englishobservations

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it's so wild to me that you absolutely cannot force a hyperfixation to happen. like you'll watch the most perfectly tailor-made-for-you content that everyone says you'll love and feel absolutely nothing, and then the thing you watch on a whim to fill time will reach through the screen and put its damn fingers in your brain and start rearranging the neurons right in front of you and every single time you're like THIS??? THIS??????? and this happens like every 6-12 months forever

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ig: AccioBooksAndSunshine

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For anyone who loved The Raven Cycle, but thought, "that could've been scarier": This book is for you.

Don't Let the Forest In follows Andrew Perrault, returning to the elite Wickwood Academy for his senior year. And although high school has never been easy for Andrew, from the start, this year is different. His twin sister, Dove, is keeping him at arms length, and his best friend Thomas is acting strangely, disappearing into the forest behind the school at night. One night, Andrew follows him, to find Thomas fighting off horrifying creatures. But there's something familiar about these creatures: they look exactly like the ones from Thomas's drawings.

I absolutely devoured this book. It had me up way too late reading, and even though I finished at 3am, I wanted to turn to the beginning and start all over again. (And, at the cost of precious sleep, I did in fact reread the first chapter.)

I would recommend this book to anyone, and it's got me super excited to tackle CG Drews' backlist. The characters leap off the page and sink claws into your heart (in a good way). They're complex and messy and in need of a good hug. Andrew and Thomas are just two kids trying their best to figure out the world, and each other. My heart ached for them both, even when I wanted to shout at them. This story also has some of the best ace rep I've ever read. Andrew's identity is central to the story, and woven into all of his choices seamlessly, in a way that feels natural without distracting from the story.

I was on the edge of my seat the whole time and came away from the story thoroughly haunted. (It was maybe a mistake to read this in the middle of the night.... walking to the bathroom after was a terrifying experience.) Drews' prose is evocative, equal parts beautiful and macabre.

Thanks so much to Netgalley & Macmillan for the free review copy. Happy to say that I ordered my own copy before I even finished the ARC🖤

and thank goodness I did because do you SEE the barnes & noble special edition??? the DRAWINGS. and the @paperfury annotated chapter?? I’m obsessed

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The fact that people don't think friendship is enough to justify characters doing insane acts of love for each other baffles me. Like have you never loved your friend so so much you want to live in their ribcage. Have you never been really weird about a friend. Have you never wanted to bite your friends parents or shove them down a staircase. Have you never wanted to be buried in the same grave as a friend. Have u never. How do u people live like this.

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There’s two ends of the horror spectrum

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the thing is that childhood doesn't just end when you turn 18 or when you turn 21. it's going to end dozens of times over. your childhood pet will die. actors you loved in movies you watched as a kid will die. your grandparents will die, and then your parents will die. it's going to end dozens and dozens of times and all you can do is let it. all you can do is stand in the middle of the grocery store and stare at freezers full of microwave pizza because you've suddenly been seized by the memory of what it felt like to have a pizza party on the last day of school before summer break. which is another ending in and of itself

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"I know chatgpt is bad but you just don't really have any choice" you literally do. Don't use it. Have some moral backbone.

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Circe by Madeline Miller

Book Review and Recommendation ISBN: 978-0-316-55634-7 Hardcover May 3rd, 2025 to May 21st, 2025 (second read through) some spoilers Stars: one being worst, 5 being best

~⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️~

This is my second read through of Circe by Madeline Miller. The first time I read it was in about 2018. I still love it as much as I did the first time reading. It is written so beautifully and is an amazing retelling of the Greek Myth of Circe, daughter of Helios, witch of Aiaia. It discusses the struggles of morality and mortality through Circe's dilemmas with her own divinity and comparing herself to the other gods-- Titans and Olympians alike. Not only that, but it also brings up struggles that woman go through and have gone through within our history that doesn't even escape deities. A series of characters throughout the book change and shape Circe to who she becomes by the end, such as Prometheus, Daedalus, Odysseus, and Telemachus. They show her something different than what she has always known coming from the divine. This novel is very focused on character growth. She learned that she didn’t have to be like the other gods or nymphs, she could be something else, anything else and ultimately change her “fate” and “destiny.” She doesn’t have to be trapped.

I’m really not too sure how much I want to reveal in this review, but I ended up creating a GoogleDoc with so many notes for this book. I think I’ll leave it here for now. But, I definitely highly recommend this novel if you love Greek myths/retellings and stories based around the characters and their growth. If you’d like to hear more let me know. I’m getting back into the swing of things with coming back here to tumblr so I hope it’s not too confusing.

— Marisa Ann.

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“What if I write it and it’s bad-”

WHAT IF YOU WRITE IT AND ITS GOOD? WHAT IF YOU WRITE IT AND ITS EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANTED? WHAT THEN????

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Reading is always a good idea 📖

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Warm mugs and handwritten margins, croissants beside chess boards, and stories read under fading light. A soft kind of ambition — where intellect meets comfort, and every detail feels like home.

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the thing about being nonbinary is that you really do start to forget that other people have such strict walls around what is and isn’t allowed for genders. i thought we all agreed that we made that up. could you climb out of the cave real quick and feel the sunshine for a minute.

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I think I’m coming back to tumblr. For reading and writing 🥰 it’s been a long time coming and I recently moved and set up my reading nook. I have a whole other corner dedicated to manga, as wellllll.

Plans to review A Certain Hunger and Circe

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yall have to stop insulting your own art in the caption and preemptively pointing out mistakes 90% of people probably won't notice. allow things to not be perfect. allow yourself some grace

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Fantasy readers of tumblr please help me. I’m a huge fan of epic fantasy like wheel of time, lord of the rings, game of thrones and just about anything brandon sanderson. But all these incredible series that i love are always written by men and the female characters tend to fall short.

I want to support female writers and have some well written female characters but the fantasy genre has been almost entirely usurped by “romantasy” which i truly cannot stand and I’m struggling to find anything i would enjoy. Does anyone have any epic fantasy recommendations by women???

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