megnrdyfreakx3

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5 Read-A-Likes for The Umbrella Academy

The Umbrella Academy is now a 10-episode series on Netflix and people (including me) are loving it. Viewers follow seven supernaturally-gifted adopted siblings in the aftermath of their father’s death. With quirky powers, emotionally-stunted characters, and an apocalypse on the way, what’s not to love. Although the series is adapted from an award-winning comic book series written by Gerald Way and illustrated by Gabriel Bá, fans of the comics will notices changes in casting, scene curation, and some plot choices. Nevertheless, the series is a stellar example of an adaptation that pleases the fan base and appeals to the masses, so here are some read-a-likes to occupy your time afterward. 

Meddling Kids By Edgar Cantaro

Heres the premise:

If the kids in Mystery Incorporated from Scooby Doo grew up and everything in their lives went wrong because of their last mission. The jock turned movie star committed suicide, the horror nerd was committed after seeing his ghost, the budding scientist ended up as a bartender, and the tomboy of the group is wanted in multiple states. We love the classic let down of prodigy culture with a little supernatural horror thrown in.

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

You have:

Teens saving the world from an apocalyptic future

Absolute power corrupting absolutely after one mysterious day

Hilariously specific main characters

An old man in charge with a mysterious past

A series supervillains with oddly specific powers

Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire

So, contrary to the title there is no Armageddon at the end of the book, you do have a family of secretly-trained Incryptid specialists who grew up knowing how to create fake identities and escape from any situation. The Price family aims to protect American monsters from a European institution who would wipe them all out. As adults, they try to understand their training to find their place in the world… It’s a great time.

Zeros By Scott Westerfield, Margo Lanagan, Deborah Biancotti

One Supercrew

Blind girl with the power to see through other’s eyes

The boy no one can remember

A leader with a supernaturally-enigmatic pull

Someone who says what you want to hear… anything you want to hear

A girl who can share her emotions with a crowd

And another who can break any piece of tech

Renegades By Marissa Marr

Our main character is a villain who sneaks into a superhero academy to destroy them from the inside. In a world where superheroes act as the government, police force, and hospitals, normal people no longer feel the need to do anything themselves. 

Superheros are not elected, they don’t answer to the public, so what’s stopping them from making choices for the greater good that are neither great nor good? 

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mid-year wrap up of what i’ve read so far 🫶 i added a cut bc it’s pretty long

except for my last book in june, i honestly haven’t been very impressed by anything i’ve read so far this year. a lot of my reads were good but none were 5 stars. tldr: read the emperor’s soul by brandon sanderson.

i was in a major reading slump this winter so i didn’t read any books in january, february, or march.

~~~

april:

my body by emily ratajkowski

this was very good! i didn’t vibe with it completely at the beginning but her writing style is very beautiful just like her 🤍 i listened to this as an audiobook, which is how i like to read most memoirs

skyward series by brandon sanderson (skyward, starsight, sunreach, redawn, cytonic, evershore, hyperthief, defiant)

i love brandon sanderson but i don’t fw his young adult books. i personally don’t vibe with ya anyway and i think sanderson has trouble with less complex/ya storylines. i was worried that the fight scenes would be boring because they’re fighting in spaceships but the sci-fi aspects were good! and the writing was good. the story just wasn’t giving what brandon is capable of giving.

macbeth by shakespeare

romeo romeo wherefore art thou romeo

crying in h-mart by michelle zauner

i love japanese breakfast and this memoir added so much heart to songs that are already very emotional for me. if you listen to japanese breakfast then you should read this book. it wasn’t necessarily a book that i couldn’t put down, i wish i listened to this as an audiobook instead. however i finished the last probably 20% in one sitting on mother’s day and immediately started watching some interviews of michelle zauner talking about her band and the book and then i gifted my copy of the book to my mother.

~~~

may:

the reckoners series by brandon sanderson (steelheart, mitosis, firefight, calamity, lux)

this series was surprisingly sexist for sanderson. most of his books that i’ve read have had female protagonists but the reckoners follows a man the entire time. the first book was intensely masculine, with david constantly looking at and thinking about megan’s body and only two women in the team, one of which is the love interest and the other barely being a character. the second book moved to a new location and added some new women characters and a female villain but still included moments like when david got danced on by a ‘bodacious’ woman and he compared her sensuality to megan’s tomboyish not-like-other-girls-ness and how he likes megan more than the ‘busty/curvy’ girl. very weird. i liked lux but i would definitely recommend any of sanderson’s adult fantasy books over any of his young adult books that i’ve read.

swimming in the dark by tomasz jedrowski

not the best book i’ve read and not the best lgbtq+ book i’ve read but the plot and writing were good! this book follows two young men in 1980’s poland as they develop feelings for each other under a government + in a time where it’s not really allowed. it’s a very short book so i would recommend it if you’re looking for a short emotional summer read.

the garden of time by j. g. ballard

read bc this was the met gala theme haha. i like short stories a lot and this one was very very good! there are a lot of ways to interpret this short fantastical story so this is a good story to read with a few friends and discuss like a mini book club! this was one of my top fav books of the year (it’s unfortunate that it’s only like 10 pages).

norwegian wood by haruki murakami

i’ve read norwegian wood twice and the plot has never really stuck with me but instead a lot of the simpler moments and ideas have. i first read this a couple of years ago and it was my first murakami book. i was thinking a lot about my gender at the time and this book is very masculine, which was a major plus for me at the time. since then, i’ve read more murakami books and i realized that i wish norwegian wood was a little bit more fantastical. not necessarily magical realism like his other books but i wish the ambiguousness in the ending was the vibe throughout more of the book. which is the complete opposite of how i felt on my first read, i loved how straightforward the book and toru’s character and worldview was.

a wrinkle in time by madeleine l’engle

cute. i wanted to read this very bad when i was a child but i didn’t have access to it and now i’ve read it 🤍

looking for alaska by john green

they could never make me hate john green. i wasn’t as feral about this now as i was when i was 14 but i still adore this book. the reader’s guide introduced me to stephanie says by the velvet underground which is probably going to be my top song this year.

the catcher in the rye by j. d. salinger

similar vibes to norwegian wood. i’ve read this twice and the first time i really liked how masculine and young this book felt. now that i’m older, i still really adore it.

~~~

june:

one true loves by taylor jenkins reid

this concept was very cool but i’m not obsessed with the execution. it reads like sally rooney’s normal people in how there’s little stories for each time period to show how the characters feel about each other but since that writing style is purposely fleeting i felt like it lacked depth for this intense story about grief. i also wish she saw olive more after high school. i did like the ideas in this book but the actual writing was not for me.

an enchanting case of spirits

i did not like this. the main character had an attitude for no reason, every side character was trying to help her out and she had a snarky comment about literally everything anyone said. the enemies to lovers was extremely forced, she hated her neighbor because when her fiancé passed away, he took her trash to the curb and back to the house for her. also fuck cops.

the invention of nature: alexander von humboldt’s new world by andrea wulf

this was surprisingly interesting. i listened to this as an audiobook, mainly for while i was driving. i think if i read it physically i would’ve gotten kind of bored but as a little podcast i was obsessed. i love the author’s hook in the beginning got me very interested, especially when she mentions how he’s the person with the most landmasses named after him and how she explains at the end how he was so impactful but not many people in the modern day know about him.

eragon by christopher paolini

the beginning and the end dragged but through the time that they’re actually on the road traveling i had a good time. this is not the best fantasy book ever but it’s alright.

none of this is true by lisa jewel

the first two sections were veryy addicting, i read this book in one day. however, the third act fell so flat for me. and the middle dragged a tiny bit. i’ll try not to spoil anything but with thrillers like this it’s impossible to review them without giving some stuff away. so my least favorite part about this entire book is how walter’s character is handled. i thought it was disgusting and i couldn’t get past that at all. and i think the epilogue should’ve been much longer than 3 pages, especially since lisa jewel apparently confirmed it in an interview (very much trying not to spoil anything haha). if walter didn’t do what he did then i would have very different feelings towards this book but if lisa was trying to get across what she said in the epilogue, implying very different things about walter than what roxy and erin were saying, then she should’ve made that very clear imo. i like ambiguous endings a lot but not when it comes to stuff like that.

where the wild things are by maurice sendak

one of my fav books as a child. i read this bc i want to rewatch the movie.

nimona by nd stevenson

very cute! but honestly if you didn’t follow this story when it was a webtoon / aren’t obsessed with the movie then i would recommend the movie over the graphic novel.

beach read by emily henry

i loved this concept so much. emily henry’s writing is a little more tropey than i prefer but she is very talented! very very good debut novel.

the selection by kiera cass (+ the queen, the prince, and 25% of the elite)

i would have loved this as a trashy reality show summer read but the dystopian aspects completely completely turned me off of this. it was very much trying to be a “monarchies are good as long as the people in charge are nice :))” while also being a rags to riches “look at the big pretty dress” and the message just didn’t make sense.

the emperor’s soul by brandon sanderson

i would recommend this to literally every single person. it took me about few pages to get into but like wow. this is a very good introduction to sanderson because it’s a short novella that isn’t connected to any of his big series. i read this in literally one sitting because it’s so gripping. the themes on creation, being an artist in a greedy world, and what it means to be a person from the most basic parts of our personalities is just so. beautiful. amazing. gorgeous. and the ending prologue makes the beginning make so much sense if you’re familiar with the cosmere (but you aren’t missing anything by using this as an introduction to sanderson).

[megnrdyfreakx3]

"Ain't nobody what knows the cow better than the butcher" is such an inspired and underrated quote from Wayne Terrisborn, and it being preceded by "Your grasp of the language is startling, considering how you so frequently brutalize it" from Wax only makes it better in every way!

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I want to get into posting some of my original world-building stuff but it's kind of intimidating. Like, where does one even begin explaining the machinations that go into building an entire world? Especially right now when I have some concepts for characters that exist within the world but nothing solid. Hm...

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kh community rn

[megnrdyfreakx3]

YALL BETTER LET ME THROW HANDS BY PLAYING AS KING MICKEY. YALL GOT A CHANCE TO LET ME DO ONE OF THE COOLEST THINGS EVER SQUARE. I BEG OF YOU. LET US SLASH SOME HEARTLESS WITH THE KING

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Let’s get hunted by mama

[megnrdyfreakx3]

oh my god

[megnrdyfreakx3]

Okay I’m most of the way through “Alloy of Law” and I’ve got to start a running list of the references to era 1 that just make me smile or laugh. This isn’t everything, just the particular notables that bring me joy.

Marewill flowers! Beautiful that they are named for the woman who ensured their memory was kept alive.

Vindication 😂 I’m not sure how Vin would take this but I sure enjoy it.

The Old High Imperial Language! 🤣🤣🤣 Spook this briefly made you my favorite. (Sorry to any Spook fans but while I get his feelings, his inferiority complex drove me crazy so I’m not the biggest Spook fan, but the fact he manages to make Eastern Street Slang a thing of high society is Top Notch, and definitely had Kelsier cackling)

Also I though the field of rebirth as the center of Elendel (I appreciate all the names as well) to be very beautiful.

[megnrdyfreakx3]

So a "hawk-like" face is just Brandon Sanderson's signal for a character that has a lot of internal struggle with the nature of justice and what's right and is a foil to the main character's sense of honor, then?

Marsh spotted! Love Marsh! *heart eyes made out of iron spikes*

Miles' last words remind me of the last words in Taravangian's hospitals in the lead up to the Everstorm.

Did Wayne steal a copy of Watership Down? Or did some author on Scadrial just independently come up with a novel about talking bunnies? Is Richard Adams a Worldhopper?

[megnrdyfreakx3]

ID credit: 879382678 on 小红书

(please like, reblog and give proper credit if you use any of my gifs!)

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Slightly moving away from stormlight, but staying in the same universe...

[megnrdyfreakx3]

above luthadel

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Allrianne, Vin, and Tindwyl from Well of Ascension.

I wish we got to see Vin and Allri get a little more friendly. Not because I ship them nope nuh-uh *cough*

I forgot Tindwyl has a long-ass braid so OOPS guess I'll have to draw her again oh no how terrible. 🤷‍♀️

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[megnrdyfreakx3]

This joke doesn't work if you use the default tumblr theme, sorry.

[megnrdyfreakx3]

2024 books - the well of ascension (mistborn #2) by brandon sanderson

"At first glance, the key and the lock it fits may seem very different. Different in shape, different in function, different in design. The man who looks at them without knowledge of their true nature might think them opposites, for one is meant to open, and the other to keep closed. Yet upon closer examination, he might see that without one, the other becomes useless. The wise man then knows that both lock and key were created for the same purpose."