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we need to make using chatgpt embarrassing bc sorry it really is. what do you mean you can’t write an email

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Highs in the 70s Fahrenheit feel like a gift

It was 67 degrees the other morning 🍂🍂

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Love at First Flight (CBR17 #34)

Grief can be a hard thing to balance in a romance novel. I am particularly wary of books around the grief associated with the death of dads, which is why I had initially held off on starting Janine Amesta’s Love at First Flight even though emmalita sang its praises. But I started following Amesta on Instagram and when she put out a call for ARC readers I signed up… and received a copy of her…

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The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam (CBR17 #33)

The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam is the third and final book in the series that began with The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy. It was one of my most looked forward to books of the year, and while it was possibly my least favorite of the three, it still has that Megan Bannen way of approaching a story that I love. In her Fun Author Questions with Powell’s Books Bannen talks about loving to mash…

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Where You're Planted (CBR17 #32)

This is a sneaky, emotional book about what community is and what it means to people.   I don’t remember exactly what made me put this on my to read list back in April, but one of the reviewers I follow reviewed it as an ARC in March and described its vibe as “echoes of Nora Roberts with a flair of Anita Kelly + Kate Clayborn that really made me smile and tugged at my heart”. Okay, La Nora has…

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The Mimicking of Known Successes (CBR17 #31)

The Mimicking of Known Successes can be quickly described as what if Sherlock Holmes, but sapphic and in a sci-fi future where the Earth is uninhabitable and humans have colonized Jupiter?   Malka Ann Older’s resume is a wide combination of things, and it feeds directly into the kind of book that The Mimicking of Known Successes is. We have here a book that examines what happens next when final…

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I’m not even caught up but yep

u could just ask him out like a normal person 🙄

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Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy (CBR17 #30)

My summer reading has been slow going, and my brain hasn’t wanted to focus on things that are new all that well. So, I’ve met my brain where it’s at – spending time scrolling through fanfiction, rewatching favorite series, and hunting up novella length books that sound good. When it was announced that Reactor was going to have another novelette in the Murderbot universe, this time focusing on…

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The Maiden and Her Monster (CBR17 #29)

By about 10% into the book, I was reminded viscerally of The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden. When reviewing that book I focused on the idea of there being a special power in taking a known story and envisioning it in a new way. I’m firmly of the opinion that approaching storytelling that way – taking what has existed previously and viewing it another way – can lead to some inventive…

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Sources:

Franz Kafka, Letter to Oskar Pollak (8 November 1903)//Carrie Brownstein, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl//Annelyse Gelman, from “The Pillowcase”//A Self-Portrait in Letters, Anne Sexton//Madeline Miller, excerpt from Circe//Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood//Nick Earls, The Fix//Thomas Builds-the-Fire, Smoke Signals by Sherman Alexie

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Being sensitive to changes in barometric pressure is crazy what do you mean my problem is that the wind changed direction. What do you mean it's the fuckin clouds

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providence & judgement thy name is night shift

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Seriously one of my favorite dynamics in the entire show is Sister Michael reading Father Peter for filth.

Derry Girls 1x03, 2x01, 3x01, 3x07 >> Father Peter & Sister Michael

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Out on a Limb (CBR17 #28)

Playing around with tropes is part of the fun of reading in any given genre. Seeing how an author chooses to put the pieces together, which ones they decide to leave out of the equation entirely, how they create an entirely new thing using components that are eminently familiar is what keeps us coming back.  Following reading Next of Kin earlier this year I trusted Hannah Bonam-Young to play…

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so since i’m talking about framing and like the way the pitt characters stand/act. in contrast to frank’s need to bring attention to himself, whitaker is constantly making himself so small!! like he’s constantly slouching and standing really scrunched up

he very obviously does not enjoy attention which is rlly sad considering how often he’s put in situations. like he’s always shocked that someone sees him and talks to him!!! he’s forced into scenes and into conversation. quite literally when it comes to robby snatching him up all the time lmao

maybe that’s why i find his & santos’ relationship so cute. like she’s so cocky and confident n whitaker seems like the kind of guy who would cower at that but he doesn’t!!!

he’s just as much of a shithead as she is! he stands up straight around her, pokes little jabs, he’s also incredibly honest with her! i say incredibly but like. he lets his guard down in a way that he doesn’t with his peers. he’s just a little brother lookin for a big sister!!!

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Small stuff characters do that says a lot

☽ he’s sitting there tracing the rim of his coffee cup with his finger, which is his way of disappearing without leaving the room. probably overthinking. or dissociating. or both.

☽ she keeps tucking that same damn piece of hair behind her ear over and over again. but it’s not about the hair. she’s dodging eye contact and lowkey panicking inside.

☽ he’s twisting his ring. like, not even consciously. it’s just this old habit he picked up years ago when things were bad and now it just happens when his brain starts spiraling.

☽ she lets out this super tiny sigh, barely even a sound, but if you know her, you know that’s her version of screaming into a pillow.

☽ he raises an eyebrow and it’s giving “are you serious right now?” without him needing to say a single word.

☽ she adjusts her glasses but not because they need adjusting, no, it’s because she’s nervous and doesn’t know what else to do with her hands.

☽ he’s tapping his fingers on the table. not a full-on drum solo, just this soft, steady rhythm that probably makes sense in his head and nowhere else.

☽ she laughs, but it’s this quiet little breath of a laugh. the kind where you can’t tell if she’s actually amused or just pretending to feel something.

☽ he folds the corner of the book page he’s reading. not to save his place, he just liked that part and didn’t know how else to hold onto it.

☽ she keeps shifting her weight from foot to foot, like she’s physically trying not to run away from the conversation.