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The Bone Shard Daughter

First impressions:

Lin: I feel like this girl is gonna have her whole entire worldview completely shattered. The illness that makes you lose your memory is bullshit.

Jovis: I have a soft spot for him bc he has a similar name to Jovan from the Poison Wars. And a pet!!!

Phalue: Just as I was thinking that this book needed some queer characters, especially lesbians, a wild Phalue appeared! Plus, I was certain Ranami was gonna disappear like the people in Jovis’ chapters seem to.

Sand: She’s. She’s a construct, isn’t she.

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The Cat Who Saved Books

I too need a cat to help me fight consumerism and self esteem issues.

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The Woman in White

Me for the entirety of Vincent Gilmore’s (the solicitor’s) pov: shut up shut up shut up uuuuuugh shut uuuup

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Does not liking the Raven Cycle make me a fake tumblr book girly? :(

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jonathan harker on may 12th: i witnessed with abject terror as the count descended the sheer stone wall of the castle face first as a lizard would. the unmitigated horror of the spectacle haunts my waking hours like an inescapable nightmare. this man or this thing shall surely be my undoing.

jonathan harker on may 15th: saw the old bastard do the crawling trick again and honestly fuck him it's not even that impressive i don't even care anymore i hope he falls.

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City of Lies

I’m only about 100 pages in, but is this a book from the oppressors’ viewpoint??? This is really really good so far.

The three kids’ naivety is very well done. The way they’re all in disbelief that anyone in their entourage could be a traitor. Poor guys.

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Men Without Women

So, I started reading Murakami.

I’ve been meaning to for a few years now, but to be honest his books intimidate me quite a bit. Not just the length, but also the way people talk about them, this air of elitism that surrounds them, how his books are deep and philosophical and sure, while he might be a bit sexist at times, everything else about his writing is top tier.

Men without women is a collecting of short stories that I picked up because of my book club. I was a bit confused by the genre, since I’ve heard that Murakami writes mostly magical realism. This was all contemporary fiction, which left me a bit disappointed.

Did I hate this book? No, not really. Did I like it? Definitely not. The only story that really touched me was Yesterday. Otherwise, there was too much sex, cheating and a weird hyperfixation on erection.

And now, I’m unsure. Is this just a bad Murakami book and not representative of his writing or am I just too asexual for his works.

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So, I keep seeing people talk about how good The Bear and the Nightingale (and the whole Winternight trilogy) is.

But can someone who has read the book and is actually familiar with Russian folk tales tell me if the books are gonna feel weird/cringe/plain embarrassing about it?

This is coming from someone who, when hearing John Wick’s "spooky" Russian nickname was "Baba Yaga", promptly stopped watching the film.

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Divine Rivals

Cute cute cute cute cute cute oh my god there’s an actual war going on cute cute cute cute cute oh my god they’re in the trenches cute cute cute cute cu-

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Oh to be a character named Victor and, in the pursuit of science, to discover yourself a monster of your own creation.

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I don't post much about nonfiction on here, but considering the strike this week I thought I'd share some of the books I've read on Palestine/Gaza in the last couple months. I got these for free from haymarket books & verso books (or my library). I recommend picking up some if not all of these.

The Hundred Years War on Palestine & The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine go into the last 100 years of Palestine's history and occupation

Ten Myths About Israel gives a bit of an more brief overview centred around Israeli propaganda

A Socialist Revolution and BDS go into history & freedom/rights movements & institutional boycotts, in Palestine and globally

Freedom Is A Constant Struggle connects Palestinian liberation movements with Ferguson and Black liberation in the US

They Called Me A Lioness is about the experiences of Palestinians in the West Bank, and a teen girls' 8 month imprisonment

Light In Gaza is various essays on different elements of oppression, resistance, and life in Gaza

The Palestine Laboratory is about Israel's military tech being developed & tested on Palestinians and how it's used all around the world.

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i refuse to defend my favorite characters. They did that horrible thing bc they suck really bad

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Top 5 Worst Books of 2023

The criteria for "worst" include but are not limited to: genuinely badly written, I had too many expectations and was disappointed, just not my thing, boring and "idk I just felt like it".

5. Witchmark by C.L. Polk

Great idea, bad execution. As in, the writing isn’t very good. The pacing was extremely weird, alternating between excruciatingly slow and too quick. And there’s a fae (they’re not called fae, but you know what I mean) jump-scare.

4. The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi

I saw this being recommended as similar to Six of Crows. It is not. Yes, there’s a heist and some found family vibes and multiple POVs and queer characters, but that’s about it. This book just didn’t live up to my expectations. It wasn’t necessarily bad, it was just extremely average. There were too many main characters to properly develop all of them. The heist itself was a mess of illogical puzzles. I liked the fact that there’s some critique of colonialism, but it also felt very surface level. I’m just disappointed and kinda sad about it.

3. Things We Say in the Dark by Kristy Logan

This book has been sitting on my tbr since 2019, when it first came out. I finally read it for a book club and god, was I disappointed. Kristy Logan really said "Ooooh, look how vague and mysterious I can be" and then just gave us a bunch of half finished badly written stories. There were some good ideas in there and even stories that I somewhat liked. If only they had had the chance to develop a little bit more.

2. The Element of Fire by Martha Wells

As a big fan of Wells’ Murderbot Diaries, I decided to check out some of her other works. The Element of Fire is the fist of her books she’s ever published and you can feel it. This was tedious and boring. The world and the characters are very underdeveloped. And the fairies. I was not expecting the fae. I did not want to read about the fae. There is a flying castle though, so that’s nice.

1. Yoshi and the bird by Duran Sakagawa

I have a friend who really likes birds and Japanese and Korean authors. Every year, we try to do a buddy read or a reading challenge together. Yoshi and the bird was this year’s victim. Honestly, I was expecting a cute story about a boy who picks up a bird who fell out of its nest. Maybe a slightly melancholic life lesson. Maybe some veiled social commentary. Not this. What was this. How is this one of the most out of pocket violent and depressing books I have ever read. And when I say violent, I mean it. Why. There was absolutely no need for that ending.

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I’m sorry, bird suicide??? I can deal with bird religion, but suicide? And Yoshi too??? He’s, like, 12 if not less. What are you doing. What is this book doing.

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Top 5 Best Books of 2023

Because I smh read 106 books this year and I need to scream about this.

1. Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

Do I even need to explain? It’s the Stormlight Archive. It’s Kaladin.

2. The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

Omg. Oh. My. God. This book was made for me. Time travel shenanigans? Check. Non-linear narration? Check. Assembling the story piece by piece until you realise that everything you’ve been told is a lie? Check! And off course a casually queer protagonist. What else could you possibly want.

3. Vicious by V. E. Schwab

The atmosphere was immaculate. The characters absolutely unhinged. I have a couple of complaints about the sequel, but this first book was exactly what I want from a story about villains. Does anyone want to experiment on ourselves in the name of science and then go absolutely batshit crazy and try to murder each other? No?

4. Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

I really wasn’t expecting to like this book so much. I’m not usually one for romance, but this hit me like a bag of bricks. I wanna have what they have (politically, that is).

5. The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

My favourite book in the series, thought I haven’t finished Return of the Thief yet. As a big lover of the POV Outsider tag on ao3, The Queen’s Thief books give me so much joy.

Honorary mentions: Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher, The Divide series by J.S. Dewes, Первая Печать by Natalia Osoianu, Le Comte de Monte-Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

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The sequel was disappointing though. :((

The pace was much slower and that made the book lose a lot of its chaotic dynamic.

I’m still probably going to read the next book when it comes out. I really think the characters have a lot of potential.

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London

This was so cute oh my god???

It does suffer from the usual YA problems like underdeveloped characters and a predictable plot, but otherwise it’s unexpectedly good.

Yes, Susan, the MC, is very much the "chosen one" with special powers and special parentage but it’s not annoying and they don’t make her overpowered. And she’s punk!

Merlin is a delightful love interest. Loved the approach to his gender and how the fact that he’s questioning it doesn’t make him any less attractive, flirty and self-assured. Again, I would have loved a bit more elaboration on this topic, but maybe we’ll get it in the next book.

I thought at first that the constant clothes descriptions would annoy me, but they ended up being a really fun detail.

The worldbuilding is interesting but sparse. Not developed enough.

Overall, very easy and light read.

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Swordheart

Me: Hentai slime? What are you doing in this book?

Me, a few pages later: Oh, ok, it’s fungal horror slime. Never mind, this makes sense.

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The Left-Handed Booksellers of London

This was so cute oh my god???

It does suffer from the usual YA problems like underdeveloped characters and a predictable plot, but otherwise it’s unexpectedly good.

Yes, Susan, the MC, is very much the "chosen one" with special powers and special parentage but it’s not annoying and they don’t make her overpowered. And she’s punk!

Merlin is a delightful love interest. Loved the approach to his gender and how the fact that he’s questioning it doesn’t make him any less attractive, flirty and self-assured. Again, I would have loved a bit more elaboration on this topic, but maybe we’ll get it in the next book.

I thought at first that the constant clothes descriptions would annoy me, but they ended up being a really fun detail.

The worldbuilding is interesting but sparse. Not developed enough.

Overall, very easy and light read.