that I've read. Stephanie Foo doesn't sugarcoat anything and the first few chapters are pretty graphic on the depictions of child abuse. But that's also something I liked. How honest this book was about everything about complex trauma, especially the ugly sides. Also really related to her struggles with the social and interpersonal aftereffects of complex trauma and that's not something I've seen focused on a lot in memoirs. None of the memoirs I've read by other trauma survivors really focused on how this kind of trauma just makes you shit at being a human being and interacting with others but Stephanie Foo gives this a huge place in her book, including accounts of her own shortcomings due to her trauma and also how she worked on it with her last therapist and I was so utterly fascinated by what they did together in terms of analyzing trauma responses and how trauma comes up in relationships. Yeah, anyway, huge recommendation for anyone dealing with complex trauma

Nimona by ND Stevenson: 4.5/5

I got this at the Leipzig book fair and read it one evening when I struggled to sleep. It's pretty sweet and funny and I liked the worldbuilding and the twists on classical fairytale roles of villains and knights and so on. Nimona was a fun character too and I related to the bit of backstory we saw. I just feel like there wasn't enough of it at all, so that's where the -0.5 stars comes from

Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder: 3/5

This started out as pandemic horror with undertones of vampirism and then it verged into religious apocalyptic horror and I didn't see that coming. The premise was interesting, I just wasn't really a fan of the sexual stuff because it's not something I'm remotely into lol. Also would have liked to get some more information on what the heck was going on and who those beings bringing about the apocalypse were but oh well

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi: 3/5

There's a café that allows you to travel back in time but there's a few rules and one of them is that you have to finish the coffee you get when you travel back before it gets cold. Or you get stuck in the past. Also you can't change anything about the present. No matter what you do, the present stays the same. It's a sweet premise, focused on interpersonal relationships and what you'd say to someone who matters to you if you got a do-over of a conversation. It just kind of fell flat for me because I felt zero connection to these characters and like the narrative kept some distance between them and me. I'm not sure if it was a translation issue or just the style of the book, but yeah, not the biggest fan

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley: 5/5

Just a superb thriller. Loved how it kept up the suspense throughout with the different timelines, the present one where everyone prepares for the party at the hotel, the future one where we already know the hotel burned down but not why and that someone died but not who and the journal from the past that gives us clues about who all these characters are and how they are connected. Loved how it wove everything and everyone together in the end. Just really really enjoyed this one so much

The Unbinding of Mary Reade by Miriam McNamara: 3.75/5

I wanted gay pirates. I got gay pirates but also way too much religious guilt and shame. I liked Mary and Anne together. I liked the gay exploration and the gender confusion Mary dealt with because of dressing as a boy and pretending to be one all her life. It wasn't even unrealistic. But then the book stops way too soon for me. We don't even see them do any actual pirating together. I feel like sometimes books about pirates get a moral panic about implying pirating is morally good and then do some weird dance around it and trying to get the characters out of actually doing any pirating and being morally grey. Just with the historical knowledge I have about the golden age of piracy and Mary Reade and Anne Bonny, it would have been entirely possible to show them pirating together. There's an entire part of their story missing, the getting caught and tried for piracy. We could have had them escape then if we're going to take historical liberties anyway. Hell, we could have had bi Mary, Anne and Calico Jack in a poly relationship. Instead of "all men are bad and possessive and basically the same evil". Anyway, yeah, could have been better but also worse, I guess

Wie Sterben geht by Andreas Pflüger: 4.5/5

German espionage thriller. Title sort of means "How dying works". It's set during the Cold War and follows Nina who is sent to Moscow by the BND (German foreign intelligence agency) to lead one of their sources there. She starts out with almost no experience but soon becomes an excellent spy and develops some attachment to the source person, who's a high-ranking KGB officer, and tries to get him and his son out. There's two timelines as well here. The one that follows Nina's espionage journey in Moscow and the one where we first meet her where she's involved in an exchange of two prisoners to get the person she was working with in Moscow to safety and it all goes to shit. Which again made the book so much more suspenseful because you know that her Moscow timeline ends with them being found out but don't know how and you want to know if they're all fine after the exchange went awry. Knocked half a star off because it felt sort of like I didn't get to know the characters super well. But otherwise I really enjoyed this one

Burning in This Midnight Dream by Louise B. Halfe Sky Dancer: 4/5

It's a poetry collection about the (intergenerational) trauma of residential schools in Canada and it's very touching and emotional. I just don't really have much to say on it

[birds-read]

Reading wrap-up March 2025

Reasons for ratings under the cut as usual

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White: 5/5

This was one of multiple books I gave 5 stars more because I wanted it to be in my top rates of this year because it touched some very specific parts of me rather than being flawless. I definitely think this book could have improved on the minor characters and fleshed them out a bit more. But the religious apocalyptic themes, the struggles of the main characters, the way the cult was set up, it all resonated a lot. So I wanted this in my top rated books

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata: 5/5

Sayaka Murata might be becoming one of my favorite authors right now. She's got such a good way of tackling social issues in her novels and her protagonists in both novels I've read so far come across as so relatably autistic/neurodivergent. I really loved this one for the way it tackled trauma too. There was one moment when Natsuki's husband suggests doing something very illegal and morally reprehensible and her cousin is disgusted and says "but it's a crime" and Natsuki replies along the lines of "so what? Adults commit crimes all the time and get away with it and no one cares" and by that point you know her abuse backstory and I nearly screamed because I felt that so much and I got why she said it. It's hard to recommend this book though because the horror is really there and it's so heavy and sugarcoats nothing but I haven't stopped thinking about this book since I've read it

Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón: 4.5/5

I just remember that I screenshotted quite a few poems and that I must have related to them at that point but I don't remember why. I could not tell you one thing about this book because the poetry-loving parts of me have disappeared again

Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing by Lauren Hough: 3.5/5

It's a memoir in essays by a lesbian who grew up in the Children of God. The problem is that some of these essays are the most beautiful and touching, especially when she dives into her cult upbringing. The one where she talks about reconnecting with other "cult babies" and finding connections made me cry, for example. But other essays are the most boring imaginable. The contrast is jarring. Also after reading I saw in the reviews on storygraph that apparently there's some controversy around her but I didn't look it up because I had already finished the book, so no idea if there's something legitimately shitty about her or if it was overblown

Be Not Afraid of Love by Mimi Zhu: 4/5

Mimi Zhu describes her healing from an abusive relationship and I think I really enjoyed the way she structured it, the different phases she described and her general thoughts on love and relationships. I don't remember super much of it, though, or what made me give it "only" 4 stars

The Honeys by Ryan La Sala: 5/5

I really loved this one and the suspense it kept up throughout and some of the twists it pulled. I liked the eerie atmosphere of the camp with the contrast between the sunny overly peaceful daytime and the mysterious dark nighttime. I liked the way it delved into toxic masculinity and gender. I liked that the protagonist was genderfluid. I liked the way the memory gaps presented, the way they weren't even noticed until something triggered the memories back because that felt relatable. I would have liked it to dive into the topics that came up in the end a bit more and expand on them (intentionally being vague because I know a friend is still reading this right now) but again this is a book I wanted in my top reads because of the personal note it hit for me

Made in China by Anna Qu: 4.5/5

Another pretty great memoir by a woman who describes her complicated relationship with her mother, the childhood abuse she went through, being forced to work in her family's sweatshop as punishment among other things, calling CPS on her parents and discovering the downright wrong information in the report as an adult and coming to terms with that and also her family's generational trauma. I liked it a lot

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins: 4.5/5

I started off on the wrong foot with this book and I still maintain that Plutarch's brazen and open talk about revolution makes no sense and I can only justify it as him being a privileged thoughtless capitol brat who didn't fully think this plan through. I also still think Lenore Dove is more plot device than character and I didn't care for the inclusion of The Raven at all. But aside from that I loved this book. I absolutely love Haymitch and I felt so much anger for what he had to go through. I also loved the themes of all the historical revisionism that the capitol did with the games and how it puts the original trilogy in a different light. That was genius. I also still love how Suzanne Collins manages to end every single chapter on a mini cliffhanger that makes you want to keep reading

Recovery is my best revenge by Carolyn Spring: 4/5

Overall a pretty good collection of essays on DID, trauma and recovery. I definitely related to some of it a lot and thought a lot of it was written in a really smart, interesting, touching or useful way. I don't really vibe with the way she sees parts to a degree, mostly because her goal seems to be that she is present and other parts aren't and she as the adult and ANP is able to handle things instead of switching with other parts. Which I can't relate to at all because that's just impossible with the way my system is already set up with more than one daily life part/ANP and I could never narrow it down to one host and it has been more healing for me to actually let those traumatized parts be present together with me. But healing is different for everyone, so ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Sea of Constellations by Melissa Cristina Márquez: 4.75/5

A children's picture book that I read for the storygraph genre challenge, I think. It's very sweet. Maren the whale shark and her friend Remy the remora travel through the ocean to discover why the light has suddenly gone. It weaves some Aztec mythology in as well and gives some explanations on the fish and other ocean creatures that appear in the book in the end. The author is a shark scientist which is just cool. I just wish this book had been a bit longer tbh because it seemed like it was done so fast. But I'm also not a child and don't know how a child would perceive it. Don't regret reading this at all even though it's so far outside my usual reading choices

Wilder Girls by Rory Power: 2.5/5

This book just didn't pick up pace at all. Half the time I felt like I was wondering what the plot was. Sure, Hetty starts looking for her friend Byatt who disappeared. But that never seems like it's the main plot? Then there's the weird romantic stuff with Hetty and Reese that comes out of nowhere and then is never really expanded upon? Also none of the characters are really pleasant? I can deal with a morally grey character but they have to be interesting to keep my interest. The only one who was really halfway interesting voice was Byatt and we only got snippets of her narration that ended way too early. I also lost it when Hetty and Reese got upset at the headmistress for wanting to abandon the girls at the quarantined school and then pages later abandon all the other girls? Like wtf was that? A hot mess of a book that wasn't nearly as interesting as the premise made it seem

Elle Together by Kid Toussaint: 3.75/5

By now it's kind of tradition that I buy an Elle(s) book at the Leipzig book fair. I read this on the train back. I have to say the series started off strong enough but by the end in this book it feels kind of rushed. Themes aren't expanded upon that would need it, like developing each Elle a bit more or the woo-woo stuff how they began to exist, the whole stuff with her birth mom. Instead I have to read way too many jokes about the chaotic forgetful side character -_- So yeah, 3.75 for this because it felt way too rushed, but it had some sweet moments, especially in the end

[birds-read]

in honor of black history month 2025, i’ve put together a list of books written by black sapphic authors for you to read in the month of february

non-fiction essays/memoirs:

all about love: new visions by bell hooks

black lesbian in white america by anita cornwell

sister outsider: essays and speeches by audre lorde

mouths of rain: an anthology of black lesbian thought by briona simone jones

blues legacies and black feminism by angela davis

does your mama know?: an anthology of black lesbian coming out stories by lisa c. moore

fiction:

the color purple by alice walker

loving her by ann allen shockley

the gilda stories by jewelle gomez

in another place, not here by dionne brand

pomegranate by helen elaine lee

the summer we got free by mia mckenzie

these letters end in tears by musih tedji xaviere

dead in long beach, california by venita blackburn

young adult:

escaping mr. rochester by l.l. mckinney

this ravenous fate by hayley dennings

faebound by saraa el-arifa

so let them burn by kamilah cole

where sleeping girls lie by faridah àbíké-íyímídé

adult:

honey girl by morgan rogers

the deep by rivers solomon

sweet vengeance by viano oniomoh

come back (love concealed) by terri ronald

house of hunger by alexis henderson

short stories:

girl, woman, other by bernadine evaristo

the secret lives of church ladies by deesha philyaw

additional info:

-> “why wasn’t this book listed?” probably because it wasn’t black sapphic-centric, the author isn’t a black sapphic themself, or i just simply haven’t heard of it! so feel free to add on if it meets those two criteria

many of these books require trigger warnings, especially some of the older ones that are more likely to feature racial struggles of the time. please do your due diligence and search for tws if you want to read them!

please feel free to add onto this list in the rbs or comments! happy black history month

[birds-read]

Reading wrap-up February 2025

Book opinions under the cut

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy: 5/5

Listened to this as an audiobook and it wrecked me in parts because a) it's such a well-written, honest and emotional memoir and b) it unearthed a lot of stuff around my own mom. Really enjoyed this a lot and I'm glad her mom died too, tbh

The Girl and the Goddess by Nikita Gill: 4.75/5:

Really good poetry about a girl called Paro who is visited by Hindu goddesses and gods throughout important moments in her life and comes to terms with her own queerness. It was pretty beautiful and I enjoyed the way religion, magical realism and current topics were mixed together. Knocked 0.25 points of because I didn't think the poetry itself was all that outstanding and this could have been told as prose too

Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver: 4/5

I have to be honest that I don't really remember much of this. It was nature poetry. It was nice enough to read. But not especially outstanding or emotionally touching for me

Time Is a Mother by Ocean Vuong: 4/5

Oh, Ocean Vuong. Have to preface this that it turns out I'm not a big fan. I find his poetry to be very... artistic for the sense of artistry. Like he's showing off what he can do with words and it comes across as a little pretentious at times and leaves feelings at the wayside, which kind of sucks because they're all about these deeply personal things from his life and I just feel... nothing lol. Like in this collection the only poem I really remember is "Amazon History of a Former Nail Salon Worker" and that was basically so simplistic and raw that it hit me right in the feels and I could feel the grief radiating from it. The way more complicated and artistic stuff just didn't get to me at all. Like... Sometimes I feel it's not all form, you know? You don't have to do something with language just because you can. You can and I guess I admire him for the skill alone. But emotionally his poetry does barely anything for me

The Tradition by Jericho Brown: 4.75/5

I also don't remember much from this except that it dealt with police violence and queer and black masculinity and that it gave me goosebumps while reading. So very good

Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky: 4.75/5

This was really really good and it's hard to explain why. Sure it's about an occupied city, it's about injustice and resistance, but also I can't really put a finger on why it was so very touching. Maybe because it felt very relevant right now

Dearly by Margaret Atwood: 3.75/5

I didn't care for most of these poems. Some were good. I liked the Plasticene Suite a lot. But most of it just didn't stick for me

Becoming Free Indeed by Jinger Duggar Vuolo: 2.5/5

This was kinda disappointing. Yeah, I mean she says in the very first sentences that she isn't going to provide a tell-all of her childhood and she hasn't left Christianity, so you won't find that. But I still didn't expect her, after thoroughly dissecting the stuff she grew up with, to go "and by the way, if you disentangle your faith from these kinds of teachings and you come away no longer Christian you did it wrong". Like you were so close, girl. So close. I honestly hope she grows a lot more. Because oof. Otherwise it was kind of interesting to hear her explain the brand of fucked up Christianity she grew up with because even with all the differences it's like... cults are gonna cult and it's still similar to what I grew up with in some ways

In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune: 4.5/5

Knocked 0.5 off because of the very slow start and the kind of straightforward plotline. But otherwise this book hit a lot of the topics I love, especially identity, self-determination, what makes you you, is it what you're programmed to do or what you choose to do, does your past define you, forgiveness, found family. It really touched a lot of stuff for me. Also all of it explored through robots which is something I love too

Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong: 3.75/4

Not much to add. I remember zero poems from this, it didn't touch me emotionally, artistically speaking he's really good but I feel mostly meh about his poetry

The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell: 5/5

This is from 1977 but it still filled me with a sense of queer belonging in difficult times and I really needed that, so it gets 5 stars from me

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle: 4.25/5

I really actually liked this and how a lot of it echoed some of my own experiences with religious and ritual abuse. It left me with a crazy longing to find the people who went through it with me, so that wasn't fun. But it hurt me emotionally in the right ways and makes me want to read more of this kind of religiously themed horror. I feel like the book was a bit too fast-paced and thus glossed over some things but otherwise I really enjoyed it

Burned Child Seeks the Fire by Cordelia Edvardson: 5/5

Another memoir that wrecked me. Cordelia is labelled as Jewish by the Nazis despite having grown up as Catholic because her father and maternal grandfather both were Jewish. This is kind of important because it is behind a lot of the othering she experiences as a young child and doesn't understand because no one ever explained this to her. She just always had known she's different. Eventually she is deported to Auschwitz and this book is her account of the events leading up to this, her experiences there and the aftermath. And you can just tell she still has to distance herself from all the trauma she went through because she tells the entire story in third person and refers to herself as "the girl" or later "the woman". It's so painful. Also a lot of the book is centered around her relationship to her mother and the enmeshment and trauma coming from it. Like the scene where she gives up her own safety because they told her otherwise her mother would face repercussions and she describes how her mother looks at her and she knows she has to sign away her own safety and only way of escape because she was always meant to do that for her mother. It hurts. Also when she's back from Auschwitz and her mother learns of it and writes in her letter that her daughter should send an account of it, so that she can write a novel about it. Wtf. What kind of mother does that? But there were also so many moments that I remember that were so painful, like how she describes how she has to keep everything inside and describes her ways of dissociating from the horrors, because otherwise what she calls "the scream" will get out and then she'll break and die because she's unable to handle the horror of the camp anymore. Or how angry she gets at the Swedish family who expect her to be over everything and just celebrate Christmas with them. This book doesn't sugarcoat anything and despite the audiobook being only around 4 hours long, I had to take it pretty slow because it's just so dense with all this trauma that started long before Auschwitz. It's also very beautifully told, narratively, mixing her early childhood experiences with the experiences in the concentration camp, drawing parallels and connections. Just left me feeling a lot

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong: 4.5/5

Out of all his works I've read this month, I liked this one best, maybe because it wasn't as pretentiously sounding as his poetry. It was very raw and emotional and touched me a lot. There's still something about his writing style that I just don't vibe with but overall I liked it better than his poetry. I just forgot halfway through that this is meant to be fiction and was confused when storygraph asked me to rate the characters in it because it's so blatantly autobiographic, down to even the name of his mother ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón: 4.5/5

I cannot remember at all why I gave this rating or what I liked about it but I must have liked something about it, I guess. It was about nature and the different seasons but also about a theme of grief and loss that wove itself through the book. I should really stop reading poetry that much, though, because I'm getting a little sick of it, I think, and it makes it harder to point out anything that I like about a certain poetry collection

Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd: 4.75/5

It's way easier to rate poetry that's so outstanding and political, though, instead of the same vague "mushy feelings nature vibes, here's my personal life story" poems. I just noticed that almost all poetry books I read this month that I rated 4.75 stars were in some way political (discounting The Girl and the Goddess but that was fiction so it goes in a different category entirely). Anyway, Rifqa. Loved it. Very raw, honest poetry about Palestinian life and resistance. I don't think you could read this and not be touched in some way

The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave: 3.75/5

I really wanted to like this one a lot because it sounded so good. In a remote Norwegian village almost all men are killed off by a terrible storm and in the aftermath the women have to fend for themselves. Rifts form between the ones who grow more independent and turn to old beliefs in some way and the very devout churchgoing ones. 18 months later a commissioner appears to take control of the village and goes on a witch-hunt. His young wife meanwhile falls in love with one of the independent women of the village. It could have been really good but the book drags on and is so slow-paced that there's barely room for the actual plot hinted at in the blurb. It does a good job of keeping up a tense atmosphere, I'll give it that. But it took me so long to get through for a comparably short book. Also the ending sucked massively

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10 Black Queer Horror Titles: We’re doing Horror in February for Black History Month featuring 10 black queer main characters who aren’t victims or tropes, fighting back against the system, and the monsters that lurk within … ….. View the full summary and rep info on wordpress!

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I'm so happy to have read so many excellent books about trans characters & by trans authors in the last couple of years. I'm not exaggerating when I say these books changed my life

Here's a selection of trans stories I have physical copies of (most of which l've read, but a few tbr).

All Roads Lead to This by Kay Claire (4⭐️)

The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas (5⭐️)

The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzgerald (5⭐️)

The Heartbreak Bakery by A.R. Capetta (4.25⭐️)

The Feeling of Falling in Love by Mason Deaver (3.75⭐️)

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callendar (tbr)

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas (4.5⭐️)

Lakelore by Anna Marie McLemore (5⭐️)

The Unpopular Vote by Jasper Sanchez (5⭐️)

Jess, Chunk, and the Roadtrip to Infinity by Kristin Elizabeth Clark (tbr)

((Cross posting some older posts from my insta (same username) because I’m not sure about the future of meta platforms/my use of meta platforms & I don’t want my content to be lost.))

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*Coughs* Masterlist of classic books (like shit you read in high school only they are free audiobooks

We love internet archive here

The Great Gatsby

Pride and Prejudice

Romeo and Juliet

A Tale of Two Cities

Animal Farm

Crime and Punishment

The Count of Monte Cristo

The Prince and the Pauper

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

War and Peace

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Oliver Twist

The Odyssey

Treasure Island

Bleak House

The Divine Comedy (Dante’s Inferno)

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Frankenstein

Moby Dick

David Cooperfield

The Tragedy of Macbeth

Jane Eyre

The Republic (Plato)

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Madame Bovary

Ulysses

The Canterbury Tales

Great Expectations

A Streetcar Named Desire

Othello

The Metamorphosis

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

The Iliad

A Christmas Carol

12 Creepy Tales by Edgar Allan Poe

The Importance of Being Earnest

The Alchemist

The Three Musketeers

The Hound of the Baskervilles

And Then There Were None

The Scarlet Letter

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

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Reading wrap up January 2025

The Wild Iris by Louise Glück: 5/5

This is what started my poetry hyperfixation of this month. I originally read it for a genre challenge on storygraph but it made me discover that I actually like poetry a lot. I loved the themes of nature and religion and humanity and I found it very fascinating how the poems changed from ones with different flowers speaking to ones with a very distant God speaking and poems about a gardener. I am also getting a tattoo inspired by Snowdrops

On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden: 4.5/5

A very neat sci-fi graphic novel. Everyone also kinda is a lesbian and I loved that. The story follows the crew of a spaceship who repairs old space architecture and their newest member who can't forget a girl she fell in love with during boarding school who lives in a near unreachable part of the galaxy. At times it felt a bit rushed and like it didn't take time to properly get to know each character and they sometimes all looked drawn the same because of the color palettes taking over whole pages. But overall this was quite entertaining

Die Träume anderer Leute (translation: the dreams of other people) by Judith Holofernes: 4.5/5

I listened to this audiobook autobiography of a German singer while puzzling. She talks about her experience in the music industry and her burnouts and physical illnesses and disabilities and how she pushed herself a lot for her career. It was a lot about how she tried to have a solo career after her band disbanded and how she struggled with that and the traditional system and how it negatively affected her emotionally and physically and how she found her own ways to deal with it and make art her way. A lot what she wrote about burnout and exhaustion and her relationship to her body and disabilities was very relatable. It was really well written because she's really good with words and I also liked the way the narrator read it a lot. Sometimes she was a bit centered around herself as suffering the most out of everyone and I harshly disagree with her that capitalism shows its worst face in the music industry. Yeah, it's bad but I also think capitalism doesn't differentiate like that and it came across as pretty self-centered from someone who (all struggles with her disabilities aside because they also affect people who aren't musicians) has a pretty cushy life and could take prolonged breaks and get expensive treatment with hardly any issues

You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson: 5/5

It's hard to describe why I liked it a lot but I guess overall it made me feel very seen in all kinds of aspects like trauma, gender and sexuality, queerness in general. It made me feel really emotional and as far as poetry is concerned that's what I want

Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune: 4.75/5

I really liked this a lot. It's a very sweet, lighthearted exploration of death and grief. It has queer found family and love. It was very beautiful and easy to read even when it was emotional. It follows recently deceased lawyer Wallace who just wasn't a good person on his journey as a ghost who's meant to cross over to the afterlife and the people who are meant to help him with it. I think I would have liked it even better if some of the supporting characters hadn't seemed like caricatures of themselves at certain moments of the book, though

The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown: 3/5

I listened to this as an audiobook and maybe I would have liked it more if the narrator of the German translation didn't have the most annoying voice and read with this really artificial over the top tone. But even that aside, the book had valuable insights into dealing with shame but it seemed kind of chaotic and over the place (again, might be because I listened to it rather than read it) and didn't really have a consistent common thread. A lot seemed to repeat itself. Also I don't know if this is an American thing or just a thing of the author but I was surprised by how often she mentions prayer and spirituality and I usually don't expect any self-help book to just randomly throw it in there but it seems like it's so common in general US-American culture that everyone is just religious or spiritual in some way. Which is jarring coming from a culture where the majority of people just isn't religious like that in every day life at all. I mostly just listened to it because I used to be in a discord server where people swore Brené Brown was such a good author on shame but eh, I'm not super impressed, tbh

Pansy by Andrea Gibson: 4.5/5

Again, lots of relatable poems that made me feel emotions, especially on topics like queerness and disability. It just didn't quite hit me like You Better Be Lightning did and I can't put my finger on why

The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On by Franny Choi: 5/5

Extremely good poetry collection to read especially in times like this. It was a very good reminder that the world has basically ended a lot of times and it still keeps going on and people keep living through it, especially POC. It was a very good exploration of topics like the apocalypse, future visions and intergenerational trauma. Would recommend it a lot to anyone

Soft Science by Franny Choi: 4.75/5

The blurb on storygraph says it explores "queer, Asian American femininity" but tbh, you had to go searching for the queer bits. A lot of it was centered around sexual assault and unpleasant sexual experiences with men. Which wasn't bad, it was just misleading. But overall, it was also really good, especially since it connected the topics of sexuality and femininity with the idea of being a cyborg or android and explored identity, sexuality and gender from that point and I loved that. I love anything to do with exploring identity through robots, androids and cyborgs. I also know it was supposed to be specific for Asian American women but I found it relatable nonetheless even though I'm none of that. Franny Choi also has a very unique way with words in these poems and I was fascinated by that

The Myth of Normal by Gabor Maté: 4.75/5

If you're really interested in how trauma and the body are connected and how a lot of stress, trauma and repressed emotions show up as physical and chronic illnesses, this is a very good book on the topic. It backed up everything I already sort of knew about the topic up with lots and lots of studies on different types of illnesses and their connection to trauma and stress. Then it explored everything that goes wrong in our society from conception throughout childhood through adulthood that facilitates these effects on the body and how it has become so normalized but isn't actually what should be normal. The book also offers some ideas on healing in the last part and I took some very useful things away from it. Some bits were a bit weird to me, like the entire chapter on traumatized politicians. I didn't see the point of that. But otherwise this was a very good and useful read

Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head by Warsan Shire: 4.75/5

There's been some really good poetry snippets from this collection going around tumblr lately and that's why I checked it out. It's really really good and made me feel very emotional and even though those bits on tumblr were kind of taken out of the specific context of the experiences of Somali people and immigrants, yeah, those bits still hit a lot as a trauma survivor. I feel like I would have gotten a lot more out of it if I understood more about the specific culture but that's kind of on me to learn more about and then I might reread it and it could be a 5 star read

To Make Monsters Out of Girls by Amanda Lovelace: 2.5/5

Books like this are why I said I didn't like modern poetry a lot, I think. It's really mostly very sparse poems with random line breaks that make you feel nothing. The monster theme doesn't even show up outside of her calling her abusive ex a monster boy. It was very disappointing and I've read in a review for another of her books that the titular theme also didn't show up much. So I guess that's how her poetry is and I'm going to avoid her from now on. It had some good bits but mostly I felt very disappointed and bleh about this

Lord of the Butterflies by Andrea Gibson: 4.5/5

Similar as with Pansy, I still like Andrea's work a lot and their style of poetry, this just didn't make me feel as much and I think it might be because a lot of the focus was on romantic relationships and that's not personally relatable to me at all

Great Goddesses by Nikita Gill: 4/5

A poetry collection about Greek mythology with a focus on female goddesses, heroines and monsters. I quite enjoyed it but mostly because that's a very old special interest that always perks up when I read anything on the topic. I liked the spins on where the gods and goddesses are now in the modern age, especially the ones on Hera, Artemis and Amphitrite. But all in all it wasn't quite as personally touching or maybe I'm just reaching a point where I'm oversaturated on poetry 😅

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers: 5/5

I don't know what's wrong with Becky Chambers that her two series read as if two different people wrote them. Yeah, both are rather slow paced and focused on an easy-going plot and interpersonal relationships. But the Wayfarer series actually does it in a compelling way, whereas A Psalm for the Wild-Built felt so rushed and preachy to me. No idea why these two are so different. Also the worldbuilding is a lot better and more realistic in this series. The Wayfarer series' society also is kind of utopian but it still has its issues despite its progressiveness and that's actually a focus in this book

But all my rambling aside about how I feel that these books weren't written by the same author: I loved this one. I loved the exploration of identity and purpose through Sidra's eyes and the way she had to adjust to her new artificial body after having been a ship's AI before. I loved how the adjustment process was described and I related so much to her being easily overwhelmed because she was programmed to see everything (kind of an autism moment) and how she liked sitting in the corner at parties and just watch everyone. I also liked the second plot about Jane/Pepper as an artifically engineered child slave and about her escape. That was the plotline that had more happen in it while Sidra's was slower and both just added onto each other beautifully

Will probably post my thoughts on my reads from January later too but here's the overview for now

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Will probably post my thoughts on my reads from January later too but here's the overview for now

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a non-exhaustive list of butch literature

a (very ad-hoc) list of butch reading and writing, (mostly) by butch authors. books I've read myself in bold; take the rest with a grain of salt. additions, addendums, and commentary welcome :)

general/literary fiction:

mrs s by k patrick

stone butch blues by leslie feinberg

boulder by eva baltasar

running fiercely towards a thin high sounds by judith katz

tipping the velvet by sarah waters

a crystal diary by frankie hucklenbroich

godspeed by lynn breedlove

cha-ching! by ali liebegott

the ihop papers by ali liebegott

greasepaint by hannah levene

lucy and mickey by red jordan arobateau

the bull-jean stories by sharon bridgforth

development by bryher

notes of a crocodile by qui miaojin

america is not the heart by elaine castillo

the slow fix by ivan coyote

the swashbuckler by lee lynch

old dyke tales by lee lynch

sci-fi, fantasy, and horror:

gideon the ninth by tamsyn muir

the unspoken name by ak larkwood

vermilion by molly tanzer

metal from heaven by august clarke

scapegracers by ha clarke

the unbroken by cl clarke

fire logic by laurie marks

non-fiction, memoir, and autobiography:

hijab butch blues by lamya h

gender failure by ivan coyote and rae spoon

fun home by allison bechdel

butch is a noun by h bear bergman

female masculinity by jack halberstam

burning butch by rb murtz

when we were outlaws by jeanne cordova

leaving isn't the hardest thing by lauren hough

odd girls and twilight lovers by lillian faderman

boots of leather, slippers of gold by elizabeth lapovsky and madeline davis

the persistent desire ed joan nestle

persistence: all way butch and femme ed ivan coyote and zena sharman

dagger: on butch women ed lily burana

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a non-exhaustive list of butch literature

a (very ad-hoc) list of butch reading and writing, (mostly) by butch authors. books I've read myself in bold; take the rest with a grain of salt. additions, addendums, and commentary welcome :)

general/literary fiction:

mrs s by k patrick

stone butch blues by leslie feinberg

boulder by eva baltasar

running fiercely towards a thin high sounds by judith katz

tipping the velvet by sarah waters

a crystal diary by frankie hucklenbroich

godspeed by lynn breedlove

cha-ching! by ali liebegott

the ihop papers by ali liebegott

greasepaint by hannah levene

lucy and mickey by red jordan arobateau

the bull-jean stories by sharon bridgforth

development by bryher

notes of a crocodile by qui miaojin

america is not the heart by elaine castillo

the slow fix by ivan coyote

the swashbuckler by lee lynch

old dyke tales by lee lynch

sci-fi, fantasy, and horror:

gideon the ninth by tamsyn muir

the unspoken name by ak larkwood

vermilion by molly tanzer

metal from heaven by august clarke

scapegracers by ha clarke

the unbroken by cl clarke

fire logic by laurie marks

non-fiction, memoir, and autobiography:

hijab butch blues by lamya h

gender failure by ivan coyote and rae spoon

fun home by allison bechdel

butch is a noun by h bear bergman

female masculinity by jack halberstam

burning butch by rb murtz

when we were outlaws by jeanne cordova

leaving isn't the hardest thing by lauren hough

odd girls and twilight lovers by lillian faderman

boots of leather, slippers of gold by elizabeth lapovsky and madeline davis

the persistent desire ed joan nestle

persistence: all way butch and femme ed ivan coyote and zena sharman

dagger: on butch women ed lily burana

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December is Disability Awareness Month, and so here are some great books with disabled leads. There's contemporary, fantasy, graphic novels, and two pages for historicals because we all know I can't restrain myself when it comes to them.

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December 24 reading wrap up

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman: 5/5

It has the usual stuff I like about the series plus I think this one won me over with an amazing quiet segment in the middle that was solely focuse on grief and it was nice to see it forego the usual lightheartedness and funny quips for that important bit. So it got a 5 star rating for that part

The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss: 3.75/5

The prose is beautiful and I can admire the skill it takes to stay in this character's voice for so long and pull it off and make it sound distinct and still make it somewhat understandable. It's just that nothing much happens in this book and I was a bit bored by reading for 20 pages about Auri making soap. I like her but it's just not what I usually enjoy in a book

First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston: 5/5

Very good thriller, had spy shenanigans and identity theft and heists and all sorts of great stuff. Good pacing, good twists, really satisfying ending too

Requiem by Frances Itani: 5/5

Complete contrast to First Lie Wins, very slow-paced and introspective but I enjoyed the way it was written and how it handled Bin coming to terms with his grief for his wife and also his childhood trauma and being abandoned by his birth father and losing his birth family as a child

Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation by Kathy Steele, Onno van der Hart, Suzette Boon: 4/5

I promised myself I'd read this one front to back eventually. I've read most of the chapters over the years whenever I thought they'd be helpful but never the whole book. So I finally ticked that off my list. It's solid for the most part. I didn't really like how it advises to handle child parts but I honestly just take whatever is helpful and leave the rest

Elternabend by Sebastian Fitzek: 4.25/5

A car thief ends up on an overnight parent-teacher meeting with a woman he doesn't know and everyone thinks their the parents (who have never shown up to these events before) of the kid who's been causing the most problems lately. It's as hilarious as it sounds. I enjoyed those parts. I also separately enjoyed the parts of the book that dealt with more serious topics like suicidality and mental health, even though it got a bit preachy in the end. But these two sides of the book sometimes clashed a lot, so I couldn't rate it with the full score. There was a really nice twist in the end that I liked and overall it was an entertaining read

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir: 3.75/5

I already ranted about this book on my main blog, so to keep it short: pacing issues, random characters that didn't play a major role in the actual plot having insane amounts of page time doing nothing much important, important main characters just not showing up for a majority of the book, protagonist that wasn't invested in the plot happening around her and being so clueless that it made it hard to understand anything. By far the weakest in the series. Just rated it so high because it had some funny moments, some touching moments and the last quarter was decent

Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker, Wendy Xu: 3/5

Queer graphic novel about a witch and a nonbinary werewolf who fall in love and have to fight a demon. Cute idea but way too fast-paced. Also the titular mooncakes only show up for one brief moment. Disappointing

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh: 4.5/5

Every year Mina's village sacrifices a girl to appease the sea god and get rid of the devastating storms. She jumps into the sea instead of her brother's love and finds herself in the spirit realm and has to try and lift the curse on the sea god. The novel was going hard for the Ghibli vibes but I think it actually worked and I really liked the characters and the worldbuilding. I saw most of the twists and surprises coming but that didn't take away from how sweet this book was

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson: 2/5

I don't know if it was the fact that I listened to this as an audiobook and the narrator pissed me off so much with the voices he kept making. But I kinda hated this. There were some good ideas, hence the 2 stars. But they were very basic but presented as groundbreaking. It felt a lot like a white man lauding himself for figuring out some basic shit. Also had lots of rambling about weird events in his life. Didn't like it but had it on my to-be-read pile for some reason and Spotify had it as an audiobook that I could listen to while puzzling so I'm not too disappointed that I spent five hours on this but I don't recommend this one

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All the books I've read this year. I'm super happy with the amount

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And the rest of the stats

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November 2024 reading recap

The Future by Naomi Alderman

4.25/5: Overall really enjoyable, suspenseful dystopian thriller about the end of the world, climate change, technology, billionaires and personal responsibility. At times it was a bit preachy, especially when it went onto tangents on the philosophy of the fictional cult leader. But it still was well-written and kinda relevant to current events. I also sort of related to Martha as a cult survivor. It also had a really great lesbian relationship subplot

The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller

4/5: Really decent and thorough book on grief. I took a lot of useful points for myself from it on the importance of allowing myself to feel and to connect with my emotions and on different types of grief. I wish it had been focused a bit more on practical implementations instead of describing a dozen of the same type of grief ritual. Because this way it seemed like Weller tried to promote his own seminars and ritual groups and was not practically useful for me. Still pretty helpful overall, though

Blue Mind by Wallace J. Nichols

3.75/5: Liked it based on the topic alone, i.e. how being around water positively impacts your (mental) health because it proves everything I already believed and knew about my own connection to water right. Was a bit boring to read at times because it was a lot of summaries of different studies one after the other and that just wasn't very engaging and fun to read

The Cat and the City by Nick Bradley

3.5/5: This was more a collection of loosely connected short stories than a novel. Some of these stories were really good. Like 5 star level good. Especially liked the one about the homeless man, the one about the hermit guy and the kid who helped the cat and the last one about the family of the homeless man reconnecting with him and all the complicated feelings about their family history. Other stories sucked. Like 0 star level bad. They seemed to just be badly disguised author fetish stuff and were also incredibly predatory and misogynistic and racist at times? So yeah, this book misled me thinking it would be a cute cat-related story when it's very much not

Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook by Celia Rees

3.25/5: Sigh. I was really looking forward to a good spy story. But this dragged on. I never got a real feeling for all the different characters. The German characters were mostly caricature-like. Also if you set a story in Germany at least get the German right. It hurt almost physically to see the typos and wrong grammar. It's not that hard. This was published in 2020. Get a better editor. I'm sure even Google translate could do a better job. Gosh. Also the ending was really stupid, tbh. I'm not even sure why I rated this as high as I did then lol

The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose

4.5/5: Given how little I liked The Maid, I was surprised by how much I liked this one. It was fun and engaging, a little funny at times, a lot more lighthearted than the first one and Molly did some actual detective work and put together clues herself due to her eye for detail. I also liked seeing her as a little kid. The mystery wasn't super hard to figure out but still enough to keep me interested

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

4/5: This book has a lot of worldbuilding issues both in the sci-fi and fantasy elements. A lot is just left unsaid and never explained or explored properly and that just makes for a lot of wasted potential because the premise is good. The book makes up for it with really beautiful prose and wonderful characters and character dynamics, though, so I ended up enjoying it anyway