#May Reading Log

[madeofmydreams]

Ully’s May Reading Log

I spend entirely too much time reading and have catalogued the experience for the month of May. I’m making a post because my friend @ice-mage does this and reading books he’s recommended is always a delight.

Totals for works read to completion in the month of May: 32 works (7 fic and 25 original). ~2,575,000 words / 9,199 pages. 2 rereads.

Best:

Tied for 1st:

We Were Never Lovers by Sasha Avice [wc ~98k pc 325]

Rated: Adore

Summary: When Aboriginal footballer Sean Hiller wakes up in the hospital he’s confused and put out that everyone seems to think his good for nothing white boy teammate Jack Reaver is his bestie. He’s missing the last two years of his life though and when it’s time for discharge Jack is the only person available to keep an eye on him at home so he guesses he can tolerate him for a little bit.

My Personal Thoughts: We were never lovers takes amnesia and somehow makes it completely believable. The characters are real and messy and not always likeable but I rooted for them anyway. It deals with the intersection of race and ethnicity. With grief and isolation. With what happens when you believe it's all just understood and then you realize no actually... they didn't know you love them.

Meet Me in the Sky by Jeffery K Davenport [wc ~98k pc 324]

Rated: Adore

Summary: Billy is on his way to be the best man-of-honor his little sister could possibly ask for. He is perfectly organized and perfectly packed and he’s prepared to not think at all about his ex-husband thank you very much. Leaving his phone in his uber is a minor inconvenience that cascades into a hilarious chain of events.

My Personal Thoughts: This story is so well written. It’s hysterical and poignant. I love that it features 2 queer black men. Billy and Michael are great. The writing reminds me of Fredrik Backman. The only bits of the story that I didn’t like were some minor inconsistencies (at one point they go to buy toothbrushes and toothpaste but never complete the purchase, then later when they kiss Billy thinks about how Michael is minty. How? No toothcare has happened!) Also Billy mentions being a bit concerned about money but he spends money like someone who isn’t all that concerned about money… It’s the second book Jeffery Davenport has written (I read it first) and it’s better than his first one so I really look forward to whatever he publishes next.

Tied for 3rd:

A Spell for Heart Sickness by Alistair Reeves [wc ~99k pc 330]

Rated: Love/Adore

Summary: Briar is a flamboyant witch who is just finishing up school and is about to start his residency. He’s an orphan *and* ailing from a terminal curse so he has to work twice as hard as his peers to make his mark but he’s clever and kind and determined to become something great before the curse does him in.

My Personal Thoughts: This story is both cozy and high stakes. I loved the magic system. I loved Briar. I loved that Briar is a dumb genius and that the prophesies he experiences just make it harder for him to live his life.

You & Me by Tal Bauer [wc ~115k pc 384]

Rated: Love/Adore

Summary: Single dad Luke just wants to find a way to connect to his teenaged son, he wasn’t planning to become best friends with another one of the dads that helps out at Last Waters High School football games. Sometimes things you don’t plan for can be good though.

My Personal Thoughts: While You&Me is 40 year old single dads friends to lovers it's also soooooo much more than that. The father son relationships are nuanced and painful and just so good. There's religious trauma and grief. I laughed aloud at least 5 times while reading it.

Worst:

The Ballerino and the Biker by Rebecca James

Rated: Side Eye

Summary: A wealthy boy named Morgan has been training as a ballet dancer in Italy for years and returns to NYC for the funeral of his estranged older brother after which he is kidnapped by a motorcycle gang.

My Personal Thoughts: If this book was a loaf of bread it would be both burned and still doughy. There are soooo many things happening. Morgan’s ballet for instance. Why is he studying in Milan? I think just because it sounds fancy tbh. Of the best ballet schools in the world 2 are located in NYC. There are 2 in Russia, one in London, one in Paris, one in Australia… Then there’s Morgan’s money. He inherited a multimillion(billion?) dollar real estate empire when his parents died a few years back and he doesn’t want to run it but he doesn’t want to sell it and he’s only getting reports from a single person with the company. There’s the storyline of his brother’s death and his brother’s motorcycle club which straddles the line of legality. None of these stories was fully explored and all of them were overdramatic. I haven’t even scraped the surface.

Runners up for Best Read:

Real Fine Line by Lumifern on Ao3 [wc 132k pc ~ 440.]

Rated: love

Summary: This is a RoyEd Fullmetal Alchemist fanfiction. After the Promised Day Ed doesn’t resign from the military and instead stays on to help Mustang make Fuhrer.

Personal Thoughts: I loved how much it felt like a continuation of the original story. The political intrigue was on point. The way in which Ed and Roy become life lines for each other felt organic and inevitable.

Season’s Change by Cait Nary [wc ~113k pg 377]

Rated: Love (The only book I read twice this month.)

This is a queer hockey romance novel that includes: and they were roommates, a bit of an age gap, being in the closet, mutual pining, severe anxiety, and a stunning bi-awakening.

Summary: Olly was traded after his roommate on his previous team found out he was gay and reacted badly. Olly hasn’t left fight or flight mode since. At his new team management has paired him to room with a rookie named Benji who’d been coming up through the development league and has proven he’s a golden retriever in human form.

Personal thoughts: My favorite things about this book were; the depictions of Olly’s anxiety which felt accurate and real, and the delightful way in which Benji after having fooled around with multiple guys in his life realizes, “Oh!? Maybe I’m not straight???” which mirrors my own life experience entirely too closely. *laughing*

Kings Rising by C.S. Pacat

Rated: Love

Summary: This is the 3rd book in a trilogy and you definitely have to read the first two. In general the setup is that there are two crown princes of neighboring rival kingdoms that have been at both active and cold war for a decade or so. The main character Damen (crown prince of Akielos) gets kidnapped and then given as a slave to the rival crown prince Laurent of Vere. In this book there are sweeping battles and political maneuvering as well as tentative trust, heartbreak, and pining.

My Personal Thoughts: This series is really good but it contains so much sexual violence and non-consent that it was also really hard to read particularly for the first book. It does pay off and it is very well crafted but it’s dark. If you’re in the mood for something angsty and you’ve got the time for 1,015 pages you should go for it.

Tough Guy by Rachel Reid [wc ~94k pc 312]

Rating: Love

Summary: Ryan is a massive hockey player who’s job on the ice is to rough guys up if they damage the more talented players so he fights even though he hates it. He’s the kind of player who’s been on more teams than he’s played seasons of hockey and he truly just needs to be loved on. He’s starting over with a new team when he runs into his first crush from high school while picking up his meds at the pharmacy.

Personal Thoughts: This story is absolutely adorable and I think it would resonate with anyone who experiences body dysphoria and or negative self-talk. Watching Ryan become someone he likes is healing on the soul level.

*A primmer for my rating system. I’ve chosen not to use stars just because if I did I would want to rate solid books as 5 stars and then would have nowhere to go whenever I encountered those blue moon books that are beyond solid and will live rent free until I forget them because I’m 93 and have dementia. My system this month has gone like so:

DNF – I couldn’t read this for whatever reason.

Awful – I finished this and it was a problem in at least 7 ways

Side Eye – I finished this and it was a problem in at least 5 ways.

Eh – I finished this and it was a problem in 1 to 3 ways

Like – I finished this and it wasn’t brilliant but I enjoyed it.

Really Like – I enjoyed this book. It didn’t have any major flaws but I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

Love – This book made me feel deeply and will be worth reading again. If the description interests you it is definitely worth your time

Adore – This book is the absolute Crème of the crop. I will be buying copies to give to my friends.

[melonisopod]

I love Don Quixote’s observation logs because she’s very goofy and almost always doing something funny but she’s also really observant too.

Yes she tried to eat raw chicken but she also noted a similarity between the Steam Engine’s self-repair ability and Dante’s healing, since both can “heal” damage by “undoing” or ‘turning back the clock’.

With Siltcurrent, she also realizes the glow sticks can be used both as breathing tools to keep the Sinners from drowning once the whale floods the arena, and also as barracades to lure in the whale to charge into.

And then her WHOLE deal with Distorted!Heathcliff. The more I read over it the more I realize how depressed she is having to write the log but is trying to stay positive about it, that’s part of why she makes a point to praise Heathcliff as a strong combatant and the ways he stands out from Hindley.

[aeolianblues]

Carlos O'Connell and Conor Curley from Fontaines D.C. dedicated an one of their 8 hour-long episodes as BBC 6 Music's Artist In Residence taking listeners back to the Garage Bar in Dublin, a now-shut down bar that ran music nights where the university-aged Fontaines had a major musical education in garage rock.

First broadcast in April 2022, I think this episode shows you some of the major influences on Fontaines' early rock n roll sound, the almost 70s-inspired, energetic guitar rock that you hear on a lot of songs that made it onto the first album, Dogrel. Tracks like ‘Boys In The Better Land’, ‘Liberty Belle’, ‘Too Real’ or even ‘Big’. (It was a sound they said they had mostly abandoned by the time all the songs on Dogrel were complete, and they had moved to more of the darker post punk sound you hear on the rest of the album*.)

Further, I see some of the lyrical influences Grian Chatten has absorbed from the classic songwriting of the greats: I have talked before about Grian's blurring together of the words “dream” and “drink” on songs like ‘Skinty Fia’ (‘there's not a thing that can't be fixed with a dream’) and later ‘Death Kink’ (‘amazing stars from the dream/drink’), and a direct precursor to that is the Electric Prunes song that Fontaines started this show with, ‘I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)’, which they picked up during the Garage Bar days. Formative musical years, and so an episode that I quite enjoyed listening to.

The tracklist for this episode is available on the 6 Music archive page below, and all episode tracklists are in the archived guide here. If you make a playlist of the songs or whatever, feel free to add it on to this post in a reblog too, that'd be awesome.

---------

For folks that were asking for the Artist In Residence shows. I have all the ones that were broadcast in 2022, so unless there are episodes in the BBC vaults that never made it onto the airwaves, I have them all and will slowly be clipping up and posting them. BBC Sounds is no longer available outside the UK, though it very much was and was heavily pushed all across BBC networks in 2022, and I kept the episodes, just because they were so good. So you'll be able to access the guide and tracklisting pages linked above everywhere, but if you clicked on the available episodes from abroad unfortunately it will redirect to BBC.com and leave you devastated. So. Here we are.

Let me know if you liked this style of editing! Leaving the songs in would make the clips longer, needing multi-part posting and would open me up to possible copyright takedowns (rarer with audio but not impossible), but let me know what you thought.

*Iirc this was said on an old episode of Tape Notes and I'll have to trawl back to find, clip and post it, so hopefully that's on the card for someday.

[silusvesuius]

unleashing the same hellscape i did on my notes app here it's my nelvas thinking dump i wrote just for fun and to keep track of what i view them as up 2 this point. Might change my mind on it later on it has a lot of things written in brackets for no reason . it's like ~2500 words long which isn't much but i think i said everything i've had in my mind for now read it for fun if you like to have fun leik me :) And talvas :) And nelothxP

retyping what i said in the tags of those last text posts and rearranging those thoughts a bit: in my train of thought that's been going steady since early 2024 i'm almost certain that neloth might see talvas as the epitome of being morally Clean (before that changes because of neloth's influence over him) and generally pure as a person. pure not used in the Pervert way; neloth is just a veeery big fan of talvas having absolutely no backbone and being very docile when it comes to him. which is r expected traits 4 someone if they find themselves under neloth's thumb as an apprentice, but it being written that he isn't at all catty and defiant to his face is cute. all talvas manages to do is shit talk neloth to others and pray neloth doesn't find out he meant the things he said but also can’t help feeling bad about it, even though neloth doesn't and wouldn't care, if he found out. neloth is happy with being an obnoxious & disgusting person. truly.. him growing obsessed with talvas' docile and innocent nature doesn't necessarily have to add up to him wanting to Taint or Ruin him (and if it happens ((it does)) it's not done on purpose, neloth can't hold that much control and power of his actions in that specific department). he encounters difficulties when he realizes he actually wants that Elven Twink.. it's too far gone to fix anything after he's tampered with talvas' patience and stability, and even then he can't be honest with talvas about anything, because he still wants to hold a great deal of power over him (neloth essentials for survival).

Might be the type to just want talvas to magically(haha) think it's okay that his wizard master desires him and expect that energy right back without talvas actually acknowledging it because it'd make neloth feel insanely cringy and embarrassed.. humiliated.. EVEN. but that's just in a deep deep dark corner of his mind, he isn't stupid. when trying to gain 'access' to his apprentice ("*His* apprentice" is also kinda funny way of viewing his mind too. just cause talvas is working as an apprentice under him neloth probably already feels a concerning sense of ownership over him that makes him feel very good) he can't even make the signs of interest be apparent to talvas because he's insanely inept at being Soft and honest for obvious reasons. he can tell what possibly could make talvas warm up to him even after he treats him like shit for eons but there's no way he's bringing himself to do it (change is embarrassing, especially in their formal dynamic, and especially at his age). so it's a half-assed attempt (actually he's trying his hardest🙄) to try and make talvas be (at least) less afraid of him. not that talvas has any other place that we know of that he "Belongs" to, he just sticks with neloth regardless of anything. neloth watching him as he sleeps ensues . Guys what do i do to make my apprentice let me hit because all of the eye contact i do with him while gripping his arm or petting his knee isn't helping. 

if we were to go back to how that spark is ignited in neloth swamp of a heart, brain… idk, it has to be when he realizes talvas' capability of forgiveness and 'Sucking it up' instead of lashing out at neloth after .. anything, but perhaps physical abuse in particular. neloth a 100% has absolutely no problem putting his hands on anyone, especially someone he sees so often, such as talvas. not that talvas really annoys him (his clear and voiced obedience pleases neloth as anyone can tell), but he just doesn't see it as too much of a big deal. the physical mistreatment that happens once in a blue moon isn't intense enough to scare off talvas for sure anyways. neloth is a bitch so all he can so is smack him at the back of the head (talvas finds it very normal) and slap him if he's feeling festive (something talvas finds kinda extreme but not that it happens often. he sometimes feels like he deserves it, or that neloth is warranted to do as he pleases. he tosses around it being justified or pitying himself, though). May be possible that neloth would realize he Like Likes talvas once he slaps him, mayhaps, for the first time, but talvas' immediate reaction to being treated like that is just sadness mixed with feeling shame for tearing up/crying in front of someone he respects *bishoujo sparkles sfx*. talvas is a delicate soul so he can't hold warranted emotions like that for long, and even tho it's expected of him to be making eye contact w/ neloth in a setting like that, he wouldn't be able 2 bring himself to do it because looking at neloth would make him wanna burst out in tears like a weeeee baby. Booo hooo.. talvas is the 19th century (4th era) damsel that runs out of the ball in tears after no young cavalier invited her to dance. watch this bleed into the most awkward and silent week of neloth's entire life because talvas doesn't even really feel like speaking to him or looking at him, but neloth doesn't wanna brute force the usual respectful etiquette out of him cus he thinks that's just gonna make talvas hurl himself down on some rough rocks at the seashore. Good thing talvas is very spineless and forgiving (especially in relation to neloth… i mean.. who r YOU to not forgive him) so that might just last a day or two. the hurt always stays tho. neloth this is why talvas doesn't wanna smash you.. you might've made some conclusions about what elven twink you like but talvas is just even more scared of you now. was your Pervert awakening worth it. and even if we do backflips and jump thru the point where everything is too far gone for either of them to go back, dude is still too afraid to make out with his apprentice. Deserve. but why though because talvas wouldn't refuse. for what reason? we may never know

^^^ this makes me feel like i love seeing characters i reaaaalllly love (elenwen and talvas in this case) as enigmas in situations where they're confronted with something so ""Intimate"". elenwen's stance on this is final tho cause she's a grown ass woman and there's no way you could reshape her brain. ulfric left her mind plane in SHAMBLES. talvas has more right (in the literal sense) to be erratic or inconsistent with his actions. maybe he likes to be desired. Also i strongly believe that talvas has probably never been in love (for any reason rly but it's mostly him not having actual time for it + not seeing it as something that is important to him at that point in his life)… i want neloth to be his first experience with Love so that it ruin his view on it forever. can't get myself to say he'd be in love with neloth at any point though. From his standpoint it really should feel empowering and 'nice' that neloth wants him in many ways (ew).. cause that's a man with status.. power.. ability to do anything rly . talvas is in no condition to be playing mind games with him or anything tho so don't get that idea. he's not strong enough of a person to be Tricking anyone or to be Playing with anyone's feelings. neloth would be immune to that, too. neloth can just kinda tell talvas is too good and … UNTAINTED. talvas wants to see the best in everyone. too bad he genuinely detests you, neloth.. so: he doesn't actually love neloth but wouldn't be happy to see his tombstone either. SO (PART TWO): if you time it right he wouldn't be against getting Freakkkkyyyy with you okay?but no promises

even if @ some point talvas develops indistinct feelings towards neloth cause of neloth's own incessant weird-mild advances it wouldn't have to mean he just likes old men permanently now. actually it kinda does. i can sorta feel it rearranging his braincells and making him unable to normally interact with people in his age range. he probably already had a hard time talking to others in hopes of developing a friendship just cause he's timid but after neloth's nonstop abuse and Accidental romance mind games he morphs into a whole new type of guy. it's hard to notice at first but he'd probably just start to leech off of neloth's prissy and unbearable personality in a natural course of things + neloth is the only person he sees and talks to on the regular pretty much. < this can just be reworded as just the cycle of abuse and whatnot. if he notices an opening in the abilities and Smarts of another person, especially someone his age/younger, he will automatically see them as umm…stupid. and also insult your abilities to your face if he snaps. he strikes me as the type to be afraid to say what he really thinks (another consequence of being glued to neloth all the time when all talvas does is act like he totally respects anything he says) and gets scared if anything slips out his mouth but is proud in letting the "Truth" be known because he already figured out you're a lesser being than him. he's just cloning neloth's verbal abuse braincells though he would never put his hands on someone. his desire to be mean and see himself as superior stems from neloth always disparaging him obviously.. talvas 4 that reason is very self conscious of his abilities and doesn't rly think he's all that useful or talented. his self doubt then would play into how he doesn't know when to believe what others are saying to and about him.. i wanna imagine that talvas is very oblivious to neloth's weirdo status just cause he partly doesn't even want that thought to cross his mind. i bet everyone but him sees it and finds it gross😕 but nobody in the vicinity is strong enough to tell neloth that he should be ashamed LMFAO. if you would try and even hint to talvas that it's happening he'd never take you seriously and just get mad. he's protective of neloth's image more than neloth himself is; not that people knowing neloth has abnormal sodomistic inclinations toward his apprentice would make his public image worse than it already is (everyone already thinks he's weird so it's not shocking at all) but talvas still wouldn't wanna hear it cause he thinks it's just false. maybe he's just ashamed that he's being brought into the whole thing. also because he doesn't wanna face the reality EJI23JRIO32KJ Well talvas when neloth makes an actual move on you don't say that we didn't warn you.. we're all waiting till neloth's status as an obvious apprentice-pervert becomes obvious to you

even if he's willingly ignorant of the fact he still thinks of the 'accusations' a lot when he feels like it. and unknowingly begins feeling even more uncomfortable in neloth's presence. heart starts beating faster and everything. neloth could come up to him meters away and talvas would still cover his mouth in realization and be like "i knew it… the DB told me but i didn't wanna believe it …..😦 so you really do like young men … and you're in love with me ..😨" *Neloth wakes up from this fever dream drenched in sweat* < neloth doesn't want (obvi) talvas to react that way at any point because he himself would just get scared so they'd just be staring at each other wide eyed. but talvas jumping into his advances isn't what he wants either (that'll also scare him). neloth is still relying on talvas' politeness to let him do as he pleases. but it is impossible for talvas to let it slide without questioning anything regardless so🤷‍♀️ take your few Ls and move on. neloth just wants talvas to sit on his lap. wants to spoonfeed him soup. he's so romantic. he also wants to(sniper on rooftop blows my head to bits). neloth is actually a pretty touchy feely person when he's feeling Frisky (=deranged about talvas). I'm certain his favorite part of talvas' body is his legs. talvas has beautiful young man skipping leg day legs. so nothing special at all but neloth wants to touch them lol.. let your master wizard squeeze your calves and he might just be occupied enough like a kid playing with a fidget toy to not abuse you verbally for 3 seconds. as i said befoar neloth is unpleasant with his touch because he doesn't know how to be soft + doesn't even want it to necessarily feel very 'rewarding' as to not pamper talvas. petting talvas kinda turns into a nervous habit for himself and an instrument of some sort of Reassurance 4 talvas when he wants him to know he’s not mad, for example. non-vebal confirmation. talvas still finds it weird but thinks it’s a charm point too. neloth wouldn't even be against touching him familiarly in front of others but only in a "older male figure" ways ex. touching his knee or putting his hand at the back of his neck (talvas sees it as some sort of disciplinary tactic though). physical touch that matches neloth's age and is enough for it to be seen as not necessarily romantic / overtly weird. 

there'ssssss no saving talvas after such a powerful person gets his hands on him. any will to leave would leave HIM either out of fear or out of attachment and neloth wouldn't just let him go (Alive at least) since he knows the things he knows. if talvas were to escape i'm a Truther of him not feeling in place and wanting to go back cause it's the stability that he's used to. but tbh if he encounters neloth on accident anywhere he's gonna start running. I was drinking tea while writing this and started choking on it i just nearly died writing this are youhappy. anyways, nelvas is a never-ending abusive relationship that doesn’t even have High highs, all it has is low lows. neloth always mistreats talvas for any reason but is never genuinely kind from the heart or out of remorse. .. hmm……yeah. I forgot to type this back out from my posts tags > talvas might just start viewing neloth as fuck crazy and demented after he Finally notices at least one molecular sign of gay attention from him . like ‘Oh wow Master Neloth obviously doesn’t get any female attention or anything cus he’s a sick fuck why does he have to search for it from me Can varona take the hit for me 🥺 *sees her dead body being dragged by the DB* hmm i guess not well i’ll figure something out i guess’ (he doesn’t) also the dialogue talvas has with varona after he steals neloth’s book trying to conjure some bs up will always be so cute to me he’s so defensive and afraid of neloth finding out. Him trying to decipher neloth’s handwriting is cute TOO ik their 19th century love letters to each other would go crazy and make sense to anyone but each other but i’m not gonna talk about 19th century girl talvas x neloth rn it’s too much . what ever. i think i’m done thank you i should just go back to drawing them as grecian pottery red figures or smthj Fun stats for you 4 getting to the end: times the word ‘abuse’ is used: 6

[suusoh]

I'm not able to fully respond to anyone right now, in the event I post something, it's with the intent of just removing it out of my drafts.

But I'd like to let the anon who sent their very long, honest, heartfelt, and overall very moving ask that I have received it and that my askbox, thankfully, didn't gobble up such a wonderful message. I'd like to give you a proper and equally heartfelt response when I am able my dear anon <3 along with other thoughtful asks sent on this blog or the other.

[firestorm09890]

started a new book, when people said it was “Machiavellian” I thought they just meant that it was full of ruthless politicians and that the main character would make some pretty iffy choices for the sake of power, not that the main character literally wrote her world’s version of Machiavelli’s The Prince (this information is revealed on page 7 before anything’s even happened yet

[mechahero]

//Someone tries to bring up the three laws of robotics in Motor City and it ends up with them being clowned on.

[amelikos]

The implication that Lucius must have read Heather's Scarlet Book (and that being why he used the name "Terapagos" in his memoirs) is pretty interesting. Lucius, someone from the past, who is currently inspiring the current generation also being someone who took inspiration from people who came before him, etc.

Briar also said that Heather's book was regarded as a mere occult story, and that no one believed it. I wonder if Lucius was one of those who believed it, or at least took it seriously enough that it may have inspired him to go on his own journey to check things for himself. Lucius believing in things no one else takes seriously, and that led him to meet Terapagos eventually.

I wonder if Gibeon and the third friend in their group were also people who were curious about these mysteries and wanted to find out more about them. Maybe they didn't fit the norm during their time because of this. It makes me think a bit about the Rising Volt Tacklers since Friede and the others don't fit in the traditional expectations for their chosen professions and took other paths.

[echo-stimmingrose]

The only part of my "AO3 Wrapped" I'm willing to share but uh, here's how many Fics/words I read this year

[yugocar]

bleeding, may swenson

[appetiteofapplpleaser]

EVENING WEIGHT 48.1 I REPEAT EVENING WEIGHT 48.1, CHAT. AFTER EATING BUNCH OF SALT AND DRINKING A LOT. /POS /POS /SO MUCH POS

[wumutummy]

I've watched this video a concerning amount of times and it was uploaded this morning, I can almost guarantee all 100+ views are from me.

[everydaymusecreation]

Honey/bee themed reading tracker and sleep tracker for May/🌞🐝🍯

You can get these pages at an affordable price at EverydayMuseCreation on Etsy

[mordsfesch]

May reading log:

In May, I started getting my head back in the game and switching doomscrolling for reading. Some of the time. Baby steps.

Resilienz bei Hunden

Very interesting read, even if a lot of the content wasn’t new to me. Still, it gave me some good food for thought when it comes to my own dog and our everyday routines. The book was a slow read; not because it was boring, but because it’s dense with information. Definitely a "read a few pages, stare into space, apply it in real life" kind of book.

Flammender Zorn (Mockingjay)

The rebellion is in full swing, and Katniss is pulled deeper into the role of symbol and pawn while trying to figure out what’s left of herself in the wreckage.

As with the last instalment, I have very little to say other than: I enjoyed it. And also: thinking about these characters too long makes me want to scream incoherently, which is why I love other people’s essays, metas, and Tumblr breakdowns so much. I simply do not have the words. Just the feelings.

Das Lied von Vogel und Schlange (The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes)

I watched the movie when it came out and loved it. Read the book, and felt the same. Coriolanus, when I catch you. When I catch you, Coriolanus. You are going to catch these hands.

Props to Suzanne Collins, again, for writing a book that keeps you hooked despite your steadily growing hatred for the main character. Like... he’s out here doing Olympic-level mental gymnastics to justify his morally repulsive decisions and you just want to shake him. Or strangle him. Probably both. But you can’t stop reading.

[tea-time-terrier]

I am being so normal about it but the weekend has panned out to be less than ideal.

[urfavcrime]

LMAOOOOO Clem you're back into the dsmp? do you remember being like 'that was a dark time I'll never return to...' and then you were like 'okay I'm rereading the fanfic just because its so good though..' and now were here. you can never truly stop thinking about those little guys.

LEAVE ME ALONEEEE I HATE YOU. yknow what? its fine. that means i got over my internalized dsmphobia.