abookishidentity

[abookishidentity]

Yeah. Hi libraries still deserve your support. You’re paying for them.

You’re paying for databases that you can use to write your term papers: or just to read a paper

You’re paying to use a computer: even if your fines are crazy. (Most places will let you login as a “guest” rather than a patron)

You’re paying to show up to an event that the library is hosting for free. Even if you don’t live in county and especially IF YOU DO!! Go without a library card. The worst thing that’ll happen is that they’ll sign you up for one. Damn now you gotta go back and check out books and movies and shit THAT YOU ALREADY HELPED PAY FOR THE LIBRARY TO OWN?? Damn dude, what a curse.

Yeah hi. Your taxes for the library are being used by everyone who goes to the library every dimmidome day. Come chill at the library. Worst case scenario you can’t check something out, and you can just come chill with us for the day.

[abookishidentity]

ok but how do voice actors record tickle scenes

[abookishidentity]

2025 reads / storygraph

Something Extraordinary

historical platonic-romcom

an aromantic woman tired of feeling unworthy when the people closest to her leave her behind for romance, and a gay man in unrequited love who is planning on giving up and marrying a woman in misery and drunkenness

she kidnaps him the day before the marriage to stop him ruining his life, suggesting that they get platonically married instead - and on the ridiculous journey to scotland to elope, they have to convince each other if it’s what is best for them, and what they want out of life/love/and friendship

[abookishidentity]

Books read and finished in April 2025

--The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde started April 1, 2025 and finished April 3, 2025- 4/5 stars. You know, for a book called The Eyre Affair the stuff with Jane Eyre doesn’t really happen until the last fourth of the book. That was my only gripe about the book. This book was whacky in a very British way. I was into it. It was delightfully weird. I love that there are time cops and time stuff in this book. The main character’s dad popping in once in a while was quite amusing. There are quite a lot of organizations that deal with different stuff. Like vampires and werewolves. That was an interesting surprise. The villain was interesting and nearly omnipotent. Thursday Next is such an interesting name for the main character. I want to follow more of her exploits. I wish the remaining books were at my local library but there is a library nearby that has the series so thats good at least. Interesting world that I wouldn’t want to live in. 

-Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey started April 3, 2025 and finished April 4, 2025- 3.5/5 stars. This was a short book so there isn’t much I can say about it. Queer librarian spies are a pleasure to read about. I’m glad that the main character escaped her home life which seemed terribly homophobic and misogynistic. Shame that her “friend” was hanged by the main character’s dad. Wouldn’t want to live in this world. It’s wild to me how quickly the main character fell for one of the librarians she was with. 

-Early Riser by Jasper Fforde started April 4, 2025- 3/5 stars. What an interesting and yet dystopian world. Wouldn’t want to live in this world in which women are farmed. The dream aspect of this book was fascinating. The need for hibernation because of the cold ass winter was interesting. You know when books come with a glossary? That annoys me usually but for this book I would welcome it. Too many terms to keep track of. This world has corporations and of course they would construct something that would essentially make use of people who are essentially brain dead. I didn’t like that people referred to the main character as “Wonky” since he had a deformed head. This book didn’t hit as much as Jasper Fforde’s other book I read. 

-My Funny Demon Valentine by Aurora Ascher- 2/5 stars. Oh whoops I didn’t do enough research on this book. A lot more spice in a book than I was expecting. This felt like it was for certain audiences which is not me. If the couple in this book was queer then I would enjoy it more. At least they are practicing safe sex. Although, I don't know how safe or comfortable it is to have sex on a piano. Other than the sex, the plot is quite interesting. Its easy to see where its going though. Demons escaping hell is always fun to read. And at least they also like playing jazz together. At the end of the day this is a trash romantasy novel. Some lines felt like this was written over ten years ago. I stopped taking it seriously as soon as Ash said “Well…that just happened.” 

-Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett started April 9, 2025 and finished April 12, 2025- 4/5 stars. I love the Emily Wilde books. I deeply respect Emily’s dedication to research and her books. I don’t have much to say about this book as it was pretty good and entertaining. Wendel’s dedication to Emily is pretty sweet. There were moments in which I thought “Whats the rest of this book about?” I like the direction it goes. 

-Toto by A.J Hackwith started April 13, 2025 and finished April 15, 2025- 3.5/5 stars. Sometimes you have to read someone’s Wizard of Oz fanfiction. That’s what this felt like. Toto, being a tiny dog, can only do so much. He was given the power of speech which was helpful. It was kind of interesting that Dorothy lied about being to understand him. I guess she felt that her life was weird enough that her dog from Kansas being able to speak was just the icing on the weirdness cake. I like the additional characters. They were cool. I also like how the main group of characters were written. There was a lot of revolution and politics in this book which was deeply interesting. Although it felt like part of a book somewhat recently. I like that Elon Musk AKA The Wizard was blown up in his drone. I also like that it ends with Dorothy going on adventures with Evaline who was the wicked witch of the west. 

-An Inheritance of Magic by Benedict Jacka- 3.5/5 stars. If one likes magic systems and them being explained in many details then you would like this. I don’t really care how magic systems work. I mean it was a good book, it's just I didn’t really care all that much about the magic. The main character is quite interesting as he’s quite young (20 years old) and kind of inexperienced with the drucraft world. Which is a very depressing world as it's just like the real world in which you need money to do anything. An annoying thing about this book is that the main character has to deal with his rich bitches of relatives. Man if they just left him alone then he wouldn’t have so much grief in his life. It was interesting to read how he got better with his drucraft and his process in doing things. I don’t think I’m going to continue reading this series though. I don’t want to read about the rich bitches again. The main reason I picked this up is because I wanted to read a Benedict Jacka book. His Alex Versus series sounds more up my alley but who knows. 

-Court of Magickers by Novae Caelum started April 19, 2025 and finished April 22, 2025- 4/5 stars. This is the fourth book of the series. It’s a very interesting series. I love how complicated the characters and how diverse they are when it comes to identity and such. We follow one character who i think should have their own spin off series since what they are doing feels quite separated from the other characters. There are seven books in this series (I think) and I wonder if I will read the rest. This book was given to me by a family member who bought the books. It’s an indie author. I was told by someone online that the author has used AI in star work. It appears to be true and starself seems proud of it. Don’t like that. What a shame. Not reading further into the series.  

-The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong started April 23, 2025 and finished April 25, 2025- 4/5 stars. This book is quite cute. Sometimes a little too cute when things work out for the main characters. It’s fine though. The characters have suffered enough. I love the found family aspect of it all. Cosy fantasy is fun to read. I like fantasy elements when everyone and everything lives together. It was a fun read. 

-Interstellar Magachef by Lavanya Lakshminarayan started April 26, 2025 and finished April 30, 2025 - 4/5 stars. This book was pretty damn good. The main character deals with so much bullshit and xenophobia. It’s nice when things work out for her. The other main character was kind of insufferable. But it’s okay because a handful of people told her so and how she wasn’t that great of a person and needed to change. That was good stuff. Anyway, you could tell that the author really cares about food. I like that. Food is very much appreciated in this book. I honestly thought that the whole book was going to deal with the cooking show but the main character gets kicked off first due to xenophobia. What was interesting is when authors don’t have complete quotation marks when their characters talk. Another interesting thing were some of the character’s names. Serenity, Curiosity, Courageous, Good Nature, and etc were the first part of their names. It made things a little confusing to keep track of who was who. There was a character who was a xenophobic bully and she was quite annoying to read about. The main character and the other main character share a kiss and have feelings for each other which is weird because one of them is insufferable and I don’t understand this. Overall a pretty great book though. 

-The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn by Tri Vuong started and finished April 30, 2025- 4/5 stars. Man, graphic novels always leave you wanting more don’t they? It never feels complete. I picked this up because I finished the previous book earlier than I thought I would and I needed something to read for the rest of my work shift. Anyway, this graphic novel sounded like something I would read novels of. It sounded like urban fantasy. And I think it was? Oscar Zahn is such an interesting character. I want to read more about his background. The artwork was simply gorgeous. It was a good read.

[abookishidentity]

Something I think about

Sometimes when I look up a book, I am surprised in which genre or section its in. Like for example, I have always found it kind of weird that the Wicked Series by Gregory Maguire is found in the fiction section. Bookstores and libraries alike. Personally I would put it in the science fiction/fantasy section.

There are quite a number of books that I have pulled from the fiction section of the library I work at that I would consider to be part of the science fiction/fantasy section.

I wonder who decides where the book goes. I have looked this up before but the answer seems unsatisfying. I wonder if its different between the various libraries and bookstores.

[abookishidentity]

libraries….

I love libraries, not just in an aesthetic sense but in what they do. Librarians are often underpaid, overworked, and require a very high level of education to be hired (Master’s degrees sometimes), and are often the most inclusive and nicest people in my community. They provide resources for people who are struggling (help finding jobs, training for said jobs, free wifi, heat, water, bathrooms), they also have community events (mine has music events, and historical re-enactments), as well as reading resources (dolly parton’s imagination library, etc). They also have things other than books, you can rent Movies, CDs, Board Games,magazines, newspapers, and some libraries have genealogy section so you can learn about people local to your area or family records. And finally, the books. They have so many books, and often large print books, audio books, and physical books. SUPPORT LIBRARIES!!

[abookishidentity]

Books I recently checked out of the library

The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong - This is cosy fantasy and sometimes you need cosy fantasy in your life. I forget how I found out about this book. I am currently reading it and its a delight to read. This book has a two week loan sticker on it which means I can only have it for two weeks as its new. I am less than a hundred pages away from finishing it so that's no problem.

Interstellar Megachef by Lavanya Lakshminarayan- This also can be checked out for two weeks so this one is my next read. I saw the cover of this book and I knew I had to read it. It takes place in space and the main character is competing in a cooking show. That sounds quite entertaining and amusing.

Confounding Oaths by Alexis Hall- I read Mortal Follies and I liked it enough to warrant reading another book by Alexis Hall. This book sounds fun.

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan- I don't remember how I found this book. It appears to be a reimagining of The Scarlet Letter and I do like that book. This will be an interesting read.

Total amount saved: $79.93

[abookishidentity]

Little poll today because I'm curious:

[abookishidentity]

The only card you should be maxing is your library card. Get literate bro

[abookishidentity]

i think it's nice that people write books and it's possible to read them. often through the public library system

[abookishidentity]

Happy National Library Week!! A great time to ask everyone you know if they have a library card.

[abookishidentity]

YOOOOOO I JUST GOT MY FIRST LIBRARY CARD SINCE LIKE 2007 IT WAS SO EASY???

Like they literally just needed any photo ID with an address, I thought they needed like unopened mail and paperwork and crap, it took 5 goddamn minutes, I did it on my way home from work

And was NOBODY gonna tell me libraries have websites now with ebooks and audiobooks and documentaries and British TV and shit???

Why the FUCK have I been paying Netflix

GO GET A LIBRARY CARD

[abookishidentity]

Books I recently checked out of the library

My Funny Demon Valentine by Aurora Ascher- I thought the plot of demons escaping hell was an interesting one. I should have done more research as I did not know this was romantic fantasy. It had a lot more sex in it than I thought. I already finished it. It was not for me. Lesson learned.

Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett - I read the other two Emily Wilde books and so naturally I have to read this one. I am about half way. I appreciate it a lot more since I read the previous book first.

Toto by A.J Hackwith- I saw this book in the next section at the library I work at and thought it sounded fun. However, there is only so much a dog can do so I wonder if that will become tedious. I have read another book by A.J Hackwith so hopefully I like this one.

An Inheritance of Magic by Benedict Jacka- This books just seems interesting to me. I think it's urban fantasy? Its written by the same guy who writes the Fated book series which I'm pretty sure is urban fantasy. I want to read that series but this is at the library I work at so I'm reading it. The plot seems fun.

[abookishidentity]

British slang

Sometimes I will read a book by an author who is not American and a word will come up (or phrase) and I will be like "huh?"

Like a few days ago I was reading The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde and I read the phrase "Flutter on the gee gees."

I had to look that one up. I had never heard of that phrase. The person was asking the main character if she bets on horse racing.

Usually its just a word but a whole phrase was quite something.

It just proves that I need to read more books that aren't written by Americans.

[abookishidentity]

hello fellow non-Black tumblr users. welcome to my saw trap. if you'd like to leave, please name one (1) Black woman author who is not Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, bell hooks, Octavia Butler, or N.K. Jemisin. bonus points if she's published a book in the last five years.

[abookishidentity]

Books read and finished in March 2025

-The Mortal Word by Genevieve Cogman- 4/5 stars. So dragons are the order and the fae are chaotic. I say it's pretty chaotic that each time a dragon gets pissy they end up affecting the world they are in and end up damaging it. 

Someone: You will be given a fae representative 

Me: It’s going to be silver. 

Irene: It’s going to be Lord Silver. 

Lord Silver: Hello there everyone! It’s me! 

Me: Of course 

Irene: Fucking of course! It’s not like I have other bullshit to worry about! 

-The Secret Chapter by Genevieve Cogman- 3/5 stars. This one didn’t hit as much for me. Maybe I don’t really care for the heist trope? This one felt like a James Bond movie mixed with a heist movie. Perhaps I don’t heists because nothing goes to plan and I like plans sticking tight. I didn’t like that Irene woke up in Mr Nemo’s lair again in a bikini and a fucking collar. Fucking gross. It was badass of her that she could only use written language so she carved her arm up to get blood so she can write commands in the library language on the collar. Another thing that I didn’t like was that Indigo was portrayed as bad. Her motivations were justified to me. Dragons shouldn’t rule everything and shouldn’t control everything. 

-The Dark Archive by Genevieve Cogman- 5/5 stars. I loved this one. Best one in the series so far. I have a separate post for this one so I’m not going to go into detail here. 

-Machinehood by S.B Divya- 3/5 stars. Sometimes science fiction books feel very modern when you read them. The science fiction elements were interesting; they just felt like something we are currently seeing. This is the point of science fiction but I want to read things that I never read about. I know terrorism and terrorist groups aren’t supposed to make much sense with their ideals and such but the one in this book didn’t make sense to me. Also, I feel like the leader gave up too easily. I don’t know. At least it didn’t end with complete genocide. 

-Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow- 3/5 stars. This was a short read. It’s always interesting when death doesn’t really exist anymore in the world. People can die, it's just they make backups of themselves and then that backup goes into a new body. People can essentially live forever that way but are they really themselves at that point? It really has a ship of theseus vibe to it. Anyway, the main character gets a little caught up in something and is essentially losing it. I wonder what would have happened if he just fucked his best friend named Dan and called it a day. It’s clear that these two men care for each other. It’s weird that when you essentially can live out several lifetimes, the age difference between people can become worse. Sure they may look the same age but one person could be a century older but in a different body. It’s fucking weird. Main character leaves Disney world with Dan at the end so at least there’s that. I wish we got more of the world aside from Disney World. I’m not sure if it was open like it is now and they were trying to make the park more tech heavy? 

-The Untold Story by Genevieve Cogman- 5/5 stars. This book was pretty good as well. I can respect a series for ending. Pretty decent ending. Or at least, a stopping point. I wouldn’t know where it would go from here as she has found out her parents, and how who was really controlling the library. Three powerful entities controlling everything through their library brands. I was quite shocked when Irene’s was burned off. But I guess it came back at the end? If she could say things in the language then I guess it was back? Anyway, I was convinced that Brandamant was her birth mother. I was wrong. I thought her being at the heart of the library was pretty cool. Like I said, a pretty good stopping point. A good series to read. I am really glad I read it. I love the relationship between Irene, Kai and Vale. They make a pretty good team. And they all care about each other. My last remaining thoughts are that its always entertaining when the chapter takes place in Kai’s perspective. He doesn’t have as much experience as Irene so his solving problem skills are different. It’s quite amusing to read when he is in charge. He is so broody and angsty with Irene. It’s quite nice when he is with different people. Hilarity ensues. Also another remaining thought is this: Do all the people who live in the worlds, who are not part of the fae or dragons, know there are many different worlds? I’m going to say no.I don’t really remember Vale’s introduction to all of it is.  

-Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman- 4/5 stars. This book is pretty good. There are a few lines here and there that made me think the book was written in 2016 or something. It makes Carl/the author sound homophobic or something. There are some problematic lines in this book but it’s not as prominent as other books I have read. This book reminds me of some aspects of The Hunger Games. The tv show aspect was not as annoying as I thought. It was Hunger Games like. This book is quite dark and haunting if you stop and think about it. Thinking about all the people who died, thinking about all the disenfranchised people who might have wandered into the dungeon by mistake, and thinking about all the people who lost their families in the dungeon. I would imagine it would not go easy on you if you were a small child or the elderly or disabled in any way. The book is quite detailed and it makes me think how long it took the author to come up with each thing. I didn’t realize this was a series until I hit half way through the book and they completed the first level. I am intrigued enough to keep going but the local libraries around me don’t have the whole series and I am not going to buy books unless I have to. Donut is amazing and the fact she was given the power of speech is great. Donut and Carl make a good team. Carl is going to have so much PTSD. The utter bullshit is real. 

-CyberMage by Saad Z. Hossain- 3/5 stars. This book had some cool story building. The stuff with the nanotech and AI gods running shit was cool. The main character was a 15-16 year old boy who was a hacker, was clearly spoiled by his parents, and hardly spent time outside of virtual reality. So naturally he is a bit insufferable and feels like he could be an incel. But I can’t completely hate him as he is 15-16 and he has time to grow. Besides I’m sure the events that happened to him in this book humbled him. Something that is weird is that he is emancipated from his parents and yet he still lived with them? He had a pygmy elephant which I found endearing. I hope it survived at the end. The only reason he started going to public school was because of a girl who didn’t even like him. And naturally the boy she had something with was a bully who would beat the main character up. It’s all fucked. The fat shaming of the main character was terribly annoying.  I’m just glad we also followed a different character who was a golem and chopped people’s heads off. That was much more interesting. 

-The Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin- 4/5 stars. Ahh another urban fantasy series I want to read and yet the rest of the books aren’t at the library. Oh well. This is a pretty great book. Kind of long though. Should have been like 100 pages less. Anyway, Matthew Swift is an interesting urban fantasy protagonist. For a good while I had no idea what he was and the book wasn’t exactly giving me the answers. He is a sorcerer but he has the “blue electric angels” living inside him. That’s pretty damn interesting. First book plus a resurrection means we don’t know for sure if he is acting like himself or it was the angels. He sometimes says “We” and sometimes he says “I” I guess it really depends on who’s talking. The electric angels make him sound quite innocent and naive about the world. Almost childish in a way. Anyway, this book is about revenge and he gets his revenge. Although I hate that a woman is mentioned throughout the book, we get some backstory of her and the main character and then she is fucking killed. I feel there might be hypocrisy in this book. Matthew is like “how dare you want to call the electric angels” and yet he called them when he was dying? Also did it take them two years for resurrect him or did the woman who died live for two years, decided that everything is bullshit and then resurrected him? He seems pretty pissed that he was resurrected. Anyway, despite all that, the book was pretty damn great. It was quite descriptive and flowery with its language which I was actually into. 

-The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso- 4.5/5 stars. This book was pretty damn great. I love the time loop aspect of it all. It must be pretty traumatizing to see people die in every loop and then seeing them again alive in the next one. The main character is pretty cool and so is her love interest. The main character can side step which is pretty fucking neat. It’s basically going into an in between place while everything else is frozen and popping up where she needs to go. I think I read something like that in an urban fantasy book. The main reason she learned side stepped is that she was constantly trying to find her childhood friend. That whole thing is amazing especially when there is a reveal about it. Interesting first book of a series. Her life before this book sounded quite interesting. But it’s pretty fascinating how much she takes her life seriously because she has a baby. This book has an interesting world and interesting characters. Sort of reminds me of The Invisible Library world. Overall a pretty great book.

[abookishidentity]

When I check out 8 books at once